Basic Business Plan Outline Paper

Basic Business Plan Outline

A business plan needs to be a well thought out, honest, appraisal of the business and opportunity. This outline is meant to be used for your road map. It should be a living document that is updated periodically to reflect changes in the environment. A plan should contain the following basics:

I - Executive Summary – Write an overview of the business explaining the fundamentals:

• Mission statement – as briefly as possible (one paragraph) describe what you will do and why you will be successful. What are your guiding principles (service, quality, passion for the business, etc)?

• Company structure (sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited partnership, corporation, etc.)? Discuss the alternatives with

Is it a new idea, or similar to existing products or services? What differentiates the product or service from the competition? Most important, will customers’ pay for this difference, or switch to your product for this difference?

• Who are the target customers? Are they Industrial, consumers, or government customers? Within the category, what are the characteristics of the customer? Determining who the target customers are will greatly help you determine how to reach these customers in your marketing plan.

• Why is the opportunity available to you? New idea or technology? No competition? Special skills? Lower cost way of doing something?

• What is the future of the business? Limited (time) opportunity or timeless?

• How will you know if you are successful? Determine metrics for annual sales volume, profit, share of market, and other things you deem important.

II. - Marketing Analysis - an extremely important part of the business plan as this will determine the access to the market. You need to document:

• How big is the market? Use resources like the library, interview competition, talk to potential customers, look at competitive Web sites. Market estimates are just that, an estimate. But the better you can define the opportunity, the more successful you will

• Are there barriers to entry? o High entry cost? If there is high cost (therefore high risk) to get in the market it usually limits the amount of competitors. o Low entry cost? If there is low cost (therefore low risk) to get in the market, you are likely to have many competitors. o Are there permits required? o Are there regulatory agency approvals required?

• How will you promote your product/service to the customer or channel? Examples are advertisement in newspapers or periodicals, yellow pages, web sites, handouts, telemarketing, email, Power Partners, etc?

• Why will you succeed? o Differentiation - what will you do different than the competitors? If there is enough differentiation, you can be successful. If there is little or no differentiation, then you will usually need to rely on price to get business. Not a great option for a start up business. o Core competencies -what do you do really well?

 List your core competencies. Examples could be superior service levels, exceptional quality, speed, better product or service.

 If your core competencies are also your differentiations you should be