Let’s say you want to start a business selling footwear. Before starting this business, you would ask yourself these questions:

• What do I want to achieve in this business?

• Are there many people already in this business?

• How do I stand a chance against them?

These are some of the questions you would need to answer, and your answers would need to be documented formally in your business plan.

Why should my business plan be formally documented? Can’t I just have it at the back of my mind?

It is not enough to simply have your business plan at the back of your mind. Formally documenting your business plan will help you to lay out the key steps necessary for your business idea to succeed.

If you hope to attract investors to your business, they wouldn't take you seriously if you hash out your business plan in a disorganized way. They would want to see a clear, detailed, comprehensive, and organized business plan that will give them a perfect picture of your business and what you hope to achieve with it.

RELATED: How to Build a Detailed Business Plan

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How do I know an effective business plan when I see one?

An effective business plan would have an executive summary section that will briefly hash out the business mission and its operations. A lot of work should go into this section as it is the first page of your business plan.

An effective business plan would also contain your business budget, your financial plan, a sound marketing strategy, and a comprehensive description of your products and services.

You can read more on this in our previous article on writing an effective business plan .

What templates can help me build my business plan?

1. Begin by itemizing your business goals and objectives. Remember your goals and objectives should be timebound (that is, they should have a timeframe of achievement). List out your business products and services, including those products and services you intend to add later on in the business. This will be the base of your executive summary.

2. In your executive summary, you are to summarize your plans for financial growth and describe the products and services you offer. Draft your executive summary in a way that will spur interest in the mind of the reader.

3. Identify your immediate competitors, explaining their strengths and weaknesses. Give details of your business's advantages over them and their business's advantages over yours.

4. Describe your market and target audience. You can give the geographical location of your customers, explaining why they would buy your product. Also include the location of your business and why you choose to locate in that area.

5. Explain your brand, highlighting what your business stands for, and your business slogan (if you have any).

6. Describe the marketing techniques you intend to use to promote your business. Also, show the budgets you have drafted to pursue each technique/strategy. This should be part of your marketing plan.

7. Decide the type of employees and how many you need for your business. You should describe how you intend to hire them.

8. If there are any supplies and equipment you need to run your business, you should disclose who your suppliers are.

9. Estimate how much funding you need to kick off and run the business. Explain how you will source these funds. Estimate your costs and list them out.

10. You can engage a professional to help you draft out some financial projections to include in your business plan. We can equally help you to draft out some financial projections too, simply call us on 07034243326!

11. In listing out your business products and services, also explain the features of your products/services that make them unique and more desirable than those of your competitors.

12. If your business is or will be affected by seasonal changes (like the weather for example), you should explain how your business intends to adapt to these changes whenever they come.

13. Explain how you intend to manage the business, also setting out the managers responsible for each unit and developing the management structure.

14. For an already existing business developing its business plan, you should outline the significant successes of your business and also highlight the major drawbacks, setbacks, obstacles, and difficulties your business has overcome over time.

15. Obtain your business bank statements, licenses to operate, and the credentials of your key employees. This would form the appendix section of your business plan.

RELATED: Writing the Perfect Business Proposal

Conclusion

Your business plan is the explanation of your business and how it plans to succeed. The need for having a business plan cannot be overemphasized. Thus, These 15 templates and guidelines give you a practical approach to take in drafting your business plan.

Business plans are used to communicate your strategic plans to your prospective investors and customers. You can equally do the same with Bulk SMS. We offer Bulk SMS services that you can employ to communicate with investors or customers at any time of the day. To begin, just register with us, or give us a call on 07034243326!