What should you include in a business plan?
A business plan is an essential document for any business to have. It can be used as a way to set the objectives and goals for your business that you want to achieve as well as a document that is often asked for when looking for financing for projects or business growth. There are a number of important elements that need to be included in the business plan and you might want to speak to your Gloucester accountants like Randall and Payne to ensure that you have the correct financial figures included in the plan.
Here are some of the key areas for you to consider.
Description of your business
In this section, you should describe your business and the products are services that you offer. It doesn’t have to be a long description but succinct and enough detail to give anyone who reads the document an overview of what your business is and the services and products that you offer. In some cases, a business will also give a brief synopsis of the history of the business from start-up to the current period of time.
Competitors
This area of the business plan allows you to look at what your competitors are doing. This can help you to identify gaps in the market that you might want to expand into or at least give you some idea of whether you are competitive in what you have to offer. It can also help you to look at the ways in which they market themselves and whether there are improvements that you can make to your own marketing.
Marketing
In this section, you should look at the current marketing activity that you do for your business and any areas that you think that you should expand into. This means looking at print marketing as well as your digital marketing options. This becomes a key area of the plan if you are looking for funding as the bank or investors that are looking to support you will want to know how you are planning to get your products and services in front of potential customers and clients.
Employees and Structure
Noting down your current business structure and your employment structure allows you to identify whether there are any gaps in your team or whether there are expansion plans that you are considering that might require you to employ other staff members.
This is the main area that investors and banks looking to offer you a loan will look at. They will want to know what your business financial position is and what your forecasted projections are in terms of your future income and expenditure. These forecasts can be produced by your accountant who will have a good idea of what the growth potential of your business is, in both the long and short term.
