The Purpose of a Business Plan - the short version!

PURPOSE of a BUSINESS PLAN!

Business plans are documents used for describing your business and planning out specific details about its goals and operations. They can range in size from a simple few sentences to more than 100 pages with formal sections, a table of contents and a title page. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, typical business plans average 15 to 20 pages. Comprehensive business plans have three sections--business concept, marketplace and financial--and these are broken down into seven components that include the overview or summary of the plan, a description of the business, market strategies, competition analysis, design and development, operations and management, and financial information.

There are 5 MAIN reasons every business should have a PLAN! A Roadmap if you will..  depending upon the business and the situation, there could be many more reasons why you SHOULD have a written plan. Make no mistake – there are thousands of businesses operating that started in past and present that have done so with no written plan whatsoever.. this can work, absolutely and HAS worked in fact. I challenge those business owners though, to think about this.. WHAT IF?  What if, having a written plan, (or simply the activity of CREATING the written plan) help it work BETTER!!??

5 of the reason every business should have a business plan:

1.      DIRECTION -   to clarify the purpose for your business, define the business and its operations and its direction… After all – what if you took off in your car and had no destination in mind? What if you just drove and drove wherever the road took you? This could be very, very expensive in more ways than one.. just saying…

2.      FUTURE VISION – Every business has a “life-cycle” .. a business will evolve over time and thinking through the possible future turns and direction, researching new trends and future possibilities, can help the business owner decide AHEAD of TIME – “what is my vision? Where do I want this to go?”  This makes it much easier to STEER your business where you want to go.

3.      FINANCING  – You may or may not need or want financing now, it is possible though that in the future, you may need a line of credit, may want to expand or may figure out that you predict that you will fall a little short of meeting a BIG deadline or being able to CREATE your dream.. do not limit yourself – set yourself up for success, remove barriers NOW to having many financial options by having a written plan.

4.      ATTRACTING TALENT OR INVESTORS – again, you may not think you want any outside investors now.. that could change and faster than you can imagine.. that is if things go RIGHT.. do not limit yourself by not planning ahead. Additionally, you will need good people to do good work! Having a written plan helps “sell” your company, your model, your ideas that include future growth to potential talent that can help you get where you want to go!

5.      OPERATIONS and MANAGEMENT – A written business plan lays out your business structure, your model for operations, outlines your sales and development programs, describes your workflow.. If you have a written plan for your team to follow, it is much easier to “captain the ship” making sure you are on target for meeting goals and milestones. Again, how can you arrive at your destination, if you have not decided WHERE you are going?

Check out our website and contact us if you would like help with a roadmap for your business! We always offer a FREE phone consultation!

www.TheMaxProfit.com  or call us at (360) 462-6600.

Thank you for reading!

Renee Johnston
CEO
The Max Profit

"At The Max Profit, Your Success is Our Success!"