initial assessment in business plan

• What Is TAB
• Advisory Boards
• Business Coaching
• StratPro Leadership Transformation Program
• Strategic Leadership Tools
• Our Members
• Case Studies
• White Papers
• Business Diagnostic

The Alternative Board Blog

What is a business assessment, and when do you need one.

We’ve already explained the 5 steps in TAB’s strategic business leadership process:

• Vision - Personal and business
• SWOT analysis - Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• Plan - Personal and business
• Make it happen - Communication, review, accountability, planning team
• Turn the wheel - continuous review and revision as needed

And we’ve already discussed the importance of having a strategic plan for your business , the kind of plan that will make you remember the big picture: why you started your business in the first place.

But while having a vision for your business and having a strategic business plan to grow it are both keys to success, how do you get from A to B? How do you even know you need a strategic plan?

That’s when a business assessment comes in handy. Business assessments are a crucial aspect of understanding what your business plan should look like, what’s working the way it should, and what isn’t.

Think of your business as a car, and a business assessment as the blueprint for its design. While you might know your vehicle’s exact make, model, and mileage, you probably can’t remember all the details about its construction, such as the exact diameter of each of its hoses. The same goes for small businesses. If you install a hose that’s not the exact fit, the car will come screeching to a halt - and in this particular analogy, there are hundreds of hoses in varying sizes.

So much happens and so many decisions are made on a monthly basis -- without a business assessment it can be incredibly difficult for business owners to remember all of the details that can make huge differences in their operations and bottom line.

We recently interviewed hundreds of small business owners about what they wish they could do differently, if they could build their companies all over again. Out of all the aspects of running a business, the entrepreneurs wish they would’ve spent more time on strategic planning. Only 2% of respondents thought that a better product would have helped their business more than a better strategy.

Want additional insight? Read 4 Step Guide to Strategic Planning now to learn more

That’s why a business assessment is so important. If you have a vision for your business but don’t know where to start when it comes to figuring out a strategic plan for growth, it’s probably time for a business assessment. From there, you can build out your strategic plan and outline specific goals, as well as outline how you’re going to achieve them.

What does “SWOT” stand for?

Different firms offer different business assessments, each with their distinct advantages, but all business assessments are fundamentally lead to a balanced SWOT analysis of the organization.

A SWOT analysis looks at internal and external factors that are helpful or harmful to your business and the way it’s run. This type of assessment is particularly interested in identifying factors in the following 4 categories:

• The strongest parts of your business model and your best selling points. The core competencies of your team and your investments.

W eaknesses

• The weakest parts of your business model and weak spots in the sales funnel. What’s lacking in your team and missing from your investments.

O pportunities

• Potential leads, investors, events, and even new target markets.
• Potential competitors, reasons investors would cut funding, or negative market developments.

At a glance, it’s easy to see where most small business owners (and most business owners in general) like to spend their time - among the tropical shade and white sands of their company’s Strengths and Opportunities.

Rare is the business owner who takes the time to sit down and honestly assess weaknesses in his business model as well as potential threats (which can be difficult to see without another pair of eyes). This is why many small businesses fail -- entrepreneurs often have a vision, but no strategic plan for growth. And they have no strategic plan because they never conducted an honest business assessment.

They thought they were doing just fine when, in reality, weaknesses were eating away at their business model and threats were looming large in their market.

When’s the right time to get a business assessment?

That’s why we offer TAB Business Diagnostic. Our tool that we developed over years of research working with thousands of business owners that lets you comprehensively identify your competitive strengths but also key gaps in your business. Think of it as an MRI for your business that compares your business to others in the same industry. Not only does it identify the gaps but it also helps you prioritize, so you’ll know what challenges and opportunities you need to focus on first.

A business assessment does not take a lot of time but the results are invaluable. The output of the assessment is fed into the SWOT process. This helps identify the key areas of the strategic plan. Taking the first step in this process will put you on a path to running your business more strategically.

No matter of the economic conditions thrown at you and your business, there are steps to help safeguard your business so that you not only survive, but thrive. Download the whitepaper to learn more here

Read our 19 Reasons You Need a Business Owner Advisory Board

Written by The Alternative Board

Subscribe to our blog.

• Sales and marketing (140)
• Strategic Planning (135)
• Business operations (128)
• People management (69)
• Time Management (52)
• tabboards (39)
• Technology (38)
• Customer Service (37)
• Entrepreneurship (35)
• company culture (27)
• Business Coaching and Peer Boards (24)
• Money management (24)
• businessleadership (23)
• employee retention (23)
• Work life balance (22)
• Family business (17)
• leadership (15)
• business strategy (14)
• communication (12)
• human resources (12)
• employee engagement (11)
• employment (11)
• strategy (8)
• businesscoaching (7)
• innovation (7)
• productivity (7)
• remote teams (7)
• adaptability (6)
• cybersecurity (6)
• professional development (6)
• salesstrategy (6)
• strategic planning (6)
• businessethics (5)
• leadership styles (5)
• marketing (5)
• peeradvisoryboards (5)
• socialmedia (5)
• branding (4)
• employeedevelopment (4)
• hiring practices (4)
• networking (4)
• supplychain (4)
• Mentorship (3)
• business vision (3)
• collaboration (3)
• culture (3)
• environment (3)
• future proof (3)
• newnormal (3)
• remote work (3)
• sustainability (3)
• work from home (3)
• worklifebalance (3)
• workplacewellness (3)
• Planning (2)
• ecofriendly (2)
• globalization (2)
• recession management (2)
• salescycle (2)
• salesprocess (2)
• #contentisking (1)
• #customerloyalty (1)
• accountability partners (1)
• artificial intelligence (1)
• blindspots (1)
• building trust (1)
• business owner (1)
• businesstrends (1)
• customer appreciation (1)
• customerengagement (1)
• data analysis (1)
• digitalpersona (1)
• financials (1)
• globaleconomy (1)
• greenmarketing (1)
• greenwashing (1)
• onlinepresence (1)
• post-covid (1)
• risk management (1)
• riskassessment (1)
• social media (1)
• talent optimization (1)
• team building (1)
• transparency (1)

Do you want additional insight?

Download our 19 Reasons Why You Need a Business Advisory Board Now!

TAB helps forward-thinking business owners grow their businesses, increase profitability and improve their lives by leveraging local business advisory boards, private business coaching and proprietary strategic services.

Quick Links

• Find a Local Board
• My TAB Login

keep in touch

• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions

How to make a business plan

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

Get on board in seconds

Join thousands of teams using Miro to do their best work yet.

Small Business Trends

How to create a business plan: examples & free template.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or launching your very first startup, the guide will give you the insights, tools, and confidence you need to create a solid foundation for your business.

Table of Contents

How to Write a Business Plan

Executive summary.

It’s crucial to include a clear mission statement, a brief description of your primary products or services, an overview of your target market, and key financial projections or achievements.

Our target market includes environmentally conscious consumers and businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. We project a 200% increase in revenue within the first three years of operation.

Overview and Business Objectives

Example: EcoTech’s primary objective is to become a market leader in sustainable technology products within the next five years. Our key objectives include:

Company Description

Example: EcoTech is committed to developing cutting-edge sustainable technology products that benefit both the environment and our customers. Our unique combination of innovative solutions and eco-friendly design sets us apart from the competition. We envision a future where technology and sustainability go hand in hand, leading to a greener planet.

Define Your Target Market

Market analysis.

The Market Analysis section requires thorough research and a keen understanding of the industry. It involves examining the current trends within your industry, understanding the needs and preferences of your customers, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

Our research indicates a gap in the market for high-quality, innovative eco-friendly technology products that cater to both individual and business clients.

SWOT Analysis

Including a SWOT analysis demonstrates to stakeholders that you have a balanced and realistic understanding of your business in its operational context.

Competitive Analysis

Organization and management team.

Provide an overview of your company’s organizational structure, including key roles and responsibilities. Introduce your management team, highlighting their expertise and experience to demonstrate that your team is capable of executing the business plan successfully.

Products and Services Offered

This section should emphasize the value you provide to customers, demonstrating that your business has a deep understanding of customer needs and is well-positioned to deliver innovative solutions that address those needs and set your company apart from competitors.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

Discuss how these marketing and sales efforts will work together to attract and retain customers, generate leads, and ultimately contribute to achieving your business’s revenue goals.

Logistics and Operations Plan

Inventory control is another crucial aspect, where you explain strategies for inventory management to ensure efficiency and reduce wastage. The section should also describe your production processes, emphasizing scalability and adaptability to meet changing market demands.

We also prioritize efficient distribution through various channels, including online platforms and retail partners, to deliver products to our customers in a timely manner.

Financial Projections Plan

This forward-looking financial plan is crucial for demonstrating that you have a firm grasp of the financial nuances of your business and are prepared to manage its financial health effectively.

Income Statement

Cash flow statement.

A cash flow statement is a crucial part of a financial business plan that shows the inflows and outflows of cash within your business. It helps you monitor your company’s liquidity, ensuring you have enough cash on hand to cover operating expenses, pay debts, and invest in growth opportunities.

Tips on Writing a Business Plan

4. Focus on your unique selling proposition (USP): Clearly articulate what sets your business apart from the competition. Emphasize your USP throughout your business plan to showcase your company’s value and potential for success.

FREE Business Plan Template

To help you get started on your business plan, we have created a template that includes all the essential components discussed in the “How to Write a Business Plan” section. This easy-to-use template will guide you through each step of the process, ensuring you don’t miss any critical details.

What is a Business Plan?

Why you should write a business plan.

Understanding the importance of a business plan in today’s competitive environment is crucial for entrepreneurs and business owners. Here are five compelling reasons to write a business plan:

What are the Different Types of Business Plans?

Using Business Plan Software

Upmetrics provides a simple and intuitive platform for creating a well-structured business plan. It features customizable templates, financial forecasting tools, and collaboration capabilities, allowing you to work with team members and advisors. Upmetrics also offers a library of resources to guide you through the business planning process.

Business Plan FAQs

What is a good business plan.

A good business plan is a well-researched, clear, and concise document that outlines a company’s goals, strategies, target market, competitive advantages, and financial projections. It should be adaptable to change and provide a roadmap for achieving success.

What are the 3 main purposes of a business plan?

Can i write a business plan by myself, is it possible to create a one-page business plan.

Yes, a one-page business plan is a condensed version that highlights the most essential elements, including the company’s mission, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial goals.

How long should a business plan be?

What is a business plan outline, what are the 5 most common business plan mistakes, what questions should be asked in a business plan.

A business plan should address questions such as: What problem does the business solve? Who is the specific target market ? What is the unique selling proposition? What are the company’s objectives? How will it achieve those objectives?

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

How is business planning for a nonprofit different.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

2 Developing a Business Plan

Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter, you will be able to

• Describe the purposes for business planning
• Describe common business planning principles
• Explain common business plan development guidelines and tools
• List and explain the elements of the business plan development process
• Explain the purposes of each element of the business plan development process
• Explain how applying the business plan development process can aid in developing a business plan that will meet entrepreneurs’ goals

This chapter describes the purposes, principles, and the general concepts and tools for business planning, and the process for developing a business plan.

Purposes for Developing Business Plans

Business plans are developed for both internal and external purposes. Internally, entrepreneurs develop business plans to help put the pieces of their business together. Externally, the most common purpose is to raise capital.

Internal Purposes

As the road map for a business’s development, the business plan

• Defines the vision for the company
• Establishes the company’s strategy
• Describes how the strategy will be implemented
• Provides a framework for analysis of key issues
• Provides a plan for the development of the business
• Helps the entrepreneur develop and measure critical success factors
• Helps the entrepreneur to be realistic and test theories

External Purposes

The business plan provides the most complete source of information for valuation of the business. Thus, it is often the main method of describing a company to external audiences such as potential sources for financing and key personnel being recruited. It should assist outside parties to understand the current status of the company, its opportunities, and its needs for resources such as capital and personnel.

Business Plan Development Principles [1]

Hindle and Mainprize suggested that business plan writers must strive to effectively communicate their expectations about the nature of an uncertain future and to project credibility. The liabilities of newness make communicating the expected future of new ventures much more difficult than for existing businesses. Consequently, business plan writers should adhere to five specific communication principles .

First, business plans must be written to meet the expectations of targeted readers in terms of what they need to know to support the proposed business. They should also lay out the milestones that investors or other targeted readers need to know. Finally, writers must clearly outline the opportunity , the context within the proposed venture will operate (internal and external environment), and the business model.

There are also five business plan credibility principles that writers should consider. Business plan writers should build and establish their credibility by highlighting important and relevant information about the venture team . Writers need to elaborate on the plans they outline in their document so that targeted readers have the information they need to assess the plan’s credibility. To build and establish credibility, they must  integrate scenarios to show that the entrepreneur has made realistic assumptions and has effectively anticipated what the future holds for their proposed venture. Writers need to provide comprehensive and realistic financial links between all relevant components of the plan. Finally, they must outline the deal , or the value that targeted readers should expect to derive from their involvement with the venture. [2]

General Guidelines for Developing Business Plans

Many businesses must have a business plan to achieve their goals. Using a standard format helps the reader understand that the you have thought everything through, and that the returns justify the risk. The following are some basic guidelines for business plan development.

As You Write Your Business Plan

• If appropriate, include nice, catchy, professional graphics on your title page to make it appealing to targeted readers, but don’t go overboard.
• Bind your document so readers can go through it easily without it falling apart. You might use a three-ring binder, coil binding, or a similar method. Make sure the binding method you use does not obscure the information next to where it is bound.
• Make certain all of your pages are ordered and numbered correctly.
• The usual business plan convention is to number all major sections and subsections within your plan using the format as follows:

1. First main heading

1.1 First subheading under the first main heading

1.1.1. First sub-subheading under the first subheading

2. Second main heading

2.1 First subheading under the second main heading

Use the styles and references features in Word to automatically number and format your section titles and to generate your table of contents. Be sure that the last thing you do before printing your document is update your automatic numbering and automatically generated tables. If you fail to do this, your numbering may be incorrect.

5. Prior to submitting your plan, be 100% certain each of the following requirements are met:

• Everything must be completely integrated. The written part must say exactly the same thing as the financial part.
• All financial statements must be completely linked and valid. Make sure all of your balance sheets balance.
• Everything must be correct. There should be NO spelling, grammar, sentence structure, referencing, or calculation errors.
• Your document must be well organized and formatted. The layout you choose should make the document easy to read and comprehend. All of your diagrams, charts, statements, and other additions should be easy to find and be located in the parts of the plan best suited to them.
• In some cases it can strengthen your business plan to show some information in both text and table or figure formats. You should avoid unnecessary repetition , however, as it is usually unnecessary—and even damaging—to state the same thing more than once.
• You should include all the information necessary for readers to understand everything in your document.
• The terms you use in your plan should be clear and consistent. For example, the following statement in a business plan would leave a reader completely confused: “There is a shortage of 100,000 units with competitors currently producing 25,000. We can help fill this huge gap in demand with our capacity to produce 5,000 units.” This statement might mean there is a total shortage of 100,000 units, but competitors are filling this gap by producing 25,000 per year; in which case there will only be a shortage for four years. However, it could mean that the annual shortage is 100,000 units and only 25,000 are produced each year, in which case the total shortage is very high and is growing each year.
• You must always provide the complete perspective by indicating the appropriate time frame, currency, size, or other measurement.
• If you use a percentage figure, you must indicate to what it refers—otherwise the number is meaningless to a reader.
• If your plan includes an international element, you must indicate in which currency or currencies the costs, revenues, prices, or other values are quoted. This can be solved by indicating up-front in the document in which currency all values will be quoted. Another option is to indicate each time which currency is being used, and sometimes you might want to indicate the value in more than one currency. Of course, you will need to assess the exchange rate risk to which you will be exposed and describe this in your document.

6. Ensure credibility is both established and maintained. [3]

• If a statement presents something as a fact when this fact is not generally known, always indicate the source. Unsupported statements damage credibility.
• Be specific. A business plan is simply not of value if it uses vague references to high demand, carefully set prices, and other weak phrasing. It must show hard numbers (properly referenced, of course), actual prices, and real data acquired through proper research. This is the only way to ensure your plan is considered credible.
• Your strategies must be integrated. For example, your pricing strategy must complement and mesh perfectly with your product/service strategy, distribution strategy, and promotions strategy. For example, you probably shouldn’t promote your product as a premium product if you plan to charge lower-than-market prices for it.

7. Before finalizing your business plan, re-read each section to evaluate whether it will appeal to your targeted readers.

Useful Resources for Business Planning

• Financial Performance Data : Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
• BizPal  for accessing licensing and other needs
• Canada Revenue Agency  for CRA asset classifications
• Canadian Company Capabilities database to use to find suppliers and buyers
• Merx for finding possible Canadian Government contracts
• The Conference Board of Canada
• Bank of Canada
• Scotia Bank
• Bank of Montreal
• Business Loan Calculator

Library Resources

NSCC Library – Business Databases [journals and other resources]

Employee compensation calculators

• Salary Data & Career Research Center – Canada

Existing business plans

The Word and Excel templates in this book

• Business Plan Template (Word)
• Business Plan Template (Excel)

Business Plan Development Tools

Credibility and communication.

According to Hindle and Mainprize, strong business plans effectively communicate the necessary information to the targeted readers while also establishing the credibility of the plan and the entrepreneur. [4] The Credibility and Communication Meter icon is used throughout this book to highlight where and how business plan writers can improve the quality of the information and enhance their and their plan’s credibility.

Use the following tools to improve the information in and credibility of your plans:

The Ratchet Effect

A ratchet is a tool that most of us are familiar with. It is useful because it helps its user accomplish something with each effort expended while guarding against losing past advancements.

With each word, sentence, paragraph, heading, chart, figure, and table you include in your final business plan, the ratchet should move ahead a notch because you achieve two important things.

First, only needed and relevant information is included.

Second, your additions build credibility in a relevant way.

Apply the ratchet effect by making sure that each and every sentence and paragraph conveys needed and relevant information that adds to your and your plan’s credibility. Use the following principles: Rarely—and only if it truly needs to be said again—repeat something that you have already said in your plan.

Avoid using killer phrases, like “there is no competition for our product” or “our product will sell itself, so we will not need to advertise it.” Any savvy reader will understand that these kinds of statements are naive and demonstrate a lack of understanding about how the market and other real-life factors actually work.

Avoid contradicting yourself. Make sure that what is said in the written part of your plan completely syncs with what is said in the other parts of your plan. Likewise, ensure that what you include in the financial parts of your plan is completely in sync with what is said the written part.

The Magic Formula

Apply the following magic formula throughout your write your plan.

• …consideration X affects my business because…
• …consideration X is subject to this trend into the future…
• …which means that we have decided to do this…(or) will implement this strategy…in response to how the expected trends for consideration X will affect my business

Here is an example of how you can use the magic formula to develop part of the pricing strategy in the marketing plan part of your business plan: We expect that our expenses to run our business will rise with the rate of inflation, which means that we must plan to increase the prices on our products to establish and maintain our profitability. The Bank of Canada (201x) has projected that the general inflation rate in <the city in which my business will operate> will be 3.0% in 201x, 3.5% in 201y, and 4.0% in 201z. In our projected financial statements, therefore, we have inflated both our expenses and our prices by those rates in those years.

Context and Framing

You must provide the right context when you describe situations, strategies, and other components of your plan. Business plan readers should never be left to guess why you indicate in a business plan that you will do something. Proper context is needed to help you frame the information you present.

When you frame the stories you tell correctly, the ratchet effect will happen and your plan will be stronger. One example of effective framing is when you, as the writer of the plan and the entrepreneur, clearly indicate how your education, expertise, relevant experiences, and network of contacts will make up for any lack of direct experience you have in running this particular kind of business. An example of ineffective framing is when you indicate that you lack experience with this type of business, or when you fail to specify how and why your levels of experience will affect the business’s development.

Prioritizing Problems

Don’t get hung up on something that doesn’t need an immediate solution. Instead, flag it for future consideration and move on. When you return to re-address the issue, it might no longer be a problem or you might have by then figured out a solution.

Process for Developing Business Plans

The business plan development process described next has been extensively tested with entrepreneurship students and has proven to provide the guidance entrepreneurs need to develop a business plan appropriate for their needs: a high power business plan .

Developing a high power business plan has six stages, which can be compared to a process for hosting a dinner for a few friends. A host hoping to make a good impression with their anticipated guests might analyze the situation at multiple levels to collect data on new alternatives for healthy ingredients, what ingredients have the best prices and are most readily available at certain times of year, the new trends in party appetizers, what food allergies the expected guests might have, possible party themes, and so on. This analysis is the  Essential Initial Research stage.

In the Business Model stage, the host might construct a menu of items to include with the meal along with a list of decorations to order, music to play, and costume themes to suggest to the guests. The mix of these kinds of elements chosen by the host will aid in the success of the party.

The Initial Business Plan Draft stage is where the host rolls up their sleeves and begins to make some of the food items, puts up some of the decorations, and generally gets everything started for the party.

During this stage, the host will begin to realize that some plans are not feasible and that changes are needed. The required changes might be substantial, like the need to postpone the entire party and ultimately start over in a few months, and others might be less drastic, like the need to change the menu when an invited guest indicates that they can’t eat food containing gluten. These changes are incorporated into the plan during the  Making the Business Plan Realistic  stage to make it realistic and feasible.

The Making the Plan Appeal to Stakeholders and Desirable to the Entrepreneur stage involves further changes to the party plan to make it more appealing to both the invited guests and to make it a fun experience for the host. For example, the host might learn that some of the single guests would like to bring dates and others might need to be able to bring their children to be able to attend. The host might be able to accommodate those desires or needs in ways that will also make the party more fun for them—maybe by accepting some guests’ offers to bring food or games, or maybe hiring a babysitter to entertain and look after the children.

The final stage— Finishing the Business Plan— involves the host putting all of the final touches in place for the party in preparation for the arrival of the guests.

Essential Initial Research

A business plan writer should analyze the environment in which they anticipate operating at each of the levels of analysis: Societal , Industry , Market , and Firm . This stage of planning is called the Essential Initial Research stage, and it is a necessary first step to better understand the trends that will affect their business and the decisions they must make to lay the groundwork for, which will improve their potential for success.

In some cases, much of this research should be included in the developing business plan as its own separate section to help show readers that there is a market need for the business being considered and that it stands a good chance of being successful.

In other cases, a business plan will be stronger when the components of the research are distributed throughout the business plan to provide support for the outlined plans and strategies outlined. For example, the industry- or market-level research might outline the pricing strategies used by identified competitors, which might be best placed in the Pricing Strategy part of the business plan to support the decision made to employ a particular pricing strategy.

Business Model

Inherent in any business plan is a description of the Business Model chosen by the entrepreneur as the one that they feel will best ensure success. Based upon their analysis from the Essential Initial Research stage, an entrepreneur should determine how each element of their business model—including their revenue streams, cost structure, customer segments, value propositions, key activities, key partners, and so on—might fit together to improve the potential success of their business venture (see Chapter 3 – Business Models ).

For some types of ventures, at this stage an entrepreneur might launch a lean start-up (see the “Lean Start-up” section in Chapter 2 – Essential Initial Research ) and grow their business by continually pivoting, or constantly adjusting their business model in response to the real-time signals they get from the markets’ reactions to their business operations. In many cases, however, an entrepreneur will require a business plan. In those cases, their initial business model will provide the basis for that plan.

Of course, throughout this and all of the stages in this process, the entrepreneur should seek to continually gather information and adjust the plans in response to the new knowledge they gather. As shown in Figure 1 by its enclosure in the Progressive Research box, the business plan developer might need to conduct further research before finishing the business model and moving on to the initial business plan draft.

Initial Business Plan Draft

The Initial Business Plan Draft  stage involves taking the knowledge and ideas developed during the first two stages and organizing them into a business plan format. Many entrepreneurs prefer to create a full draft of the business plan with all of the sections, including the front part with the business description, vision, mission, values, value proposition statement, preliminary set of goals, and possibly even a table of contents and lists of tables and figures all set up using the software features enabling their automatic generation. Writing all of the operations, human resources, marketing, and financial plans as part of the first draft ensures that all of these parts can be appropriately and necessarily integrated. The business plan will tell the story of a planned business startup in two ways: 1) by using primarily words along with some charts and graphs in the operations, human resources, and marketing plans and 2) through the financial plan. Both must tell the same story.

The feedback loop shown in Figure 1 demonstrates that the business developer may need to review the business model.  Additionally, as shown by its enclosure in the Progressive Research box, the business plan developer might need to conduct further research before finishing the Initial Business Plan Draft stage and moving on to the Making Business Plan Realistic stage.

Making Business Plan Realistic

The first draft of a business plan will almost never be realistic. As the entrepreneur writes the plan, it will necessarily change as new information is gathered. Another factor that usually renders the first draft unrealistic is the difficulty in making certain that the written part—in the front part of the plan along with the operations, human resources, and marketing plans—tells the exact same story as the financial part does. This stage of work involves making the necessary adjustments to the plan to make it as realistic as possible.

The Making Business Plan Realistic  stage has two possible feedback loops. The first means going back to the Initial Business Plan Draft stage if the initial business plan needs to be significantly changed before it is possible to adjust it so that it is realistic. The second feedback loop circles back to the Business Model stage if the business developer needs to rethink the business model. As shown in Figure 1 by its enclosure in the Progressive Research box, the business plan developer might need to conduct further research before finishing the Making Business Plan Realistic stage and moving on to the Making Plan Appeal to Stakeholders stage.

Making Plan Appeal to Stakeholders and Desirable to the Entrepreneur

A business plan can be realistic without appealing to potential investors and other external stakeholders, like employees, suppliers, and needed business partners. It might also be realistic (and possibly appealing to stakeholders) without being desirable to the entrepreneur. During this stage, the entrepreneur will keep the business plan realistic as they adjust plans to appeal to potential investors, stakeholders, and themselves.

If, for example, investors will be required to finance the business’s start, some adjustments might need to be relatively extensive to appeal to potential investors’ needs for an exit strategy from the business, to accommodate the rate of return they expect from their investments, and to convince them that the entrepreneur can accomplish all that is promised in the plan. In this case, and in others, the entrepreneur will also need to get what they want out of the business to make it worthwhile for them to start and run it. So, this stage of adjustments to the developing business plan might be fairly extensive, and they must be informed by a superior knowledge of what targeted investors need from a business proposal before they will invest. They also need to be informed by a clear set of goals that will make the venture worthwhile for the entrepreneur to pursue.

The caution with this stage is to balance the need to make realistic plans with the desire to meet the entrepreneur’s goals while avoiding becoming discouraged enough to drop the idea of pursuing the business idea . If an entrepreneur is convinced that the proposed venture will satisfy a valid market need, there is often a way to assemble the financing required to start and operate the business while also meeting the entrepreneur’s most important goals. To do so, however, might require significant changes to the business model.

One of the feedback loops shown in Figure 1 indicates that the business plan writer might need to adjust the draft business plan while ensuring that it is still realistic before it can be made appealing to the targeted stakeholders and desirable to the entrepreneur. The second feedback loop indicates that it might be necessary to go all the way back to the Business Model stage to re-establish the framework and plans needed to develop a realistic, appealing, and desirable business plan. Additionally, this stage’s enclosure in the Progressive Research box suggests that the business plan developer might need to conduct further research.

Finishing the Business Plan

The final stage involves putting the important finishing touches on the business plan so that it will present well to potential investors and others. This involves making sure that the math and links between the written and financial parts are accurate. It involves ensuring that all the needed corrections are made to the spelling, grammar, and formatting. The final set of goals should be written to appeal to the target readers and to reflect what the business plan says. An executive summary should be written and included as a final step.

Chapter Summary

This chapter described the internal and external purposes for business planning. It also explained how business plans must effectively communicate while establishing and building credibility for both the entrepreneur and the venture. The general guidelines for business planning were covered as were some important business planning tools. The chapter concluded with descriptions of the stages of the business development process for effective business planning.

• Hindle, K., & Mainprize, B. (2006). A systematic approach to writing and rating entrepreneurial business plans. The Journal of Private Equity, 9(3), 7-23. ↵
• Ibid. ↵

Business Plan Development Guide Copyright © 2023 by Lee A. Swanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Do This One Thing Before You Write Your Business Plan

Noah Parsons

6 min. read

Updated May 10, 2024

So, you’ve been asked to write a business plan. It’s likely that your mind is filled with images of long documents, bad memories of writing term papers, and worries about doing market research and creating financial forecasts.

Take a deep breath.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Today, I’m going to walk you through an easier way to get your business plan started, and show you how to develop a winning strategy.

Start with why you’re writing a business plan

But first, let’s talk about why you’re writing a business plan .

There are a lot of reasons why writing a business plan is important . Most businesses start the planning process because they are applying for a loan or seeking funding from investors . 

But, beyond needing to develop a plan that will impress the bank or your investors, you want to build a solid company. You want to develop a sound strategy that will help your business grow and be successful.

Unfortunately, while traditional business plans will help you develop strategy, they have several drawbacks.

Traditional business plans take too long to write, they’re rarely updated, and they are time-consuming to read.

Now, there may be a point in your business career that you will need to deliver a formal business plan to a bank, investors, or other business partners. But, until that point, I recommend that you start your planning with a simpler process— a one-page plan —that will help you develop your business strategy.

Building a one-page plan takes less than 20 minutes . You can even build several of them in an afternoon to try out different business ideas.

A Lean Plan forces you to distill your ideas for your business into the core of your strategy. As planning expert Tim Berry says, “a good strategy is about what you’re not doing.”

And, once you have nailed down your business strategy, you can expand on it with a longer business plan document that fleshes out the details of your plan.

What to include:

Your one-page plan is a very high-level overview of your business. Each section should only be a few bullet points, so you should be able to complete an initial draft of your plan in 20 minutes or less.

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

• 1. Your identity

What sets your business apart from others? What’s your focus? For example, a bike shop’s identity might be, “High-quality biking gear for families and regular people, not just for gearheads.” With this identity, this bike shop has focus. It describes who they are and what they are trying to do. Ideally, you should be able to describe your identity in one or two short sentences.

• 2. The problem you are solving

How are you helping your customers? What problem will they go to you to solve? Don’t think that your business doesn’t solve a problem; for example, a new restaurant would fill a need for a particular type of cuisine or a certain atmosphere that is not currently available in a certain neighborhood.

• 3. Your solution to the problem

How does your business solve a customer’s problem? What is your product or service? Make sure your product or service is addressing your customer’s needs.

• 4. Your customer

Who is your ideal customer? A great exercise is to create a buyer persona, but you can just jot down some notes at this stage about who your customer is. Focus on a specific type of customer or certain groups. Focusing on “everyone” is not a sound business strategy.

• 5. The competition

Who is your competition , and what sets you apart? How are you better or different than other options available to your customers?

• 6. Sales channels

How will you reach your target customers ? Do you have a single storefront? Are you selling online? Do you rely on distributors to get your products onto store shelves?

• 7. Marketing activities

How will you let your customers know about your product or service? Do you need to go to trade shows? Will you buy online advertising?

• 8. Your team

Probably the single key to a successful business is a great group of people to turn an idea into reality. Do you have the right people? If you need additional key team members to help you build the business, identify them here.

• 9. Your business model

“ Business model ” sounds like a confusing term, but really it’s just a fancy way of talking about how you will make money. In the early stages of fleshing out your business idea, you can just write down a few bullet points about how you will make money and what your key expenses will be. 

As you refine your business idea, you will want to turn these initial notes into a sales forecast and an expense budget . But for your initial 20-minute plan, just write down a short list of the things you will charge for and the important expenses that you will have as you run the business.

• 10. Milestones

Ideas are nothing without execution—you need to turn your idea into a real business. Use the “ Milestones ” section of your one-page plan to list the critical things that need to be accomplished to start your business. Do you need to find a location? Maybe you need to get FDA approval for a new medical device. List the key milestones you need to accomplish here. Ideally, add approximate dates and list who will accomplish each task.

• 11. Partners and resources

If you need to work with other companies or business partners to get your idea off the ground, list those partners and resources here. Do you need a manufacturer or supplier for your products? Do you need a distributor to get your product on store shelves?

That’s it! A first pass at creating a one-page plan should only take 20 minutes or so. Set a timer and jump right in. Just getting everything down on paper is a great first step. The beauty of the one-page format is that you can come back and revise as you go.

• How to use your one-page plan

Now that you have the first draft of your Lean Plan, or maybe even several different mini-plans, you need to put it to use.

First, you’ll want to use your plan to identify the key assumptions about your business. Typically, those assumptions are around what famous entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen calls “product/market fit.” What that really means is that you’ve found a group of potential customers who have the problem you say they have, and who are willing to spend money on your solution.

Your Lean Plan includes assumptions about who your customer is, what problem they have, and what kind of solution they want.

As a next step, you’ll want to go out and talk to potential customers and verify that they do indeed have the problem you’ve assumed they have and that they’re willing to spend money on your solution.

As you gather feedback from potential customers, you’ll refine your plan . This is where you’ll be glad that you started with a one-page plan instead of a detailed business plan. It’s easy to update and revise as you go. You can quickly update it with new information as needed.

Now, if you don’t need to present a plan to outsiders, this may be all the business plan that you need. But, if you do need to create that formal business plan document, you can use your one-page plan as the key outline for that document. The business plan may also document more details about your marketing plan, product plan, or hiring plans, but ultimately, your business plan will just expand on and provide additional detail for each section of your one-page plan.

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

Related Articles

1 Min. Read

10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Business Plan Writer

14 Min. Read

15 Ways to Use and Get Incredible Value From a Business Plan

5 Min. Read

Create a Compelling Message With Your Business Plan to Sell Your Idea

6 Min. Read

11 Common Business Plan Mistakes You Should Avoid

The Bplans Newsletter

The Bplans Weekly

Subscribe now for weekly advice and free downloadable resources to help start and grow your business.

We care about your privacy. See our privacy policy .

The quickest way to turn a business idea into a business plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

No thanks, I prefer writing 40-page documents.

Discover the world’s #1 plan building software

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Write a Great Business Plan

• William A. Sahlman

Every seasoned investor knows that detailed financial projections for a new company are an act of imagination. Nevertheless, most business plans pour far too much ink on the numbers–and far too little on the information that really matters. Why? William Sahlman suggests that a great business plan is one that focuses on a series of questions. These questions relate to the four factors critical to the success of every new venture: the people, the opportunity, the context, and the possibilities for both risk and reward. The questions about people revolve around three issues: What do they know? Whom do they know? and How well are they known? As for opportunity, the plan should focus on two questions: Is the market for the venture’s product or service large or rapidly growing (or preferably both)? and Is the industry structurally attractive? Then, in addition to demonstrating an understanding of the context in which their venture will operate, entrepreneurs should make clear how they will respond when that context inevitably changes. Finally, the plan should look unflinchingly at the risks the new venture faces, giving would-be backers a realistic idea of what magnitude of reward they can expect and when they can expect it. A great business plan is not easy to compose, Sahlman acknowledges, largely because most entrepreneurs are wild-eyed optimists. But one that asks the right questions is a powerful tool. A better deal, not to mention a better shot at success, awaits entrepreneurs who use it.

Which information belongs—and which doesn’t—may surprise you.

Few areas of business attract as much attention as new ventures, and few aspects of new-venture creation attract as much attention as the business plan. Countless books and articles in the popular press dissect the topic. A growing number of annual business-plan contests are springing up across the United States and, increasingly, in other countries. Both graduate and undergraduate schools devote entire courses to the subject. Indeed, judging by all the hoopla surrounding business plans, you would think that the only things standing between a would-be entrepreneur and spectacular success are glossy five-color charts, a bundle of meticulous-looking spreadsheets, and a decade of month-by-month financial projections.

• William A. Sahlman is the Dimitri V. D’Arbeloff-MBA Class of 1955 Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

Partner Center

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

• How to Start a Business: A Comprehensive Guide and Essential Steps
• How to Do Market Research, Types, and Example
• Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, How To Create One
• Marketing in Business: Strategies and Types Explained
• What Is a Marketing Plan? Types and How to Write One
• Business Development: Definition, Strategies, Steps & Skills
• Business Plan: What It Is, What's Included, and How to Write One CURRENT ARTICLE
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): Meaning, Types, Impact
• How to Write a Business Plan for a Loan
• Business Startup Costs: It’s in the Details
• Startup Capital Definition, Types, and Risks
• Bootstrapping Definition, Strategies, and Pros/Cons
• Crowdfunding: What It Is, How It Works, and Popular Websites
• Starting a Business with No Money: How to Begin
• A Comprehensive Guide to Establishing Business Credit
• Equity Financing: What It Is, How It Works, Pros and Cons
• Best Startup Business Loans
• Sole Proprietorship: What It Is, Pros & Cons, and Differences From an LLC
• Partnership: Definition, How It Works, Taxation, and Types
• What is an LLC? Limited Liability Company Structure and Benefits Defined
• Corporation: What It Is and How to Form One
• Starting a Small Business: Your Complete How-to Guide
• Starting an Online Business: A Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Start Your Own Bookkeeping Business: Essential Tips
• How to Start a Successful Dropshipping Business: A Comprehensive Guide

A business plan is a document that outlines a company's goals and the strategies to achieve them. It's valuable for both startups and established companies. For startups, a well-crafted business plan is crucial for attracting potential lenders and investors. Established businesses use business plans to stay on track and aligned with their growth objectives. This article will explain the key components of an effective business plan and guidance on how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document detailing a company's business activities and strategies for achieving its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to launch their venture and to attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan helps keep the executive team focused on short- and long-term objectives.
• There's no single required format for a business plan, but certain key elements are essential for most companies.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place before beginning operations. Banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before considering making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a company doesn't need additional funding, having a business plan helps it stay focused on its goals. Research from the University of Oregon shows that businesses with a plan are significantly more likely to secure funding than those without one. Moreover, companies with a business plan grow 30% faster than those that don't plan. According to a Harvard Business Review article, entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than those who don't.

A business plan should ideally be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect achieved goals or changes in direction. An established business moving in a new direction might even create an entirely new plan.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. It allows for careful consideration of ideas before significant investment, highlights potential obstacles to success, and provides a tool for seeking objective feedback from trusted outsiders. A business plan may also help ensure that a company’s executive team remains aligned on strategic action items and priorities.

While business plans vary widely, even among competitors in the same industry, they often share basic elements detailed below.

A well-crafted business plan is essential for attracting investors and guiding a company's strategic growth. It should address market needs and investor requirements and provide clear financial projections.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, gathering the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document is best. Any additional crucial elements, such as patent applications, can be referenced in the main document and included as appendices.

Common elements in many business plans include:

• Executive summary : This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services : Describe the products and services the company offers or plans to introduce. Include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique consumer benefits. Mention production and manufacturing processes, relevant patents , proprietary technology , and research and development (R&D) information.
• Market analysis : Explain the current state of the industry and the competition. Detail where the company fits in, the types of customers it plans to target, and how it plans to capture market share from competitors.
• Marketing strategy : Outline the company's plans to attract and retain customers, including anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. Describe the distribution channels that will be used to deliver products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections : Established businesses should include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses should provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. This section may also include any funding requests.

Investors want to see a clear exit strategy, expected returns, and a timeline for cashing out. It's likely a good idea to provide five-year profitability forecasts and realistic financial estimates.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can vary in format, often categorized into traditional and lean startup plans. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These are detailed and lengthy, requiring more effort to create but offering comprehensive information that can be persuasive to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These are concise, sometimes just one page, and focus on key elements. While they save time, companies should be ready to provide additional details if requested by investors or lenders.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan isn't a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections. Markets and the economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All this calls for building flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How Often Should a Business Plan Be Updated?

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on its nature. Updating your business plan is crucial due to changes in external factors (market trends, competition, and regulations) and internal developments (like employee growth and new products). While a well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary, a new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is ideal for quickly explaining a business, especially for new companies that don't have much information yet. Key sections may include a value proposition , major activities and advantages, resources (staff, intellectual property, and capital), partnerships, customer segments, and revenue sources.

A well-crafted business plan is crucial for any company, whether it's a startup looking for investment or an established business wanting to stay on course. It outlines goals and strategies, boosting a company's chances of securing funding and achieving growth.

As your business and the market change, update your business plan regularly. This keeps it relevant and aligned with your current goals and conditions. Think of your business plan as a living document that evolves with your company, not something carved in stone.

University of Oregon Department of Economics. " Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Business Planning Using Palo Alto's Business Plan Pro ." Eason Ding & Tim Hursey.

Bplans. " Do You Need a Business Plan? Scientific Research Says Yes ."

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

Harvard Business Review. " How to Write a Winning Business Plan ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

SCORE. " When and Why Should You Review Your Business Plan? "

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy

Business Plan Example and Template

Learn how to create a business plan

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that contains the operational and financial plan of a business, and details how its objectives will be achieved. It serves as a road map for the business and can be used when pitching investors or financial institutions for debt or equity financing .

A business plan should follow a standard format and contain all the important business plan elements. Typically, it should present whatever information an investor or financial institution expects to see before providing financing to a business.

Contents of a Business Plan

A business plan should be structured in a way that it contains all the important information that investors are looking for. Here are the main sections of a business plan:

1. Title Page

The title page captures the legal information of the business, which includes the registered business name, physical address, phone number, email address, date, and the company logo.

2. Executive Summary

The executive summary is the most important section because it is the first section that investors and bankers see when they open the business plan. It provides a summary of the entire business plan. It should be written last to ensure that you don’t leave any details out. It must be short and to the point, and it should capture the reader’s attention. The executive summary should not exceed two pages.

3. Industry Overview

The industry overview section provides information about the specific industry that the business operates in. Some of the information provided in this section includes major competitors, industry trends, and estimated revenues. It also shows the company’s position in the industry and how it will compete in the market against other major players.

4. Market Analysis and Competition

The market analysis section details the target market for the company’s product offerings. This section confirms that the company understands the market and that it has already analyzed the existing market to determine that there is adequate demand to support its proposed business model.

Market analysis includes information about the target market’s demographics , geographical location, consumer behavior, and market needs. The company can present numbers and sources to give an overview of the target market size.

A business can choose to consolidate the market analysis and competition analysis into one section or present them as two separate sections.

5. Sales and Marketing Plan

The sales and marketing plan details how the company plans to sell its products to the target market. It attempts to present the business’s unique selling proposition and the channels it will use to sell its goods and services. It details the company’s advertising and promotion activities, pricing strategy, sales and distribution methods, and after-sales support.

6. Management Plan

The management plan provides an outline of the company’s legal structure, its management team, and internal and external human resource requirements. It should list the number of employees that will be needed and the remuneration to be paid to each of the employees.

Any external professionals, such as lawyers, valuers, architects, and consultants, that the company will need should also be included. If the company intends to use the business plan to source funding from investors, it should list the members of the executive team, as well as the members of the advisory board.

7. Operating Plan

The operating plan provides an overview of the company’s physical requirements, such as office space, machinery, labor, supplies, and inventory . For a business that requires custom warehouses and specialized equipment, the operating plan will be more detailed, as compared to, say, a home-based consulting business. If the business plan is for a manufacturing company, it will include information on raw material requirements and the supply chain.

8. Financial Plan

The financial plan is an important section that will often determine whether the business will obtain required financing from financial institutions, investors, or venture capitalists. It should demonstrate that the proposed business is viable and will return enough revenues to be able to meet its financial obligations. Some of the information contained in the financial plan includes a projected income statement , balance sheet, and cash flow.

9. Appendices and Exhibits

The appendices and exhibits part is the last section of a business plan. It includes any additional information that banks and investors may be interested in or that adds credibility to the business. Some of the information that may be included in the appendices section includes office/building plans, detailed market research , products/services offering information, marketing brochures, and credit histories of the promoters.

Business Plan Template

Here is a basic template that any business can use when developing its business plan:

Section 1: Executive Summary

• Present the company’s mission.
• Describe the company’s product and/or service offerings.
• Give a summary of the target market and its demographics.
• Summarize the industry competition and how the company will capture a share of the available market.
• Give a summary of the operational plan, such as inventory, office and labor, and equipment requirements.

Section 2: Industry Overview

• Describe the company’s position in the industry.
• Describe the existing competition and the major players in the industry.
• Provide information about the industry that the business will operate in, estimated revenues, industry trends, government influences, as well as the demographics of the target market.

Section 3: Market Analysis and Competition

• Define your target market, their needs, and their geographical location.
• Describe the size of the market, the units of the company’s products that potential customers may buy, and the market changes that may occur due to overall economic changes.
• Give an overview of the estimated sales volume vis-à-vis what competitors sell.
• Give a plan on how the company plans to combat the existing competition to gain and retain market share.

Section 4: Sales and Marketing Plan

• Describe the products that the company will offer for sale and its unique selling proposition.
• List the different advertising platforms that the business will use to get its message to customers.
• Describe how the business plans to price its products in a way that allows it to make a profit.
• Give details on how the company’s products will be distributed to the target market and the shipping method.

Section 5: Management Plan

• Describe the organizational structure of the company.
• List the owners of the company and their ownership percentages.
• List the key executives, their roles, and remuneration.
• List any internal and external professionals that the company plans to hire, and how they will be compensated.
• Include a list of the members of the advisory board, if available.

Section 6: Operating Plan

• Describe the location of the business, including office and warehouse requirements.
• Describe the labor requirement of the company. Outline the number of staff that the company needs, their roles, skills training needed, and employee tenures (full-time or part-time).
• Describe the manufacturing process, and the time it will take to produce one unit of a product.
• Describe the equipment and machinery requirements, and if the company will lease or purchase equipment and machinery, and the related costs that the company estimates it will incur.
• Provide a list of raw material requirements, how they will be sourced, and the main suppliers that will supply the required inputs.

Section 7: Financial Plan

• Describe the financial projections of the company, by including the projected income statement, projected cash flow statement, and the balance sheet projection.

Section 8: Appendices and Exhibits

• Quotes of building and machinery leases
• Proposed office and warehouse plan
• Market research and a summary of the target market
• Credit information of the owners
• List of product and/or services

Related Readings

Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to Business Plans. To keep learning and advancing your career, the following CFI resources will be helpful:

• Corporate Structure
• Three Financial Statements
• Business Model Canvas Examples
• See all management & strategy resources
• Share this article

Create a free account to unlock this Template

Access and download collection of free Templates to help power your productivity and performance.

Already have an account? Log in

Supercharge your skills with Premium Templates

Take your learning and productivity to the next level with our Premium Templates.

Upgrading to a paid membership gives you access to our extensive collection of plug-and-play Templates designed to power your performance—as well as CFI's full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs.

Already have a Self-Study or Full-Immersion membership? Log in

Access Exclusive Templates

Gain unlimited access to more than 250 productivity Templates, CFI's full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs, hundreds of resources, expert reviews and support, the chance to work with real-world finance and research tools, and more.

Already have a Full-Immersion membership? Log in

The Business Planning Process: 6 Steps To Creating a New Plan

In this article, we will define and explain the basic business planning process to help your business move in the right direction.

What is Business Planning?

Business planning is the process whereby an organization’s leaders figure out the best roadmap for growth and document their plan for success.

The business planning process includes diagnosing the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses, improving its efficiency, working out how it will compete against rival firms in the future, and setting milestones for progress so they can be measured.

The process includes writing a new business plan. What is a business plan? It is a written document that provides an outline and resources needed to achieve success. Whether you are writing your plan from scratch, from a simple business plan template , or working with an experienced business plan consultant or writer, business planning for startups, small businesses, and existing companies is the same.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

The best business planning process is to use our business plan template to streamline the creation of your plan: Download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and finish your business plan & financial model in hours.

The Better Business Planning Process

The business plan process includes 6 steps as follows:

• Do Your Research
• Calculate Your Financial Forecast
• Draft Your Plan
• Revise & Proofread
• Nail the Business Plan Presentation

We’ve provided more detail for each of these key business plan steps below.

1. Do Your Research

Conduct detailed research into the industry, target market, existing customer base,  competitors, and costs of the business begins the process. Consider each new step a new project that requires project planning and execution. You may ask yourself the following questions:

• What are your business goals?
• What is the current state of your business?
• What are the current industry trends?
• What is your competition doing?

There are a variety of resources needed, ranging from databases and articles to direct interviews with other entrepreneurs, potential customers, or industry experts. The information gathered during this process should be documented and organized carefully, including the source as there is a need to cite sources within your business plan.

You may also want to complete a SWOT Analysis for your own business to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential risks as this will help you develop your strategies to highlight your competitive advantage.

2. Strategize

Now, you will use the research to determine the best strategy for your business. You may choose to develop new strategies or refine existing strategies that have demonstrated success in the industry. Pulling the best practices of the industry provides a foundation, but then you should expand on the different activities that focus on your competitive advantage.

This step of the planning process may include formulating a vision for the company’s future, which can be done by conducting intensive customer interviews and understanding their motivations for purchasing goods and services of interest. Dig deeper into decisions on an appropriate marketing plan, operational processes to execute your plan, and human resources required for the first five years of the company’s life.

3. Calculate Your Financial Forecast

All of the activities you choose for your strategy come at some cost and, hopefully, lead to some revenues. Sketch out the financial situation by looking at whether you can expect revenues to cover all costs and leave room for profit in the long run.

Begin to insert your financial assumptions and startup costs into a financial model which can produce a first-year cash flow statement for you, giving you the best sense of the cash you will need on hand to fund your early operations.

A full set of financial statements provides the details about the company’s operations and performance, including its expenses and profits by accounting period (quarterly or year-to-date). Financial statements also provide a snapshot of the company’s current financial position, including its assets and liabilities.

This is one of the most valued aspects of any business plan as it provides a straightforward summary of what a company does with its money, or how it grows from initial investment to become profitable.

4. Draft Your Plan

With financials more or less settled and a strategy decided, it is time to draft through the narrative of each component of your business plan . With the background work you have completed, the drafting itself should be a relatively painless process.

If you have trouble writing convincing prose, this is a time to seek the help of an experienced business plan writer who can put together the plan from this point.

5. Revise & Proofread

Revisit the entire plan to look for any ideas or wording that may be confusing, redundant, or irrelevant to the points you are making within the plan. You may want to work with other management team members in your business who are familiar with the company’s operations or marketing plan in order to fine-tune the plan.

Finally, proofread thoroughly for spelling, grammar, and formatting, enlisting the help of others to act as additional sets of eyes. You may begin to experience burnout from working on the plan for so long and have a need to set it aside for a bit to look at it again with fresh eyes.

6. Nail the Business Plan Presentation

The presentation of the business plan should succinctly highlight the key points outlined above and include additional material that would be helpful to potential investors such as financial information, resumes of key employees, or samples of marketing materials. It can also be beneficial to provide a report on past sales or financial performance and what the business has done to bring it back into positive territory.

Business Planning Process Conclusion

Every entrepreneur dreams of the day their business becomes wildly successful.

But what does that really mean? How do you know whether your idea is worth pursuing?

And how do you stay motivated when things are not going as planned? The answers to these questions can be found in your business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs make better decisions and avoid common pitfalls along the way. ​

Business plans are dynamic documents that can be revised and presented to different audiences throughout the course of a company’s life. For example, a business may have one plan for its initial investment proposal, another which focuses more on milestones and objectives for the first several years in existence, and yet one more which is used specifically when raising funds.

Business plans are a critical first step for any company looking to attract investors or receive grant money, as they allow a new organization to better convey its potential and business goals to those able to provide financial resources.

How to Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your business plan today.

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how Growthink business plan consultants can create your business plan for you.

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

• Credit cards
• View all credit cards
• Banking guide
• Loans guide
• Insurance guide
• Personal finance
• View all personal finance
• Small business
• Small business guide
• View all taxes

You’re our first priority. Every time.

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market, we’re proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward — and free.

So how do we make money? Our partners compensate us. This may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on the site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Here is a list of our partners .

How to Write a Business Plan, Step by Step

Rosalie Murphy is a small-business writer at NerdWallet. Since 2021, she has covered business insurance, banking, credit cards and e-commerce software, and her reporting has been featured by The Associated Press, MarketWatch, Entrepreneur and many other publications. Rosalie holds a graduate certificate in Quantitative Business Management from Kent State University and is now pursuing an MBA. She is based in Chicago.

Ryan Lane is an editor on NerdWallet’s small-business team. He joined NerdWallet in 2019 as a student loans writer, serving as an authority on that topic after spending more than a decade at student loan guarantor American Student Assistance. In that role, Ryan co-authored the Student Loan Ranger blog in partnership with U.S. News & World Report, as well as wrote and edited content about education financing and financial literacy for multiple online properties, e-courses and more. Ryan also previously oversaw the production of life science journals as a managing editor for publisher Cell Press. Ryan is located in Rochester, New York.

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

What is a business plan?

1. write an executive summary, 2. describe your company, 3. state your business goals, 4. describe your products and services, 5. do your market research, 6. outline your marketing and sales plan, 7. perform a business financial analysis, 8. make financial projections, 9. summarize how your company operates, 10. add any additional information to an appendix, business plan tips and resources.

A business plan outlines your business’s financial goals and explains how you’ll achieve them over the next three to five years. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan that will offer a strong, detailed road map for your business.

ZenBusiness

A business plan is a document that explains what your business does, how it makes money and who its customers are. Internally, writing a business plan should help you clarify your vision and organize your operations. Externally, you can share it with potential lenders and investors to show them you’re on the right track.

Business plans are living documents; it’s OK for them to change over time. Startups may update their business plans often as they figure out who their customers are and what products and services fit them best. Mature companies might only revisit their business plan every few years. Regardless of your business’s age, brush up this document before you apply for a business loan .

» Need help writing? Learn about the best business plan software .

This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your business offers and a broad summary of your financial growth plans.

Though the executive summary is the first thing your investors will read, it can be easier to write it last. That way, you can highlight information you’ve identified while writing other sections that go into more detail.

» MORE: How to write an executive summary in 6 steps

Next up is your company description. This should contain basic information like:

Your business’s registered name.

Address of your business location .

Names of key people in the business. Make sure to highlight unique skills or technical expertise among members of your team.

Your company description should also define your business structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — and include the percent ownership that each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Lastly, write a little about the history of your company and the nature of your business now. This prepares the reader to learn about your goals in the next section.

» MORE: How to write a company overview for a business plan

The third part of a business plan is an objective statement. This section spells out what you’d like to accomplish, both in the near term and over the coming years.

If you’re looking for a business loan or outside investment, you can use this section to explain how the financing will help your business grow and how you plan to achieve those growth targets. The key is to provide a clear explanation of the opportunity your business presents to the lender.

For example, if your business is launching a second product line, you might explain how the loan will help your company launch that new product and how much you think sales will increase over the next three years as a result.

» MORE: How to write a successful business plan for a loan

In this section, go into detail about the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

You should include the following:

An explanation of how your product or service works.

The pricing model for your product or service.

The typical customers you serve.

Your supply chain and order fulfillment strategy.

You can also discuss current or pending trademarks and patents associated with your product or service.

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section , explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

Include details about your sales and distribution strategies, including the costs involved in selling each product .

» MORE: R e a d our complete guide to small business marketing

If you’re a startup, you may not have much information on your business financials yet. However, if you’re an existing business, you’ll want to include income or profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet that lists your assets and debts, and a cash flow statement that shows how cash comes into and goes out of the company.

Accounting software may be able to generate these reports for you. It may also help you calculate metrics such as:

Net profit margin: the percentage of revenue you keep as net income.

Current ratio: the measurement of your liquidity and ability to repay debts.

Accounts receivable turnover ratio: a measurement of how frequently you collect on receivables per year.

This is a great place to include charts and graphs that make it easy for those reading your plan to understand the financial health of your business.

This is a critical part of your business plan if you’re seeking financing or investors. It outlines how your business will generate enough profit to repay the loan or how you will earn a decent return for investors.

Here, you’ll provide your business’s monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimates over at least a three-year period — with the future numbers assuming you’ve obtained a new loan.

Accuracy is key, so carefully analyze your past financial statements before giving projections. Your goals may be aggressive, but they should also be realistic.

NerdWallet’s picks for setting up your business finances:

The best business checking accounts .

The best business credit cards .

The best accounting software .

Before the end of your business plan, summarize how your business is structured and outline each team’s responsibilities. This will help your readers understand who performs each of the functions you’ve described above — making and selling your products or services — and how much each of those functions cost.

If any of your employees have exceptional skills, you may want to include their resumes to help explain the competitive advantage they give you.

Finally, attach any supporting information or additional materials that you couldn’t fit in elsewhere. That might include:

Licenses and permits.

Equipment leases.

Bank statements.

Details of your personal and business credit history, if you’re seeking financing.

If the appendix is long, you may want to consider adding a table of contents at the beginning of this section.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

Here are some tips to write a detailed, convincing business plan:

Avoid over-optimism: If you’re applying for a business bank loan or professional investment, someone will be reading your business plan closely. Providing unreasonable sales estimates can hurt your chances of approval.

Proofread: Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can jump off the page and turn off lenders and prospective investors. If writing and editing aren't your strong suit, you may want to hire a professional business plan writer, copy editor or proofreader.

Use free resources: SCORE is a nonprofit association that offers a large network of volunteer business mentors and experts who can help you write or edit your business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers , which provide free business consulting and help with business plan development, can also be a resource.

On a similar note...

Find small-business financing

Compare multiple lenders that fit your business

How to Write a Business Plan: Your Step-by-Step Guide

So, you’ve got an idea and you want to start a business —great! Before you do anything else, like seek funding or build out a team, you'll need to know how to write a business plan. This plan will serve as the foundation of your company while also giving investors and future employees a clear idea of your purpose.

Below, Lauren Cobello, Founder and CEO of Leverage with Media PR , gives her best advice on how to make a business plan for your company.

Build your dream business with the help of a high-paying job—browse open jobs on The Muse »

What is a business plan, and when do you need one?

According to Cobello, a business plan is a document that contains the mission of the business and a brief overview of it, as well as the objectives, strategies, and financial plans of the founder. A business plan comes into play very early on in the process of starting a company—more or less before you do anything else.

“You should start a company with a business plan in mind—especially if you plan to get funding for the company,” Cobello says. “You’re going to need it.”

Whether that funding comes from a loan, an investor, or crowdsourcing, a business plan is imperative to secure the capital, says the U.S. Small Business Administration . Anyone who’s considering giving you money is going to want to review your business plan before doing so. That means before you head into any meeting, make sure you have physical copies of your business plan to share.

Different types of business plans

The four main types of business plans are:

Startup Business Plans

Internal business plans, strategic business plans, one-page business plans.

Let's break down each one:

If you're wondering how to write a business plan for a startup, Cobello has advice for you. Startup business plans are the most common type, she says, and they are a critical tool for new business ventures that want funding. A startup is defined as a company that’s in its first stages of operations, founded by an entrepreneur who has a product or service idea.

Most startups begin with very little money, so they need a strong business plan to convince family, friends, banks, and/or venture capitalists to invest in the new company.

Internal business plans “are for internal use only,” says Cobello. This kind of document is not public-facing, only company-facing, and it contains an outline of the company’s business strategy, financial goals and budgets, and performance data.

Internal business plans aren’t used to secure funding, but rather to set goals and get everyone working there tracking towards them.

As the name implies, strategic business plans are geared more towards strategy and they include an assessment of the current business landscape, notes Jérôme Côté, a Business Advisor at BDC Advisory Services .

Unlike a traditional business plan, Cobello adds, strategic plans include a SWOT analysis (which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and an in-depth action plan for the next six to 12 months. Strategic plans are action-based and take into account the state of the company and the industry in which it exists.

Although a typical business plan falls between 15 to 30 pages, some companies opt for the much shorter One-Page Business Plan. A one-page business plan is a simplified version of the larger business plan, and it focuses on the problem your product or service is solving, the solution (your product), and your business model (how you’ll make money).

A one-page plan is hyper-direct and easy to read, making it an effective tool for businesses of all sizes, at any stage.

How to create a business plan in 7 steps

Every business plan is different, and the steps you take to complete yours will depend on what type and format you choose. That said, if you need a place to start and appreciate a roadmap, here’s what Cobello recommends:

1. Conduct your research

Before writing your business plan, you’ll want to do a thorough investigation of what’s out there. Who will be the competitors for your product or service? Who is included in the target market? What industry trends are you capitalizing on, or rebuking? You want to figure out where you sit in the market and what your company’s value propositions are. What makes you different—and better?

2. Define your purpose for the business plan

The purpose of your business plan will determine which kind of plan you choose to create. Are you trying to drum up funding, or get the company employees focused on specific goals? (For the former, you’d want a startup business plan, while an internal plan would satisfy the latter.) Also, consider your audience. An investment firm that sees hundreds of potential business plans a day may prefer to see a one-pager upfront and, if they’re interested, a longer plan later.

3. Write your company description

Every business plan needs a company description—aka a summary of the company’s purpose, what they do/offer, and what makes it unique. Company descriptions should be clear and concise, avoiding the use of jargon, Cobello says. Ideally, descriptions should be a few paragraphs at most.

4. Explain and show how the company will make money

A business plan should be centered around the company’s goals, and it should clearly explain how the company will generate revenue. To do this, Cobello recommends using actual numbers and details, as opposed to just projections.

For instance, if the company is already making money, show how much and at what cost (e.g. what was the net profit). If it hasn’t generated revenue yet, outline the plan for how it will—including what the product/service will cost to produce and how much it will cost the consumer.

5. Outline your marketing strategy

How will you promote the business? Through what channels will you be promoting it? How are you going to reach and appeal to your target market? The more specific and thorough you can be with your plans here, the better, Cobello says.

6. Explain how you’ll spend your funding

What will you do with the money you raise? What are the first steps you plan to take? As a founder, you want to instill confidence in your investors and show them that the instant you receive their money, you’ll be taking smart actions that grow the company.

7. Include supporting documents

Creating a business plan is in some ways akin to building a legal case, but for your business. “You want to tell a story, and to be as thorough as possible, while keeping your plan succinct, clear, interesting, and visually appealing,” Cobello says. “Supporting documents could include financial projects, a competitive analysis of the market you’re entering into, and even any licenses, patents, or permits you’ve secured.”

A business plan is an individualized document—it’s ultimately up to you what information to include and what story you tell. But above all, Cobello says, your business plan should have a clear focus and goal in mind, because everything else will build off this cornerstone.

“Many people don’t realize how important business plans are for the health of their company,” she says. “Set aside time to make this a priority for your business, and make sure to keep it updated as you grow.”

The 7 Steps of the Business Planning Process: A Complete Guide

In this article, we'll provide a comprehensive guide to the seven steps of the business planning process, and discuss the role of Strikingly website builder in creating a professional business plan.

Step 1: Conducting a SWOT Analysis

The first step in the business planning process is to conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This analysis will help you understand your business's internal and external environment, and it can help you identify areas of improvement and growth.

Strengths and weaknesses refer to internal factors such as the company's resources, capabilities, and culture. Opportunities and threats are external factors such as market trends, competition, and regulations.

You can conduct a SWOT analysis by gathering information from various sources such as market research, financial statements, and feedback from customers and employees. You can also use tools such as a SWOT matrix to visualize your analysis.

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a framework for analyzing a business's internal and external environment. The acronym SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths and weaknesses include internal factors such as the company's resources, capabilities, and culture. Opportunities and threats are external factors such as market trends, competition, and regulations.

A SWOT analysis can help businesses identify areas of improvement and growth, assess their competitive position, and make informed decisions. It can be used for various purposes, such as business planning, product development, marketing strategy, and risk management.

Importance of Conducting a SWOT Analysis

Conducting a SWOT analysis is crucial for businesses to develop a clear understanding of their internal and external environment. It can help businesses identify their strengths and weaknesses and uncover new opportunities and potential threats. By doing so, businesses can make informed decisions about their strategies, resource allocation, and risk management.

A SWOT analysis can also help businesses identify their competitive position in the market and compare themselves to their competitors. This can help businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors and develop a unique value proposition.

Example of a SWOT Analysis

Here is an example of a SWOT analysis for a fictional business that sells handmade jewelry:

• Unique and high-quality products
• Skilled and experienced craftsmen
• Strong brand reputation and customer loyalty
• Strategic partnerships with local boutiques
• Limited production capacity
• High production costs
• Limited online presence
• Limited product variety

Opportunities

• Growing demand for handmade products
• Growing interest in sustainable and eco-friendly products
• Opportunities to expand online presence and reach new customers
• Opportunities to expand product lines
• Increasing competition from online and brick-and-mortar retailers
• Fluctuating consumer trends and preferences
• Economic downturns and uncertainty
• Increased regulations and compliance requirements

This SWOT analysis can help the business identify areas for improvement and growth. For example, the business can invest in expanding its online presence, improving its production efficiency, and diversifying its product lines. The business can also leverage its strengths, such as its skilled craftsmen and strategic partnerships, to differentiate itself from its competitors and attract more customers.

Step 2: Defining Your Business Objectives

Once you have conducted a SWOT analysis, the next step is to define your business objectives. Business objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your business's mission and vision.

Your business objectives can vary depending on your industry, target audience, and resources. Examples of business objectives include increasing sales revenue, expanding into new markets, improving customer satisfaction, and reducing costs.

You can use tools such as a goal-setting worksheet or a strategic planning framework to define your business objectives. You can also seek input from your employees and stakeholders to ensure your objectives are realistic and achievable.

What is Market Research?

Market research is an integral part of the business planning process. It gathers information about a target market or industry to make informed decisions. It involves collecting and analyzing data on consumer behavior, preferences, and buying habits, as well as competitors, industry trends, and market conditions.

Market research can help businesses identify potential customers, understand their needs and preferences, and develop effective marketing strategies. It can also help businesses identify market opportunities, assess their competitive position, and make informed product development, pricing, and distribution decisions.

Importance of Market Research in Business Planning

Market research is a crucial component of the business planning process. It can help businesses identify market trends and opportunities, assess their competitive position, and make informed decisions about their marketing strategies, product development, and business operations.

By conducting market research, businesses can gain insights into their target audience's behavior and preferences, such as their purchasing habits, brand loyalty, and decision-making process. This can help businesses develop targeted marketing campaigns and create products that meet their customers' needs.

Market research can also help businesses assess their competitive position and identify gaps in the market. Businesses can differentiate themselves by analyzing their competitors' strengths and weaknesses and developing a unique value proposition.

Different Types of Market Research Methods

Businesses can use various types of market research methods, depending on their research objectives, budget, and time frame. Here are some of the most common market research methods:

Surveys are a common market research method that involves asking questions to a sample of people about their preferences, opinions, and behaviors. Surveys can be conducted through various channels like online, phone, or in-person surveys.

• Focus Groups

Focus groups are a qualitative market research method involving a small group to discuss a specific topic or product. Focus groups can provide in-depth insights into customers' attitudes and perceptions and can help businesses understand the reasoning behind their preferences and behaviors.

Interviews are a qualitative market research method that involves one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a participant. Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing and can provide detailed insights into a participant's experiences, perceptions, and preferences.

• Observation

Observation is a market research method that involves observing customers' behavior and interactions in a natural setting such as a store or a website. Observation can provide insights into customers' decision-making processes and behavior that may not be captured through surveys or interviews.

• Secondary Research

Secondary research involves collecting data from existing sources, like industry reports, government publications, or academic journals. Secondary research can provide a broad overview of the market and industry trends and help businesses identify potential opportunities and threats.

By combining these market research methods, businesses can comprehensively understand their target market and industry and make informed decisions about their business strategy.

Step 3: Conducting Market Research

Market research should always be a part of your strategic business planning. This step gathers information about your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. This information can help you make informed decisions about your product or service offerings, pricing strategy, and marketing campaigns.

There are various market research methods, such as surveys, focus groups, and online analytics. You can also use tools like Google Trends and social media analytics to gather data about your audience's behavior and preferences.

Market research can be time-consuming and costly, but it's crucial for making informed decisions that can impact your business's success. Strikingly website builder offers built-in analytics and SEO optimization features that can help you track your website traffic and audience engagement.

Step 4: Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is essential in the business planning process. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to buy your product or service. Understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors can help you create effective marketing campaigns and improve customer satisfaction.

You can identify your target audience by analyzing demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data. Demographic data include age, gender, income, and education level. Psychographic data includes personality traits, values, and lifestyle. Behavioral data includes buying patterns, brand loyalty, and online engagement.

Once you have identified your target audience, you can use tools such as buyer personas and customer journey maps to create a personalized and engaging customer experience. Strikingly website builder offers customizable templates and designs to help you create a visually appealing and user-friendly website for your target audience.

What is a Target Audience?

A target audience is a group most likely to be interested in and purchase a company's products or services. A target audience can be defined based on various factors such as age, gender, location, income, education, interests, and behavior.

Identifying and understanding your target audience is crucial for developing effective marketing strategies and improving customer engagement and satisfaction. By understanding your target audience's needs, preferences, and behavior, you can create products and services that meet their needs and develop targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with them.

Importance of Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is essential for the success of your business. By understanding your target audience's needs and preferences, you can create products and services that meet their needs and develop targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with them.

Here are reasons why identifying your target audience is important:

• Improve customer engagement. When you understand your target audience's behavior and preferences, you can create a more personalized and engaging customer experience to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.
• Develop effective marketing strategies. Targeting your marketing efforts to your target audience creates more effective and efficient marketing campaigns that can increase brand awareness, generate leads, and drive sales.
• Improve product development. By understanding your target audience's needs and preferences, you can develop products and services that meet their specific needs and preferences, improving customer satisfaction and retention.
• Identify market opportunities. If you identify gaps in the market or untapped market segments, you can develop products and services to meet unmet needs and gain a competitive advantage.

Examples of Target Audience Segmentation

Here are some examples of target audience segmentation based on different demographic, geographic, and psychographic factors:

• Demographic segmentation. Age, gender, income, education, occupation, and marital status.
• Geographic segmentation. Location, region, climate, and population density.
• Psychographic segmentation. Personality traits, values, interests, and lifestyle.

Step 5: Developing a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that outlines your marketing objectives, strategies, tactics, and budget. Your marketing plan should align with your business objectives and target audience and include a mix of online and offline marketing channels.

Marketing strategies include content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and paid advertising. Your marketing tactics can include creating blog posts, sharing social media posts, sending newsletters, optimizing your website for search engines, and running Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

To create an effective marketing plan , research your competitors, understand your target audience's behavior, and set clear objectives and metrics. You can also seek customer and employee feedback to refine your marketing strategy.

Strikingly website builder offers a variety of marketing features such as email marketing, social media integration, and SEO optimization tools. You can also use the built-in analytics dashboard to track your website's performance and monitor your marketing campaign's effectiveness.

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a comprehensive document that outlines a company's marketing strategy and tactics. It typically includes an analysis of the target market, a description of the product or service, an assessment of the competition, and a detailed plan for achieving marketing objectives.

A marketing plan can help businesses identify and prioritize marketing opportunities, allocate resources effectively, and measure the success of their marketing efforts. It can also provide the marketing team with a roadmap and ensure everyone is aligned with the company's marketing goals and objectives.

Importance of a Marketing Plan in Business Planning

A marketing plan is critical to business planning. It can help businesses identify their target audience, assess their competitive position, and develop effective marketing strategies and tactics.

Here are a few reasons why a marketing plan is important in business planning:

• Provides a clear direction. A marketing plan can provide a clear direction for the marketing team and ensure everyone is aligned with the company's marketing goals and objectives.
• Helps prioritize marketing opportunities. By analyzing the target market and competition, a marketing plan can help businesses identify and prioritize marketing opportunities with the highest potential for success.
• Ensures effective resource allocation. A marketing plan can help businesses allocate resources effectively and ensure that marketing efforts are focused on the most critical and impactful activities.
• Measures success. A marketing plan can provide a framework for measuring the success of marketing efforts and making adjustments as needed.

Examples of Marketing Strategies and Tactics

Here are some examples of marketing strategies and tactics that businesses can use to achieve their marketing objectives:

• Content marketing. Creating and sharing valuable and relevant content that educates and informs the target audience about the company's products or services.
• Social media marketing. Leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to engage with the target audience, build brand awareness, and drive website traffic.
• Search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing the company's website and online content to rank higher in search engine results and drive organic traffic.
• Email marketing. Sending personalized and targeted emails to the company's email list to nurture leads, promote products or services, and drive sales.
• Influencer marketing. Partnering with influencers or industry experts to promote the company's products or services and reach a wider audience.

By using a combination of these marketing strategies and tactics, businesses can develop a comprehensive and effective marketing plan that aligns with their marketing goals and objectives.

Step 6: Creating a Financial Plan

A financial plan is a detailed document that outlines your business's financial projections, budget, and cash flow. Your financial plan should include a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, and it should be based on realistic assumptions and market trends.

To create a financial plan, you should consider your revenue streams, expenses, assets, and liabilities. You should also analyze your industry's financial benchmarks and projections and seek input from financial experts or advisors.

.jpg)Image taken from Strikingly Templates

Strikingly website builder offers a variety of payment and e-commerce features, such as online payment integration and secure checkout. You can also use the built-in analytics dashboard to monitor your revenue and expenses and track your financial performance over time.

What is a Financial Plan?

A financial plan is a comprehensive document that outlines a company's financial goals and objectives and the strategies and tactics for achieving them. It typically includes a description of the company's financial situation, an analysis of revenue and expenses, and a projection of future financial performance.

A financial plan can help businesses identify potential risks and opportunities, allocate resources effectively, and measure the success of their financial efforts. It can also provide a roadmap for the finance team and ensure everyone is aligned with the company's financial goals and objectives.

Importance of Creating a Financial Plan in Business Planning

Creating a financial plan is a critical component of the business planning process. It can help businesses identify potential financial risks and opportunities, allocate resources effectively, and measure the success of their financial efforts.

Here are some reasons why creating a financial plan is important in business planning:

• Provides a clear financial direction. A financial plan can provide a clear direction for the finance team and ensure everyone is in sync with the company's financial goals and objectives.
• Helps prioritize financial opportunities. By analyzing revenue and expenses, a financial plan can help businesses identify and prioritize financial opportunities with the highest potential for success.
• Ensures effective resource allocation. A financial plan can help businesses allocate resources effectively and ensure that financial efforts are focused on the most critical and impactful activities.
• Measures success. A financial plan can provide a framework for measuring the success of financial efforts and making adjustments as needed.

Examples of Financial Statements and Projections

Here are some examples of financial statements and projections that businesses can use in their financial plan:

• Income statement. A financial statement that shows the company's revenue and expenses over a period of time, typically monthly or annually.
• Balance sheet. A financial statement shows the company's assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific time, typically at the end of a fiscal year.
• Cash flow statement. A financial statement that shows the company's cash inflows and outflows over a period of time, typically monthly or annually.
• Financial projections. Forecasts of the company's future financial performance based on assumptions and market trends. This can include revenue, expenses, profits, and cash flow projections.

Step 7: Writing Your Business Plan

The final step in the business planning process is to write your business plan. A business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines your business's mission, vision, objectives, strategies, and financial projections.

A business plan can help you clarify your business idea, assess the feasibility of your business, and secure funding from investors or lenders. It can also provide a roadmap for your business and ensure that you stay focused on your goals and objectives.

Importance of Writing a Business Plan

Writing a business plan is an essential component of the business planning process. It can help you clarify your business idea , assess the feasibility of your business, and secure funding from investors or lenders.

Here are some reasons why writing a business plan is important:

• Clarifies your business idea. Writing a business plan can help you clarify your business idea and understand your business's goals, objectives, and strategies.
• Assesses the feasibility of your business. A business plan can help you assess the feasibility of your business and identify potential risks and opportunities.
• Secures funding. A well-written business plan can help you secure funding from investors or lenders by demonstrating the potential of your business and outlining a clear path to success.
• Provides a roadmap for your business. A business plan can provide a roadmap and ensure that you stay focused on your goals and objectives.

Tips on How to Write a Successful Business Plan

Here are some tips on how to write a business plan successfully:

• Start with an executive summary. The executive summary is a brief business plan overview and should include your business idea, target market, competitive analysis, and financial projections.
• Describe your business and industry. Provide a detailed description of your business and industry, including your products or services, target market, and competitive landscape.
• Develop a marketing strategy. Outline your marketing strategy and tactics, including your target audience, pricing strategy, promotional activities, and distribution channels.
• Provide financial projections. Provide detailed financial projections, including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, as well as assumptions and risks.
• Keep it concise and clear. Keep your business plan concise and clear, and avoid using jargon or technical terms that may confuse or intimidate readers.

Role of Strikingly Website Builder in Creating a Professional Business Plan

Strikingly website builder can play a significant role in creating a professional business plan. Strikingly provides an intuitive and user-friendly platform that allows you to create a professional-looking website and online store without coding or design skills.

Using Strikingly, you can create a visually appealing business plan and present it on your website with images, graphics, and videos to enhance the reader's experience. You can also use Strikingly's built-in templates and a drag-and-drop editor to create a customized and professional-looking business plan that reflects your brand and style.

Strikingly also provides various features and tools that can help you showcase your products or services, promote your business, and engage with your target audience. These features include e-commerce functionality, social media integration, and email marketing tools.

Let’s Sum Up!

In conclusion, the 7 steps of the business planning process are essential for starting and growing a successful business. By conducting a SWOT analysis, defining your business objectives, conducting market research, identifying your target audience, developing a marketing plan, creating a financial plan, and writing your business plan, you can set a solid foundation for your business's success.

Strikingly website builder can help you throughout the business planning process by offering a variety of features such as analytics, marketing, e-commerce , and business plan templates. With Strikingly, you can create a professional and engaging website and business plan that aligns with your business objectives and target audience.

Most Viewed

Business Development > Starting a Business > Business Development Process

Updated September, 2021 File C5-02

Idea assessment and business development process.

An important aspect of successful business development is to follow a process of how you will assess a business idea or concept (project), decide whether to move forward with the project and build a business if it is decided to move forward. The five steps below help outline a simple process you can follow. The steps are not a rigid structure to follow. Rather they identify issues you need to address and when to address them.

If you do not follow a process, you will find yourself going in circles and revisiting the same issues over and over without making progress. In addition to wasting time, the frustration may cause you to make poor decisions that can haunt you later. 

Following the steps outlined here does not guarantee business success. However, it can greatly increase your chances of success.

Step 1 – Initial Idea Exploration, Identification and Assessment

The origination of a new business idea can come from a variety of sources. It may come from the board room of an existing business or a group of producers sitting around the kitchen table. Regardless of the setting, you may want to use the following approach to formulate the business concept. Anytime during Steps 1 and 2 you may decide that your idea is not viable, in which case you may want to abandon the idea.

• Form a project committee - Creating a good project committee involves bringing together individuals who have the business development skills needed to investigate the idea/concept and carry through with business formation if the concept is viable. 
• Formulate general business idea(s) or concept(s) - Define your business idea or concept and describe why it has merit. Your idea may involve filling an unmet need in the marketplace with a new product, providing an existing product in a new form, producing a product better or cheaper than competitors, or other ways in which value can be added. Remember, an idea is only viable if people are willing to pay you for what it provides. For example, a premium product is only viable if someone is willing to pay more for it.
• Identify alternative business models or scenarios for the idea(s) - A business model describes how the business will function in producing the product or service and providing it to the customer. A business scenario is a logical assemblage of the essential business elements starting with raw materials procurement and ending with the sale of the final product, and all the stages in between.
• Investigate idea/concept and alternative business scenarios - Conduct an initial informal investigation of the validity of your idea.  Investigate the scenarios or models. Early in the process this may be nothing more than a series of telephone calls to knowledgeable individuals. Does your idea make sense? Identify business scenarios/models for further study and eliminate those that are not viable.
• Formal investigation - You may want to conduct a formal assessment such as a pre-feasibility study or a marketing study of the idea and various scenarios or models. This may involve using consultants to investigate various aspects of the project. It may involve eliminating additional scenarios/models or identifying new ones.
• Through the process of elimination you will reduce the number of scenarios/models under consideration for further study.
• Refine and flesh-out the remaining scenarios/models.

Step 2 - Idea/Concept and Scenario/Model Deliberation and Assessment

• Further refine the business scenarios/models - If you have conducted any of the formal assessments described above, you have information that can be used to further refine your business scenario/models. So by now you should have refined your idea to one or a small number of specific and detailed business scenario/models that you want to assess. This is critical before you move to the next step.
• Conduct feasibility study - A feasibility study will provide a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the market, operational, technical, managerial and financial aspects of your business project. These factors will feed into the economic assessment of your project (is it profitable?). If you have already conducted a pre-feasibility study, marketing study or other study; these materials can be used in the feasibility study. Feasibility studies are usually prepared by consultants, so you will need to investigate consultants who are familiar with your type of business and experienced in preparing feasibility studies.
• Analyze the feasibility study - When you receive the feasibility report, the first step is not to begin deliberations on whether to proceed with the project. Rather, you need to determine the completeness and accuracy of the study. Does it address the issues you want addressed? Was there a thorough investigation of the critical issues? Challenge the assumptions and conclusions of the study. Only after you have accepted the study as being complete and comprehensive can you move to Step 3. See Information File C5-64, When to Do and How to Use a Feasibility Study for more information.
• Further refine the idea and scenario/model - However, before you proceed you may see the need for further study of various aspects of the business project. It is not uncommon for the feasibility study to uncover new issues that need to be investigated. This may create the need for additional negotiations with your consultants to expand on the original scope of the feasibility study. 

Step 3 - Go/No-Go Decision

This is the most critical step in the entire business development process. In a sense, it is the point of no return. Once you start down the path of creating a business, it is difficult to turn back. If you have unresolved doubts or reservations about the project, you should not proceed. That is why it is important to have an open, honest and thorough discussion when making this decision. 

You may find that there is division in your committee. Some members may want to move forward while others may want to end it. This is not uncommon. Each needs to take an honest look at the other side’s arguments. If the issues cannot be resolved, each side needs to go its own way with no bad feelings. At this point, the remaining members need to determine if they want to proceed with business creation.

Commitment to the project is another important factor to consider before you proceed. Most beginners to business development greatly underestimate the time and effort required to start a business. A financial commitment by project members at this time (everyone throws some money in the pot) is an important sign of commitment to creating the business.

This step involves making one of the three possible decisions listed below:

• Decide that the project is viable and move forward with it.
• Decide to do more study and or analyze additional alternatives.
• Decide that the project is not viable and abandon it.

Step 4 – Business Plan Preparation and Implementation

If you decide to proceed with creating a business, you will need to prepare a business plan. A business plan is an outline or blueprint of how you will create your business. If you conducted a feasibility study, it will provide some of the information needed for your business plan. Also, business planning often involves the use of consultants. However, don’t turn the process completely over to a consultant, you need to stay integrally involved in the planning process. Remember, it is your business. 

Although planning can involve considerable time and effort, it is the easiest part. Implementing the plan is much more difficult. Many prospective businesses experience problems or failure due to the improper implementation of their business plan. This step requires commitment and dedication. Unforeseen problems will emerge. Your persistence is critical.

Implementing your business plan will include, but is not limited to:

• Creating a legal structure
• Securing market access
• Raising equity and securing financing
• Hiring management and staff
• Constructing facility

Step 5 – Business Operations

Now that you have successfully started your value-added business, your work has just begun. Producer groups often forget that once the business is created, it takes constant attention for it to remain healthy and viable. 

Operating a business is very different than starting a business. It requires a different set of skills. So the people who create the business may not be the best people to manage the business.

These are the five steps you will want to follow for taking an idea and making a viable business from it. These steps will not guarantee success. However, they will increase your odds of success. Also, you will make more efficient use of your time.

Don Hofstrand, retired extension value added agriculture specialist, [email protected]

Don Hofstrand

Retired extension value added agriculture specialist view more from this author.

Jane Consulting

Sales Enablement For Small Business

A Complete Guide To Performing A Comprehensive Business Assessment

How to assess your marketing, sales and customer experience in 5 easy steps.

To be able to develop a powerful business strategy, you need to understand what you are working with. Every client engagement at Jane Consulting starts with a business assessment of your revenue team, current processes, metrics and more. We have developed an easy to use guide for you to assess your own business in-house, or you can always contact our team to perform an assessment for you.

A comprehensive business assessment analyzes the following aspects of your business, all of which are described in more detail below:

• Define Your Current Marketing, Sales and Customer Experience Landscape
• Understand Your Current Metrics
• Describe Your Market Positioning And Value Drivers
• Review Your Current Strategies For Attracting and Engaging Potential Buyers & Creating a Memorable Buyer’s Experience
• Define Your Buyer’s Journey From The Perspective Of The Buyer

1. Define Your Current Marketing, Sales and Customer Experience Landscape

The first step in the business assessment phase is to review and analyze your current landscape. There are three main areas you need to look for this information:

• Current Team Members
• Documented Processes and Rules
• Current Technology Stack

When analyzing your team, you want to define the roles and primary responsibilities represented. Below is a sample chart we use to document this:

Documenting job roles will allow you to visualize how your team is being leveraged and which roles overlap or which areas you don’t have coverage for. For example, in the sample above, no one is responsible for social media. If your strategy relies on a heavy social media presence, you will either need to add a new team member, divide the work across multiple roles, or re-prioritize someone’s responsibilities to effectively incorporate the new focus.

Once you understand who you have on your team and what their responsibilities look like, then you can do the same for all of the processes and rules you have documented for your teams. Following a similar table, you will document each process name and a description of it. Below are a few examples of processes and rules that you may have:

• Content Updates: a process that defines all live site pages should be updated, at a minimum, every 6 months to ensure content is fresh and relevant and contains links to and from new relevant content.
• Marketing and Sales SLA : an agreement that states marketing will provide a minimum of 10 marketing-qualified leads per week and sales will respond to each lead within 2 business hours of assignment. A marketing-qualified lead is defined as a lead who is associated with a target account, has viewed at least 10 site pages and submitted a demo request form.
• Lead Follow-up: a process that defines all marketing-qualified leads should receive a minimum of 5 sales touch-points over the course of 15 days from first assignment. Ideally, these touch-points should consist of 2 phone calls and 3 emails when a phone number is provided.
• Customer Survey: a process that defines all customers should receive a minimum of 3 emails following the receipt of their product requesting a completion of a survey detailing their experience. Additionally, customers who rate all 5’s on their survey should receive another set of emails (minimum of 3) requesting a video testimonial of their experience.

Documenting your processes keeps them top of mind and more likely to be executed. If you or someone on your team has developed a practice that works and can be replicated, then make it an official process. This will allow you to track the processes’ effectiveness, review and improve it on a consistent basis. It will also allow you to coach new and existing team members on how to be successful.

Lastly, document the technology you are using and why you are using it. Again a table works great for this and a sample is provided below:

2. Understand Your Current Metrics

Hopefully, you are currently tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your business and you can gather them here. If you are not, then now is the time to start. KPIs will vary business to business and what you determine as important metrics to track will depend heavily on your buyer’s journey. Some common metrics to track include:

• Total Revenue Goals
• Existing Business Revenue Goals
• New Business Revenue Goals
• Number of New Customers
• Number of New Contacts or Leads
• Number of Web Sessions
• Average Number of Sales and Marketing Touch-Points Per Closed Won Deal
• Average Days to Close

How To Choose Revenue Goals

When choosing any goal you should use the SMART criteria, but this is especially true when it comes to revenue and individual sales targets. Failure to offer realistic sales goals can lead to a perpetual sense of failure for not only your reps but your entire organization if it is consistently brought up that you are not hitting targets. If you can’t come close to your target then chances are it wasn’t realistic.

To determine your realistic goals calculate your total revenue earned per month for the previous three years. This should show you what you have been able to do historically and what your percent increases are annually. If your data shows that you have only increased sales 3% year over year for the past three years, then a 25% increase in the year to come may be highly unlikely. If you need to push your team to do more than a realistic increase, we suggest a SMART base goal and then a loftier stretch goal that is still attainable but a much heavier push to get there.

How To Choose Your Marketing Goals

The purpose of marketing is to facilitate sales so you need to start with your revenue goals. To develop your goals for website sessions, new contacts and customers it is best to work backward from your new business revenue goals using your average sale size and conversion rates to determine your goal for each of these metrics. For example, if your average sale is $500 and your new business goal for the month is $5,000, then you would need approximately 10 customers to achieve this. Similarly if your contact to customer conversion rate is 10%, then you would need 100 new contacts for the month. Finally, if your website sessions convert to new contacts at 10%, then you would need 1,000 monthly sessions.

Now the above scenario is ideal for new business, but marketing’s function is to facilitate sales as a whole so it must play a role in existing business as well. KPIs for supporting existing business will often be around driving website sessions from specific decision-makers in key accounts.

How to Choose Customer Experience Goals

All the marketing and sales power in the world will mean nothing if the solution you offer does not stand up to customer expectations. As such, you need to strive for a minimum satisfaction score from your customers. The aim for a customer experience goal should always be high, as this means you are putting your product or service into the hands of the right buyer who is primed to glean the most value from it. Now while you aim for 5/5 all day, it doesn’t mean you dismiss tracking the actual scores on a monthly or weekly basis. If scores start dropping unexpectedly, it can signal that action needs to be taken and you will be ahead of the game in making necessary changes.

Additionally, customer experience KPIs related to the number of surveys completed and written or video testimonials received and shared with marketing and sales should also be tracked to ensure you are sharing timely and relevant reviews with your target buyers.

3. Describe Your Market Positioning And Value Drivers

This is a qualitative statement of what you solve and the value you present to your ideal buyers. If you can’t describe your marketing positioning and value proposition in a few concise sentences then you should work on that.

At Jane Consulting, our value proposition is to help small B2B business owners align their marketing, sales and customer experience efforts to the single goal of growing their revenue. We work best with small business leaders who need low-cost, tactical solutions to stay on track of their business goals and deliver delightful experiences for their customers. Solutions provided offer a mix of short and long-term tactics that can be spearheaded in-house, through the Jane Team or through additional consultants so that all of your business’ resources are maximized for effectiveness.

This statement, by describing what we are, also describes what we are not. We are not ideal for:

• Large businesses and large budgets because they have internal teams that can provide what we are offering and who are closer to the heart of the business.
• Chief Marketing Officers or Sales Leaders because we need someone who oversees the steps of the entire buyer’s journey and can execute on our recommendations. If we only have buy-in from marketing then we are fighting to gain the trust and buy-in from sales and the customer experience team or they never buy-in and the initiatives do not produce value.
• Leaders who want a quick fix to traffic or lead conversions because our solutions are designed for long-term sustainable revenue growth and that takes work.

To develop your statement, start with building a list of what you do really well and what or who you do no provide value for. Then, begin narrowing it down into a statement that describes exactly who you are and what you do.

4. Review Your Current Strategies For Attracting and Engaging Potential Buyers & Creating a Memorable Buyer’s Experience

For this section, review and understand what is currently being done and take note of it. This will give you an idea of what is currently happening and where the gaps are.

Below is an example of taking notes on this section:

• Regularly posting on a blog and posts are a great length and well-formatted.
• Content varies from news-type stories and company events or initiatives but does not seem to consistently address buyer concerns or facilitate movement through a lifecycle
• Does not seem to have a formal linking structure across posts and to specific target pages
• Posting is sporadic on LinkedIn, twitter and Facebook
• Same exact post is shared across all platforms at the same time
• Database wide monthly email newsletter is sent
• No segmented emails are sent in addition
• No use of automated lead nurturing campaigns
• Google Adwords are used but messaging is geared primarily to purchasing immediately. Segmentation is based on purchase keywords. No ads are running for the buyer’s awareness and consideration stages.
• Not leveraging subscribers notifications , bing ads or social media ads.
• Attending 1-2 large conferences per year that are more for brand awareness than targeting ideal buyers
• Sporadically attending local networking and industry events that are geared to ideal buyer
• Not hosting or speaking at any events

You simply want an awareness of what has been done. If you move through these steps in the order provided you may start having strategic ideas of what can be done better and certainly take note of them so you can easily reference them when it comes time to build your plan for empowering your revenue team!

5. Define Your Buyer’s Journey From The Perspective Of The Buyer

Do you like to role play? I hope so because that will help lead you to a deeper understanding of what your buyer needs and more importantly why they need it. If you don’t have an ideal buyer profile, this guide can help you create one.

You already determined who would be best served by your solution, so start channeling that person and the challenges he/she faces on a daily basis. Below is an example using Jane Consulting’s ideal buyer.

As a small business owner, I am constantly battling how my time and my team’s time should be spent. Every day I am on LinkedIn and exposed to new tactics that worked for fellow leaders and I feel like I need to be doing them too and I am tempted to shift focus and I constantly second guess if what I am doing is actually moving the needle. I know there is importance in marketing but I also need sales now and my sales team is not finding value in the leads or the collateral that marketing provides. I push new tactics on marketing and push for more sales but nothing seems to be working.

These are the challenges our buyers are faced with. These are the challenges that will prompt a leader to recognize they need help. This is the beginning of the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. The buyer in the example above is understanding there is a problem that needs solving but he or she is not fully aware of what that precise problem is.

Next, document what you provide to help your buyer through this stage. In this example, it could be:

• Content around why your teams don’t get along, why you don’t need to incorporate every marketing and sales trend, reassurance that providing the best for your customers will provide you the revenue you need and making decisions with your customers top of mind will provide success.
• Providing online tools for free to determine if we are operating from a sales enablement perspective.

After the buyer is aware of a problem, the next stage is to consider solutions. In this scenario, the small business owner can realistically set a path forward completely in-house or enlist the help of a consultant or agency.

Similarly to the awareness stage, document what you are providing a buyer during this stage. For us, we:

• Outline how to asses your current marketing, sales and customer experience in this guide you are reading and how to turn that into a strategic plan to empower growth!
• Provide a free assessment for first time clients

At this point, hopefully your buyer has decided on using your solution but that doesn’t mean you just stop adding more value to their experience. Someone who has decided on your solution still needs you to guide them on utilizing it properly so they gain the most and you gain a loyal fan. At this stage in the example, we offer:

• Semi-annual check-ins and discussion on how everything is working and suggestions for even further improvement.
• Video breakdowns of new tactics and when and how you should apply them to your business.

By this point, you should have a good idea of how you provide value to your buyer throughout the buying journey and you probably have some more ideas of how you can create a better experience for your customer.

What Happens After Your Business Assessment?

Now that you have a thorough look at how your business is currently performing and delivering value to your ideal buyer. It is time to analyze these results in light of your buyer’s journey and revenue goals and then develop a strategic plan to grow your business.

Request a Business Assessment From Jane Consulting

6 steps to conduct an effective business assessment

• Written November 10, 2022
• by David Pagotto

There are a ton of areas to assess when running a company. With so many functional nooks and crannies, it would be challenging to come up with an accurate assessment of your current business. You can do product analysis, market research, quarterly reports, employee happiness surveys, and other analyses that give you a good idea of your business performance.

Nonetheless, we can’t deny that a proper business assessment is integral to improving an organization. It gives management and employees an accurate report on where particular bottlenecks lie and what can be done to address those issues. As you’ll see, there’s more to do than employee job satisfaction surveys (although it sure is one thing you can do).

1. Select the type of assessment

The term “business assessment” takes on many different meanings. It could range from a SWOT analysis to an in-depth diagnosis of your various customer data.

If you were to deploy every type of business assessment known, you’d funnel resources into a furnace. You’d be wasting capital, investments, and staffing on potentially senseless assessments that you didn’t even need in the first place.

Assess the Problem

First, you’d want to determine what you want to achieve with your assessment. It could be low customer satisfaction, high costs, or high employee turnover rates. While it’s convenient to fix the first problem that comes to mind, you need to dig deeper to find the root cause of the problem.

Looking at the problem closely lets you know what type of assessments you can deploy. This process will save you time and resources and help you get through the company crisis much quicker.

Select a type of Business Assessment

Here are the types of assessments any company can conduct. Select one, any, or all as you see fit.

Source: Wikipedia

SWOT Analysis

Analyzes your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This kind of analysis analyzes the company’s current internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. This analysis will help business analysts decide how to traverse the market and what your company could change to turn liabilities into opportunities for growth.

Source: Corporate Finance Institute

Financial Analysis

A business assessment process can utilize different financial analyses. These types of analyses are usually handled by business management or finance firms. They assess a business’s financial performance, the returns on a particular investment, future financial projections, etc. Financial analytics processes are a broad scope that is best left for another article. Shown above is a vertical analysis, a method of analyzing a company’s financial performance. This is essential to startups and small businesses .

Source: Product plan

Customer Satisfaction Analysis

This analysis seeks a potential rise (or fall) in customer satisfaction. This type of analysis gathers data from surveys, forms, recorded calls, etc., and diagnoses the company’s current customer satisfaction result. Customer satisfaction analysis is essential for customer support, customer success and customer experience improvement. As shown above, one metric for assessing customer satisfaction and success is the Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Marketing Analysis

A marketing analysis studies the market and target demographic and assesses current market trends for product development or marketing purposes. Marketing analysis also looks at the current marketing efforts of a business model and how they contribute toward your business goals. For instance, if you want a strong SEO performance, you’ll need to look at your content creation and engagement strategy .

Employee Performance Analyses

These internal analyses dive deep into your workforce. They aim to assess if your employees are performing as expected, if they’re happy with their job, if morale is high in the workplace, if corporate wellness is excellent, among other things. These analyses typically come in the form of 1:1s and employee performance reviews. Employee performance analyses are handy for employee experience matters.

There are loads more types of assessments you can conduct for your business. You may even create your type of assessment depending on your organizational structure is built, and how unique and complex your problem is.

Source: Pointerpro

2. Analyze your current and future state

There are loads more types of assessments you can conduct for your business. You may even create your type of assessment depending on how unique and complex your problem is.

Suppose your sales are down 50% in Q3 of your 2nd year. After a marketing data analysis , you find from your marketing team that fewer people have interacted and engaged with your marketing collateral on social media . 

You look at all the marketing data and see a direct relationship between social media ad creative engagement and product purchases. This alignment between marketing and sales is something you’d want to highlight in your report.

If, after your tweaks to the business model, you notice an increase in sales just like the above example, you’d want to make a report about this that you can present to your stakeholders and employees. You can use a gamma app to create visually appealing and informative reports for them.

This reporting isn’t just for documentation purposes. It will also serve as a reference for future business strategies by providing data on specific investments and practices and the results they generate. Additionally, you may even incorporate your findings on podcasts, talks, and blog articles to optimize your blog post , provide better quality content, etc., which you may leverage to grow your business.

3. Set department objectives

When it comes to business assessments, different departments will be able to provide various data and insight heading into the problem. You have a diverse team, each member having a unique skill set . So utilize them to their fullest potential and incorporate them into your assessment.

You could also provide different department objectives to different departments depending on how big-picture and long-term the objective is.

Let’s take the earlier example on sales and ad creative engagement. If that were the case, your goal is to increase the reach and engagement of your social media marketing collateral by 100% to remain profitable. That increase is the objective for the marketing department for the 4th Quarter.

Now that you have your objective(s), you should break those goals into actionable and feasible tasks.

4. Break down the objectives into actionable goals

Once you’ve diagnosed the problem and have gone through a thorough business assessment process, you’ll need to generate goals that need to be met to achieve a specific objective.

Let’s take the previous example from the earlier Department Objectives section.

“Your goal is to now increase the reach and engagement of your social media marketing collateral by 100% to remain profitable.” 

The actionable goals to achieve this 100% increase may be as follows:

• Shift your marketing team’s focus to market research to gather data about the target market’s demographics.
• Create collateral engaging with these buyer personas.
• Increase social media paid ad budget by 100% and project return on ad spend appropriately with financial analysis on projected returns.

You can then use task managing and OKR software to break these goals into weekly or daily tasks. It makes sense to add a PERT chart as a part of your assessment plan to ensure your objectives and goals are on track.

Source: Asana

5. Create a schedule

In line with breaking your objectives into actionable goals, you should also have a timeframe for when you should meet these goals. Create a schedule. Follow this schedule to quickly drive your business to success (or out of a rut).

Source: ProductPlan

Tools like Pointerpro offer easy to interpret reports and visualizations, meaning that you’ll quickly be turning your data into results. These results can be put in a wide variety of charts and tables to present them to your boss, colleagues, clients or customers.

How to create a schedule

• Set a deadline for when you should accomplish your objectives.
• After you’ve broken down each objective into smaller, more actionable goals, set deadlines for these. Make sure the deadlines of these smaller goals are set up to meet the deadline of the encompassing objective.
• You’d want to keep breaking these goals down until you’ve reached a weekly deadline. Your team should be achieving something every week, contributing to accomplishing the bigger, encompassing long-term objective.
• After you’ve set all your deadlines, make it visual. A helpful visualization for a timeframe is Gantt charts for individual projects and roadmaps for your company’s ongoing initiatives. Gantt chart excel templates are also available to create these visualizations and can be a cost-effective option for small and medium-sized companies.

The visual diagrams you create from this schedule should be presentable to employees and stakeholders. Creating a schedule shouldn’t only provide your internal team with a deadline to follow, but it should also communicate goals and expected turnaround time to clients and stakeholders.

6. Monitor your data over time

Set KPIs to assess if the process you’ve implemented positively impacts performance. What’s the use of allocating time and budget to an assessment and solution if you have no idea if it’s working?

When you have solutions and business model tweaks in place, monitor how the data changes over time. You shouldn’t just be concerned with the results after the specified timeframe, but you need to see how the data changes and moves. Be sure to use advanced web analysis tools to get the information that will help you improve the quality of your campaigns.

For example, you’ve overhauled your marketing campaign’s ad creatives. You’d want to look for some movements against your expected result. That way, you can stop the marketing campaign to prevent loss of funds.

A properly executed business analysis allows a company to deploy an effective strategic plan to get the business out of a crisis or further strengthen its market positioning. An analysis is an opportunity for your business to generate an overview of itself and its environment so you and your team may develop a solution.

First, determine the kind of assessment you’ll do. Establish a baseline by determining your KPIs and assessing your current situation. Be sure to report on your findings for any solution you’ll deploy.

On the topic of a solution, set department objectives that you should achieve to meet a goal. Break these objectives into smaller tasks that you could assess weekly or monthly. Create a schedule for these tasks and enforce deadlines to meet your goals.

Monitor your assessments. You wouldn’t want redundancy for your assessments. Follow these assessment tips and create feasible, effective plans for your company.

Create your own assessment for free!

About the author:.

David Pagotto

Recommended reading.

How to create effective poll questions

Do you want to interact with your audience to learn more about them, but don’t want to inconvenience them with

How to perfect and automate your own meeting minutes template

Not too long ago, my habit was to take meeting notes on paper. Until I started working for an IT

9 AI tools for different types of consulting

In this article we’ll walk you through 5 AI tools you can use in your consulting business.

Want to know more?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get hand-picked articles directly to your inbox.

The Pointerpro newsletter brings you the latest market trends and will give you an overview of compelling testimonials from our community. Register now!

Popular Articles

Get to know us.

Contact us Careers (We’re hiring!) Affiliate marketing

Help Center

Certifications.

ISO 27001 Certified

Careers (We’re hiring!)

Let’s stay in touch, we’d like that

• Product overview
• All features
• App integrations

CAPABILITIES

• project icon Project management
• Project views
• Custom fields
• Status updates
• goal icon Goals and reporting
• Reporting dashboards
• workflow icon Workflows and automation
• portfolio icon Resource management
• Time tracking
• my-task icon Admin and security
• Admin console
• asana-intelligence icon Asana AI
• list icon Personal
• premium icon Starter
• briefcase icon Advanced
• Goal management
• Organizational planning
• Campaign management
• Creative production
• Content calendars
• Marketing strategic planning
• Resource planning
• Project intake
• Product launches
• Employee onboarding
• View all uses arrow-right icon
• Project plans
• Team goals & objectives
• Team continuity
• Meeting agenda
• View all templates arrow-right icon
• Work management resources Discover best practices, watch webinars, get insights
• What's new Learn about the latest and greatest from Asana
• Customer stories See how the world's best organizations drive work innovation with Asana
• Help Center Get lots of tips, tricks, and advice to get the most from Asana
• Asana Academy Sign up for interactive courses and webinars to learn Asana
• Developers Learn more about building apps on the Asana platform
• Community programs Connect with and learn from Asana customers around the world
• Events Find out about upcoming events near you
• Partners Learn more about our partner programs
• Support Need help? Contact the Asana support team
• Asana for nonprofits Get more information on our nonprofit discount program, and apply.

Featured Reads

• Business strategy |
• What is strategic planning? A 5-step gu ...

What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. The strategic planning process informs your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals.

Strategic planning helps you clearly define your company’s long-term objectives—and maps how your short-term goals and work will help you achieve them. This, in turn, gives you a clear sense of where your organization is going and allows you to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Think of it this way—if your goals and objectives are your destination on a map, your strategic plan is your navigation system.

In this article, we walk you through the 5-step strategic planning process and show you how to get started developing your own strategic plan.

How to build an organizational strategy

Get our free ebook and learn how to bridge the gap between mission, strategic goals, and work at your organization.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization’s mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives. The product of the planning cycle is a strategic plan, which is shared throughout the company.

What is a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it’s a tool used to define your organization’s goals and what actions you’ll take to achieve them.

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

Your organizational goals, including your long-term goals and short-term, yearly objectives

Any plan of action, tactics, or approaches you plan to take to meet those goals

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

Strategic planning can help with goal setting and decision-making by allowing you to map out how your company will move toward your organization’s vision and mission statements in the next three to five years. Let’s circle back to our map metaphor. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

Build a strong organizational culture by clearly defining and aligning on your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

Align everyone around a shared purpose and ensure all departments and teams are working toward a common objective.

Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go and achieve desired outcomes.

Promote a long-term vision for your company rather than focusing primarily on short-term gains.

Ensure resources are allocated around the most high-impact priorities.

Define long-term goals and set shorter-term goals to support them.

Assess your current situation and identify any opportunities—or threats—allowing your organization to mitigate potential risks.

Create a proactive business culture that enables your organization to respond more swiftly to emerging market changes and opportunities.

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

The strategic planning process involves a structured methodology that guides the organization from vision to implementation. The strategic planning process starts with assembling a small, dedicated team of key strategic planners—typically five to 10 members—who will form the strategic planning, or management, committee. This team is responsible for gathering crucial information, guiding the development of the plan, and overseeing strategy execution.

Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the planning process. 

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

Before you can define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. Understanding the external environment, including market trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase of strategic planning.

To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders, like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:

Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether about the product, business practices, or the day-to-day company culture.

Consider different types of strategic planning tools and analytical techniques to gather this information, such as:

A balanced scorecard to help you evaluate four major elements of a business: learning and growth, business processes, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process). 

To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?

What do your competitors do better than you?

What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?

Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company? 

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

To begin strategy development, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your vision, mission, and current position to identify and define your goals—these are your final destination. 

To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” “What’s the ideal future state of this company?” This can help you figure out which path you need to take to get there.

During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents, such as:

Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose.

Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision.

Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company.

Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market.

Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years.

Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in.

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Take your current business position and strategy into account, as well as your organization’s goals and objectives, and build out a strategic plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your plan should be created or revisited as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

Company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.

Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals . 

Related key results and KPIs. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable. These KPIs will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.

A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Strategy implementation involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success. 

Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to the strategic plan, so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and the overall strategy map. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management platform .  

A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch: 

Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process, to ensure all team members understand the strategic plan and how to implement it effectively. 

Define what “success” looks like by mapping your strategic plan to key performance indicators.

Ensure that the actions outlined in the strategic plan are integrated into the daily operations of the organization, so that every team member's daily activities are aligned with the broader strategic objectives.

Utilize tools and software—like a work management platform—that can aid in implementing and tracking the progress of your plan.

Regularly monitor and share the progress of the strategic plan with the entire organization, to keep everyone informed and reinforce the importance of the plan.

Establish regular check-ins to monitor the progress of your strategic plan and make adjustments as needed. 

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

Once you’ve created and implemented your new strategic framework, the final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.

Remember, your strategic plan isn’t set in stone. You’ll need to revisit and update the plan if your company changes directions or makes new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan. Make sure to review your plan regularly—meaning quarterly and annually—to ensure it’s still aligned with your organization’s vision and goals.

Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever, even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done. 

A work management platform plays a pivotal role in this process. It acts as a central hub for your strategic plan, ensuring that every task and project is directly tied to your broader company goals. This alignment is crucial for visibility and coordination, allowing team members to see how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s success. 

By leveraging such a platform, you not only streamline workflow and enhance team productivity but also align every action with your strategic objectives—allowing teams to drive greater impact and helping your company move toward goals more effectively. 

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics that will help your company be successful.

When should I create a strategic plan?

You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed.

Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets. 

What is a strategic planning template?

A strategic planning template is a tool organizations can use to map out their strategic plan and track progress. Typically, a strategic planning template houses all the components needed to build out a strategic plan, including your company’s vision and mission statements, information from any competitive analyses or SWOT assessments, and relevant KPIs.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. business plan?

A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

If your business is already established, you should create a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements?

Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose.

A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction. 

For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:

Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.” 

Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.” 

Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. company objectives?

Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time. 

Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a business case?

A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business. 

You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a project plan?

A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan. 

What’s the difference between strategic management vs. strategic planning?

A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.

Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success. 

Related resources

How Asana streamlines strategic planning with work management

How to create a CRM strategy: 6 steps (with examples)

What is management by objectives (MBO)?

Write better AI prompts: A 4-sentence framework

Newly Launched - AI Presentation Maker

Researched by Consultants from Top-Tier Management Companies

Powerpoint Templates

Icon Bundle

Kpi Dashboard

Professional

Business Plans

Swot Analysis

Gantt Chart

Business Proposal

Marketing Plan

Project Management

Business Case

Business Model

Cyber Security

Business PPT

Digital Marketing

Digital Transformation

Human Resources

Product Management

Artificial Intelligence

Company Profile

Acknowledgement PPT

PPT Presentation

Reports Brochures

One Page Pitch

Interview PPT

All Categories

Top 10 Business Assessment Templates To Analyze Your Organization Position!

Naveen Kumar

Remember the episode, ‘The one with Unagi’ of the American sitcom Friends, where Ross Geller was explaining a concept of Martial arts or Karate to Phoebe and Rachel? Ross was right about the idea of total awareness of surroundings, but he mistook its name for a Japanese Freshwater Eel - Unagi. The concept of complete awareness and alertness of mind and body to predict and tackle attacks is known as  Zanshin . In visualization, it is like Peter Parker’s Spider-sense. Whether it is Martial Arts or Business, one who is aware of his surroundings becomes invincible and touches heights of success and fame the world has never seen before, like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. It needs physical and mental exercise to achieve this state in martial arts; in business, organizations could master it using  business assessments .

What is a Business Assessment?

A business assessment refers to a procedure or steps for analyzing your organization’s current state on various grounds/metrics and comparing it to the ideal state you want to be in or your competitors are in. The results of a business assessment help organizations develop growth strategies and find areas of improvement. One should not see business assessment results merely in numbers or scores but dig deep into the insights and understand the roots of their strengths and weaknesses.

Types of Business Assessments

Based on their period of occurrence or frequency, there are two types of assessment — Foundational and Situational or Proactive and Reactive. The first one is conducted after a defined period like a month, quarter, or year to ensure business well-being. You can say these are like regular health checkups. 

Situational business assessments are for analysis of a business situation or events. It focuses on measuring the impact of events ( impact assessment ), what goes wrong, what can be done better, and working towards forming a risk mitigation plan. It is similar to visiting a doctor during or post-illness to get better.

Other classifications of business assessments are financial, marketing, tactical, etc. It is based on the reason for which they are conducted.

The last and most popular types are generic business assessments like SWOT , GPCT, and Porter’s Five Forces . From entrepreneurs to consultants, everyone likes to use these because of their reliability, acceptability, ease of use, and pre-defined structure.

You can also create a business assessment based on the factor you want to analyze. The only golden rule here is to be honest, while creating and conducting it. Only then can you obtain the right results to grow your business.

Business Assessment Templates

In order to rule the competitive landscape, you need to plan strategically, and for that, you need to understand your position in the market. This is possible only with genuine results of a thorough business assessment which includes every element of enterprise finance, marketing, operations, etc.

Designing one such comprehensive analysis is not that easy. It takes a lot of time and strenuous effort; therefore, we are here to help you with this task by providing our ready-to-use business assessment templates . These PPT layouts are curated through extensive research and include the required elements to conduct a successful business assessment. You will be able to perform these analyses in periodic cycles (which is the best practice) with the help of these sample templates. Let’s explore!

1. Monthly Business Assessment Presentation Templates

Looking for a tool to help you understand the scenarios impacting your business growth? This business assessment PPT is the end of your search. It will help you in a business review meeting to illustrate the problems and brainstorm solutions with your core management team. This presentation deck includes a quarterly business review, highlights, financial summary, revenue split, key milestones achieved, balance sheet, cash flow statement, key financial ratios, funding updates, etc., to conduct a perfect business analysis. Grab it today!

Download this template

2. Current State Business Assessment PPT Templates

Planning a growth strategy without knowing the current state of your business is like using Google Maps without a location feature. You would have to figure out where you are and what is the shortest route to your destination on your own. It defies the whole purpose of using a map. This presentation template will work as the toggle switch to turn on your location feature and help you navigate your position faster. It has sample designs like the current state assessment model, a comparison of current and future states, business process current state analysis, project, and deliverables analysis, etc. Get it now!

3. 3P Analysis Business Performance Assessment Management Deck

3Ps — People, Process, and Products is a well-known business management concept, and these three elements are known as the cornerstones of every business. This sample business assessment deck is designed with the 3Ps theme in mind. It will help you understand and apply this popular and straightforward concept in assessing business factors. It has sample templates of the 3Ps for quality assessment, lean management, enhanced business performance, and product & service assessment. Get it now!

4. Business Sustainability Assessment Using KPIs Presentation

KPIs are the core performance metrics that organizations use to measure and define business progress and performance objectives. This professionally designed business sustainability assessment deck will help companies measure their organizational performance and growth over a given period. Using this presentation deck, you can provide your organization’s overview and compare its performance with competitors with the help of a competitive landscape analysis section. It assesses and compares businesses on the basis of the foundation year, the number of employees, investor funding, operating profit, and net profit margin. Get it now!

5. Monthly Business Performance Assessment Templates

Analyzing the monthly performance of your business is necessary to track the growth path and devise the latest strategy to run with current market trends. This business assessment creative presentation set helps run a competitive analysis of equity, debt, and KPIs. It will help you analyze the last month’s business journey and share a roadmap for future development with your team members. You will be able to share a graphical representation and projection of income growth using this PPT deck. Download it now!

6. Business Readiness Assessment PowerPoint Templates

Finding answers to questions like — is your business ready to transform digitally? Is your company prepared for the next phase of development? — is of utmost importance to rule the competitive landscape. These questions will help you know your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, improvement opportunities, and more. This sample business readiness assessment presentation will help you analyze your company’s state to take over new challenges. It has a heat map, key factors, major steps to conduct changes, readiness assessment for different scenarios, and more. Get it now!

7. Opportunity Assessment For Businesses PPT Templates

Taking each opportunity with seriousness makes businesses grow faster. Assessing options will help you prepare to take them over and pull maximum conversion out of them. This template will be your tool to analyze business scenarios and market opportunities from different angles. This presentation deck includes slides with steps for opportunity assessment, opportunity assessment matrix, strategy, methodology, and more. Download it now!

8. Market Assessment For Businesses PowerPoint Templates

Before sailing your boat into the sea, testing the waters is necessary. A market assessment is your way of understanding whether your organization will succeed in new markets. This sample presentation deck will help you analyze the market trends, threats, and opportunities to develop a go-to-market strategy. It includes slides for market strategy components, its elements, strategies, economic & sociocultural analysis, and more. Get it now!

9. Operational Assessment For Business Growth PPT Templates

Operations are the backbone of every organization, and for a business to stand tall, operations must be strong and healthy. This operational assessment presentation deck will help you analyze your business function activeness and growth. It has a model for examining operation & service quality, business operation challenges & their response, operational risk assessment methodology, functional excellence assessment, etc. Get it now!

10. Competitive Landscape Analysis Business Assessment Templates

When you enter an industry with a business idea, competitors are complimentary with it. To survive and grow in the market, it is necessary to map the competitive landscape and understand your competitors in every way possible. This is not an easy task to accomplish, but this presentation deck will help you to achieve it in a less tiresome manner. It has templates for competitive landscape analysis factors, market size assessment, strength, weakness & market position analysis, components of the competitive landscape, etc. Download it today!

Over To You

Business assessments are the starting point and blueprint of the growth strategy path toward a more prosperous and higher position in the market. It helps you understand the secrets of your business and see outside the tunnel vision.

Conducting a business assessment is like building a bridge over a river. You cannot cross the water without completing it. Our sample business assessment templates provide a detailed blueprint for that bridge and help you fill the gap in less time. Grab these ready-made PPT layouts and jump-start your business assessment journey today!

FAQs for Business Assessment Templates

1. what is a business assessment.

A business assessment is a systematic approach and analysis procedure to record and understand your business’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and get a solid idea of your current position, strengths, gaps, and opportunities.

2. How do you write a business assessment?

There are different types of business assessments depending on their needs. The way to write them slightly differs in core elements. However, the typical steps that you can use to write a business assessment are:

1. Set Objectives for your business assessment

2. Break those objectives into smaller achievable goals (follow SMART goal planning)

3. Prioritize tasks to achieve goals efficiently

4. Analyze your organization’s current state with pre-determined KPIs

5. Visualize the future state you want to achieve after a defined period

6. Plan a strategy for it and work accordingly

7. Repeat the cycle of business assessment after that defined period to analyze the growth.

3. What is the purpose of a business assessment?

A business assessment helps an organization understand its current state and analyze available resources, opportunities for growth, and competitive advantages. It lays a concrete foundation for strategic development planning to achieve a visualized future state of business. The purpose of business assessment is to keep companies aligned with their goals and help them understand the necessary measures to achieve that in an efficient way.

4. What are different business assessments?

Business assessments are of different types based on their reason for conduction or role to fulfill. The types of assessments are

• Financial assessment: Conducted to analyze the financial health of an organization.
• Tactical assessment: Conducted to analyze strategies and their success on the ground zero level. Further classified as operational efficiency assessment.
• Marketing assessment: Analyze a business or product’s sales and marketing elements like strategies, position, and customer satisfaction.

Related posts:

• Top 11 Templates to Create a Concise One-Page Stock Pitch [Free PDF Attached]
• 10 Elements of A Successful Corporate Sponsorship Proposal (With Presentation Templates)
• Top 10 Floor Plan Templates To Share the Essence of Your Property
• Top 10 Templates To Control Revenue Expenditure; Earn More With Less

Liked this blog? Please recommend us

Porter's Five Forces Model to Convert Adversities Into Opportunities [Best Templates Included] [Free PDF Attached]

Top 15 PowerPoint Templates to Conduct a Detailed HR SWOT Analysis [Free PDF Attached]

[Updated 2023] Why Current State Assessment Matters for Your Organization (Best PPT Templates Included)

Top 15 Team Assessment Templates To Plug The Gaps in Your Company's Productivity

Top 20 Risk Assessment Templates to Nip Corporate Crises in the Bud

[Updated 2023] Top 10 Readiness Assessment Templates To Improve Business Outcomes

Top 15 Impact Assessment Templates to Gauge Business Activities

25+ One-Page Performance Reports for a Result Driven Assessment [Free PDF Attached]

Top 10 Technology Assessment Templates to Evaluate New Technologies

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA - the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

--> Digital revolution powerpoint presentation slides

--> Sales funnel results presentation layouts

--> 3d men joinning circular jigsaw puzzles ppt graphics icons

--> Business Strategic Planning Template For Organizations Powerpoint Presentation Slides

--> Future plan powerpoint template slide

--> Project Management Team Powerpoint Presentation Slides

--> Brand marketing powerpoint presentation slides

--> Launching a new service powerpoint presentation with slides go to market

--> Agenda powerpoint slide show

--> Four key metrics donut chart with percentage

--> Engineering and technology ppt inspiration example introduction continuous process improvement

--> Meet our team representing in circular format

A Beginners Guide to Types of Assessment: Initial Assessment

If you’re new to teaching, training or assessment you may be wondering about the different types of assessment and when is the most appropriate time to use them.

In the first of a three part blog series, we explore Initial Assessment. A guide to Formative and Summative Assessment to follow.

Get 15% off our online Assessor's Toolkit

Sign up to our newsletter to get 15% off our online Assessors Toolkit “How to Give Developmental Feedback” and download our free resource “Top Tips for New Assessors” where we share our advice for those new to the role of an assessor.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Types of assessment: initial assessment, when and why .

Before you start working with a learner, you must carry out an initial assessment .

This is so important as all learners are different, with different knowledge, skills, experiences, values, beliefs and expectations.

This will help you plan learning, to ensure it is fully inclusive to their needs. The sorts of things you need to find out include:

• Individual support needs e.g. digital support, bilingualism, working hours
• Additional learning needs e.g. dyslexia, dyspraxia,
• Their level of knowledge and skills
• Values, beliefs and motivations
• Expectations of the course
• Previous experience and qualifications
• Current Knowledge and Skills
• Information from external agencies e.g. youth offending teams, CAMHS,

By being inclusive to all learners, this ensures that you are meeting the requirements of the Equality Act (2010). It will remove potential barriers to learning and give your learners the best opportunity to succeed.

Initial assessment can be carried out in a number of ways:

Talk to your learners. Find out what their current levels of knowledge and experience are. If you are working to industry or qualification standards, use these as a basis.

This will also start the process of building a rapport with your learners.

They may tell you about previous learning experiences they have had – good and bad, which can help you plan how you are going to teach and support them.

You can also find out what their motivations are for learning, and refer back to these if the learner should lose steam later in the programme.

• Advantages – Helps build rapport, allows you to get a good feel for your learner
• Disadvantages – Can take a long time

You can carry out a digital / paper based skill scan, where learners self assess their knowledge and skills against industry or qualification criteria.

They can rate themselves as “Confident” or “I know lots about this” down to “Not confident” or “I have no idea about this”.

They can expand on their judgements with examples and further information. If the learner is on an apprenticeship programme, this can also be discussed with the employer, so the they can corroborate areas of strength and development.

This Skill Scan from City and Guilds is a great example.

• Advantages – you can find out about specific knowledge or skills
• Disadvantages – learners may under estimate or over estimate their skills and knowledge, or may not be honest

Diagnostic assessments

These are specific assessments around a particular topic or subject, usually literacy, numeracy or digital literacy. (Functional Skills in England, Essential Skills in Wales)

The diagnostic assessment will reveal a “profile” for learners that show their areas of strength and development.

This will allow specific support to be planned, or the learner can be challenged to work at a higher level than the outcome.

An example of a diagnostic assessment can be found on the World Skills UK website , which has mini-skills assessments in a range of vocational areas.

Other examples include WEST ( Wales Essential Skills Toolkit) and BKSB ( Basic Key Skills Builder ) for literacy and numeracy assessments.

• Advantages – pin point specific areas of strength / development
• Disadvantages – learners may feel pressured under a “test” environment and the outcomes may not reflect their abilities

The Learning Styles Debate

In the past teachers, trainers and assessors have used Learning Styles diagnostic assessment e.g. VARK (Visual, Auditory, Read-Write, Kinaesthetic), to assess how a learner likes to learn. In recent years there has been much debate over whether our style of learning actually does make a difference to how we learn.

There is no doubt that we all have learning preferences. Some people may listen to audiobooks and retain what they have heard. Others may prefer to research from books and make notes. Others prefer to watch a YouTube video.

The only thing for certain is that you should use a range of learning materials and sources in your teaching and training to meet the needs of all learners – this is called a multi-modal approach.

Educators are now using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) model to ensure that their planned learning is inclusive and accessible to all learners. Informed by cognitive neuroscience, the framework first defined by David H. Rose (1990s) offers learners more flexible learning environments and choice in assessment methods. The three main principles of UDL are:

• Multiple means of representation to gain information and knowledge
• Multiple means of action and expression to provide alternatives for learners to demonstrate what they know; and
• Multiple means of engagement to help challenge and motivate learners.

In practice this means that learners could decide to complete an assignment by creating a video or comic strip, instead of writing an essay for example.

Watch this useful video below or check out this useful blog to find out more about UDL.

So, what form of initial assessment is best?

You should ideally use all the types of initial assessment shown above to get a good all rounded view of the learner to help individually plan their programme of learning.

Read more about planning learning in our blog.

If the initial assessment is completed collaboratively, the learner will be more likely to take ownership for their learning, and be more motivated to complete their short term targets and long term goals.

What next for assessors?

If you are interested in find out more about the purposes of assessment, and different assessment methods, please join our next assessor course .

Alternatively, if you are a trainer who would like to learn more about developing inclusive training sessions, join our Training Skills Level 3 course.

About The Author

Rachel Arnold

Related posts.

Using Twitter for Professional Development

Quality vs Time Paradox

apprentices apprenticeships assessment challenging learners communication communication skills CPD difficult learners Digital2030 digital skills digital tools Education emotional wellbeing Employability feedback Good Practice inclusive learning inclusive training IQA learning learning and development mental health motivating learners motivation online training post-16 Professional professional development questioning reflection Reflective Practice Resources supporting learners Supporting learners with additional learning needs Teaching traineeships trainer trainers Training train the trainer tutors vocational education Wales wellbeing Work Based Learning

Looking for something specific?

Search through our training courses and workshops below 👇

Privacy Overview

• (866) 945-1595
• Request Demo

Importance of Initial Project Assessment and Identifying Red Flags

Steven Burns, FAIA, details how to create an initial project assessment to avoid project failures and greatly improve the overall outcome.

We have all been there: it’s late at night, and you ought to be asleep, but instead, you’re lying in bed, tossing and turning trying not to think about that project that has gone totally sideways. Frankly, I actually don’t mind lying in bed dreaming about the design of a project, but when things go wrong: when your client becomes Christian Bale from American Psycho, you regret the day you two met. Your dream project has become a true horror story and to avoid this, you want to do an initial project assessment. 

Early in my career, when I was eager to take on as much work as possible, I became an expert at taking on the wrong projects and agreeing to work for the wrong clients. This is why I always stress firms must never diverge from their Mission and Vision statements. These few sentences are more than just words. They are the foundation of every successful firm.

Your Mission statement set forth what your company does, how it does it, and most importantly, why . It ensures that your firm’s goals are aligned with the principles upon which it was founded. 

Your Vision statement describes the future-facing goals and ambitions of your company while reflecting your core values. It should serve as a mantra that inspires your employees to work toward the greater goal of your organization.

When you take on projects that don’t align with these two statements or work with clients that don’t share your values, you create cracks in the foundation that have strong potential to destroy your dreams (if you could ever get back to sleep). The effort you will spend to repair the foundation is not only hugely expensive, it takes you off the path that you had been working so hard to build.

True story. My firm was three years old when a prospect called and asked if I was interested in creating a feasibility study for a huge parcel of land in Chicago. My partner and I, and our little team of 9 architects had been building a successful business working on high-end, single-family residential projects. We were financially solid and all of our processes and systems were geared toward designing and building single-family residential projects and working with clients that understood our value and respected our values. We had no intention of taking on projects of this scope.

Against my partner’s advice, I couldn’t resist the offer. Before opening my firm, I spent 7 years with SOM and had extensive experience designing large, complex projects. Taking on this opportunity was like a trip down memory lane for me. I invited the prospect to come to our office for a meeting. The moment he walked in the door, my spider senses were tingling. I knew something was not right. We talked about his development company and how he came to this particular project. Red flags were flashing like strobe lights but part of me was deluded into ignoring all the warning signals.

I will stop here and give a summary. We were supposed to be paid $35,000 for a three-week feasibility study and asked for half the payment in advance.  We did all the work including preparing twelve bound books. Despite creating a project that made the client very happy, we didn't receive any payment for our work. $0!

Had I taken the time to properly assess the project and identify the risks involved, I could have developed strategies to mitigate them if things went south. But I didn't, and things went very wrong. This story has a bitter-sweet ending. Working with the Illinois State’s Attorney Office we were able to squeeze one-third of our fees from the client and got the perverse pleasure of seeing him go to prison for 15 months. This is not why we went into business. My bad decision forced our firm to suffer financially and took my attention away from the path we really wanted to travel. While this wasn’t the last time we had problems, it was the last time we ever took on work that did not fit with our mission and vision statements.

When I say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, believe me, I speak from experience. Don't make the same mistake I did. Take the time to assess your projects thoroughly and identify any potential red flags before diving in headfirst. Your future self (and your bank account) will thank you. 

In this blog, I’m going to help professionals in the A/E industry, like yourself, understand the importance of an initial project assessment and identifying red flags.  

By outlining strategies for identifying and addressing red flags, my goal is to equip you with the tools you need to avoid project failures and improve outcomes.  

I’ll cover a range of topics, including: 

The consequences of ignoring red flags, 

strategies for addressing red flags, 

and tips for outlining effective project assessments. 

The advice I'm about to share will give you a better understanding of the importance of initial project assessment and help you develop the skills you need to be successful and profitable in your work.  

Let’s begin.  

Definition of Initial Project Assessment

Let's start with the basics: what exactly is an initial project assessment?  

So, initial project assessment is the process of evaluating a project's feasibility and determining whether it's worth pursuing. Also, whether the client is worth pursuing. Like story above, if you feel the client is not going to work well with you, it's not worth going down that path. 

Think of your initial project assessment like a job interview - you're trying to figure out if the project is a good fit for your team and if it aligns with your goals and capabilities.  

The initial project assessment process includes everything from conducting market research to assessing resource availability to identifying potential risks or challenges.

By taking the time to conduct a thorough assessment, you can identify potential issues early on and develop a plan to address them, ensuring that your project is set up for success. 

Process of Initial Project Assessment 

The process of initial project assessment involves several important steps. 

1. Reviewing project scope and requirements.

This is all about understanding the goals, objectives, and deliverables of the project. This is what you want to look at immediately Make sure that everyone is on the same page and that the project scope is clearly defined. If you don’t, you run into the dreaded scope creep , and your entire project is thrown off course resulting in upset clients and your firm running over budget.  

2. Identifying stakeholders

You’re going to see me bring this up multiple times. This involves identifying all stakeholders and understanding their needs and expectations to ensure that the project meets their requirements. You want to make sure that everyone's needs are taken into account so that the project can be successful. You don’t want to meet some exec after you’ve finished the project that you suddenly learn has a big say so in the expectations, only to find out he isn’t happy one bit with the outcome. He wanted something else entirely different. Know everyone involved from the beginning.

3. Analyzing the project budget 

Once you've got a handle on the scope and stakeholders, it's time to analyze the project budget and timeline. This involves taking a good hard look at the budget and timeline to make sure they're realistic and achievable.  

4. Conducting a risk assessment

This involves identifying potential risks and developing strategies to mitigate them. You want to make sure that you're prepared for any unexpected issues that may arise.  

Based on the findings of the initial project assessment, you must develop a project plan. This plan should outline: 

And include a detailed project schedule, resource plan, and communication plan. 

If you follow these key steps, you can set your project up for success and ensure that you're prepared for anything that comes your way. 

Identifying Red Flags

Now let's talk about the other very important part of this blog: identifying red flags.  I’m sure you know what a red flag is, we see them all the time in life and relationships, but what do they mean when it comes to your projects? 

Red flags are warning signs that indicate potential problems or issues that could affect the success of a project. Think of them as the little voice in your head that says, "Uh oh, this could be a problem." We’ve all heard that voice multiple times.  

Red flags can come in many forms - it could be an unexpected change in the project scope, a team member who isn't pulling their weight, or a budget that's spiraling out of control. 

Whatever the case may be, identifying red flags is key to keeping your project on track. 

Common Red Flags in Project Assessment  

Now let’s move on and talk about some of the most common red flags that can pop up in A/E projects.  

1. Unrealistic timelines

When a project has a timeline that's too short or unrealistic, there's no way around it- it's going to fail. Trying to rush into an unrealistic timeline will not only stress your team out but present a product that falls short of expectations.  

2. Inadequate budgets

Projects with insufficient budgets typically fail due to cost overruns or an inability to complete the project scope. It's important to ensure that your project budget is realistic and adequate for the scope of work. Your time is valuable. Your skills and talent are worth the budget you know you need for your project. 

3. Unclear project scope

When stakeholders have different ideas about the project scope, it can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts, which can cause delays and quality issues. It's important to ensure that the project scope is clearly defined and understood by all stakeholders. 

4. Insufficient communication

When communication between stakeholders is inadequate, it can lead to misunderstandings and cost overruns. You must establish clear lines of communication and ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page throughout the project. Communicating along the way will save you from clients accusing you of not being transparent. 

If a project fails due to red flags that were ignored, this can damage your hard-earned reputation and result in a loss of business. Clients may be hesitant to work with a firm that has a history of project failures or cost overruns. 

Strategies for Identifying Red Flags

So now that we’ve talked a little bit about what these red flags are, let’s unlock some strategies for identifying red flags in A/E projects. 

1. Engage in proactive risk management

This involves taking steps to identify potential risks early in the project and developing strategies to mitigate them. This can include conducting a risk assessment and developing a risk management plan.  

2. Establish clear communication channels

As I mentioned earlier, you absolutely must ensure all stakeholders are on the same page. This can help to identify potential issues or conflicts early on and develop strategies to address them. 

3. Conduct regular project reviews and status updates

Doing this helps to identify any red flags that may have arisen since the last review. Being consistent and thorough in your reviews and updates to the client and your team can help to catch potential issues before they become major problems.

4. Establish clear project goals, objectives, and deliverables 

Here I am, sounding repetitive, but be sure that all stakeholders are in agreement. Establishing project goals can help to prevent misunderstandings and conflicts that can lead to delays and cost overruns. 

5. Engage in continuous improvement

I started my first company in 1993 and throughout the years I still learned something new from every project and this was done through detailed monitoring. To continually improve and learn, you must monitor the project's progress, identify areas for improvement, and take steps to address them.  

By adopting these strategies, you can identify potential red flags early on and take steps to address them before they become major problems. 

Strategies for Addressing Red Flags

We talked about strategies for identifying red flags, so now why don’t I give you what you really want—strategies for addressing them.  

When it comes to addressing red flags, there are several strategies that you can use.  

1. Develop a contingency plan

Here's a quick example of putting together a contingency plan. So, let's say you’re planning to design a large office building for a client. As part of your initial project assessment, you identify several potential risks and red flags, including a tight timeline, some very complex design requirements you might not be able to fulfill, and the potential for budget overruns. Yikes. 

When you develop a contingency plan, this helps you prepare for these risks so you have a solution ready for each possible scenario.

For this example, you’d start by identifying specific actions you can take to mitigate each risk, such as: 

If the timeline becomes too tight, you can prioritize certain design elements over others to ensure the project stays on schedule. 

If the design requirements become too complex, you can break the project down into smaller, more manageable phases. 

If you get too close to your budget, you can look for areas to reduce costs or negotiate with the client for additional funding if necessary. 

You then document these actions in the contingency plan and share it with all stakeholders, including the client. This way, everyone is aware of the potential risks and how you plan to address them. 

2. Adjust the project scope

By reviewing the project scope and making changes to ensure that it’s clearly defined and achievable, you can avoid misunderstandings and delays and even prevent going over budget. 

3. Revise the project budget and timeline

By reviewing the project budget and timeline and making changes to ensure that they’re realistic and achievable, you can avoid cost overruns and delays. Don’t feel like you have to agree with everything the client says. If you know that timeline is too short or the budget too small, let them know. It’s your project. 

4. Improve communication

Communication is key when it comes to addressing red flags. Insufficient communication between stakeholders is a common problem that leads to so many issues. By establishing regular communication channels and keeping all stakeholders informed of project progress, you can avoid misunderstandings and keep your clients happy. The easiest way to do this is with consistent reporting and check ins. 

5. Regular project monitoring

We all know that feeling of relief and satisfaction when a project is complete. However, the work isn't done just because the project is complete.

Now it's time to monitor.

Regular project monitoring is just as important as the initial project assessment. By monitoring projects regularly, you can identify potential red flags early on and take the necessary steps to address them.

You want to establish regular project checkpoints and review the progress against your project plan. This lets you adjust course if need be and keep the project on track.  

You don’t have to do a project assessment and identify risks in a manual and tedious way. You also don't have to do it alone. One tool I highly vouch for that can greatly assist with your project assessment and even ongoing project monitoring is BQE CORE . This software can help you establish regular checkpoints and track progress against the project plan.  

By providing real-time updates on project status, BQE CORE allows you to identify potential red flags and take action before they turn into serious issues. The software can also help with resource allocation and budget tracking, ensuring that the project stays on track and within budget. 

Closing Remarks on Initial Project Assessment

Most of us got into the A/E industry because we love to work on projects and share our passion with our clients. We want to see those same projects bring us in that hard-earned money. But if you take on every single project and client, without conducting an initial project assessment and identifying red flags, not only is this going to potentially lead to project failures, but it can also negatively impact your firm’s reputation. 

No matter how you go about managing your initial project assessment, it’s important you conduct one in the first place.  

As I said earlier, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When your project stays on track and within budget and any risks are caught before they become major problems, you’ll be able to deliver a successful project that meets the needs of your clients and stakeholders.  

This not only improves your reputation in the industry but also increases the likelihood of repeat business and referrals. 

And with the help of project management software like BQE CORE, you can streamline your project monitoring process and make data-driven decisions that lead to successful project outcomes. 

So, take the time to assess your projects, identify potential red flags, and develop a plan to mitigate them. Your business and your clients will thank you for it. 

Steven Burns, FAIA, is a renowned global thought leader, architect, and highly sought-after speaker on topics related to emerging technologies and effective firm management. As the founder of The Well-Designed Firm, a cutting-edge business consultancy, Steven is committed to helping A/E firms elevate their business practices to the same level of elegance as the architecture they create. With a Master of Architecture degree from the prestigious Harvard Graduate School of Design and over 7 years of experience at SOM, Steven is a true expert in his field. He also founded his own architecture firm, BBA Architects, which he successfully sold in 2007. Steven's contributions to the architecture industry go beyond his work as an architect and business consultant. He is also the mastermind behind ArchiOffice, a popular project and office management software that he developed and later sold to BQE Software in 2010.

Similar posts

Tips to master your project life cycle.

Steven Burns FAIA discusses the top tips for a strong project life cycle from building a perfect checklist to monitoring and controlling your...

Cash Flow Projection: Why it's Important for Your Firm

Steven Burns, FAIA, shares his advice on why cash flow projection is important for your firm along with tips that makes managing cash flow easier.

Project Billing Comparison: Milestone Billing vs. Project Billing

Compare milestone billing vs. project billing to get paid faster, improve cash flow, build client relationships, and finish projects on time.

Get notified on the latest for your industry

Be the first to know the latest insights from experts in your industry to help you master project management and deliver projects that yield delighted clients and predictable profits. 

• Get Started

Home >> #realtalk Blog >> Manage a business >> How to write a resta…

How to write a restaurant business plan + free template (2024)

By Homebase Team

Whether you’re living the dream of opening your own restaurant or reworking your existing concept, a restaurant business plan template takes a ton of stress out of writing a business plan.

With prompts for every section you’ll need, we’ve created our free restaurant business plan template to be your operational foundation (you’re welcome!). Something you can download, customize, and come back to whenever you make business decisions for your restaurant.

But first, let’s go through all the ways a written business plan helps shape your restaurant, and why it boosts your business’s chance of success.

What is a restaurant business plan?

A restaurant business plan is a written document that lays out an overview of a restaurant, its objectives, and its plans for achieving its goals.

It’s needed across all kinds and sizes of restaurants, and can be a handful of pages long or much more detailed. A well-written restaurant business plan not only helps you organize your ideas, it’s also a key part of getting investor funding .

Starting a restaurant? Here’s why you need a business plan. 

Creatively, opening a new restaurant can be incredibly exciting. But it’s also super complicated. From licenses, to equipment, to building a team, each phase needs a lot of attention to detail.

Before you jump in, it’s important to shape your plan of attack, organizing your business ideas into a clear, concise narrative that an outsider could easily understand. A business plan is an essential part of this—and here’s why.

Your business plan helps you:

Set short and long-term goals.

A restaurant business plan not only shows how your business will operate in its early stages, it also shows what steps it’ll need to follow as time goes by. Setting both your short and long-term goals at the outset makes you more likely to achieve them.

Understand your resource needs.

Going through the exercise of writing a restaurant business plan is as important as having the finished document in front of you. As you organize your thoughts, your resource needs—from the amount of capital you need to raise all the way down to the equipment you need to find—will take shape. 

Reduce potential risks.

Sadly, some 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of opening. One of the main reasons? A failure to plan. Your business plan will help you plan for most challenges at your restaurant before they come up, keeping you on the right side of that number.

Develop a marketing strategy.

As you do your market analysis and figure out who your customers are likely to be, the ways you’ll promote your business will get clearer. The more specific you are with your market research, the easier and more effective your marketing efforts will be.

Build your team.

Your business plan helps you see who you’ll need on your team and which roles you’ll need to fill first . For investors, it’s a document showcasing everyone’s collective experience, personalizing your restaurant in their eyes and packing a professional punch.

Share your vision.

Whether you’re using your business plan to secure startup funding or need additional capital after you’ve already opened, your restaurant business plan shows an investor or lender exactly why they should get behind you. 

The 9 elements of a strong restaurant business plan.

Your restaurant business plan will be unique to your vision. But all good business plans hit standard points, and whoever reads yours will expect them. As you develop and finalize your ideas, here are nine key elements you should include. 

1. Executive summary

A strong restaurant business plan begins with a strong executive summary. This is a sharp, concise overview of your restaurant and your opportunity to grab people’s attention.

Here’s where you communicate, in a nutshell, what kind of restaurant you want to run. Which demographic will you be targeting? Why is your business something the community wants or needs? Especially if you’re asking for financing, include a snapshot of your financial information and growth plan as well. 

Your executive summary should briefly lay out:

• Your mission statement. Why are you starting this restaurant now, in this location? 
• Your idea. What’s the concept of this restaurant?
• Your plan of execution. What are your key steps to making this concept work?
• Your potential costs. What are your expected expenses?
• Your anticipated ROI. How much do you expect your restaurant to make?

Many investors will make a split-second decision off of the executive summary alone—it might be all they’re going to read, so make every word count.

2. Company description

Now it’s time to let your creativity out and give your restaurant concept life. Give a more detailed description of your concept that lets your passion for what you’re creating come through. 

Flesh out all the other details of your proposed restaurant, including your restaurant’s:

• Style of cuisine and any unique selling points or differentiators that will make customers choose you
• Service style
• Restaurant name (or at least ideas)
• Size, seating style, and capacity
• Location ideas or the location you’ve scouted or secured
• Ambiance ideas including décor, lighting, and music
• Operating hours
• Other service offerings like whether you’ll offer delivery or takeout, delivery guarantees, catering, and any retail products you plan to sell
• Legal structure (e.g. sole proprietorship, LLC) 
• Existing management and their roles, including yours
• Experts or advisors you’ve brought on board

3. Market analysis

Present the research you’ve done on your target market. Make a couple of buyer personas to represent your future customers, explaining:

• Where your target customers live
• Their income levels
• Their dining-out and/or ordering-in pain points (e.g. lack of late opening hours, lack of family friendliness)
• How often they dine out or order in

Go through which other restaurants already have a customer base in your area, then explain why people will choose your restaurant over others. 

4. Sample menu

Even at the business plan stage, menu engineering is crucial. The specific menu items you’re likely to serve—the biggest thing that will set you apart—should shine through with descriptions that are short, clear, and evocative. If you have an executive chef already, this is a great area for them to add input.

Use language that will get people excited about trying your offerings. Hire a designer or use an online program to create your own mockup using the same colors, fonts, and design elements as the rest of your branding. 

5. Business structure

Dive deeper into your business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, etc.) and organizational management. Show what your different employee positions will be (co-founders, managers, servers) to give a sense of your team’s makeup. An organizational chart can be helpful here.

Investors won’t expect you to have your entire team on board at this stage, but you should have at least a couple of people firmed up. For the roles that are already filled, including your own, summarize your collective experience and achievements. Bullet points work well, or some people choose to go into more detail with full resumes for the executive team or critical team members.

6. Restaurant design and location

Long before you sign a lease, make sure that your new offering will outshine existing ones nearby. In this section of your business plan, explain why your chosen location, or the ones you’re narrowing down, are going to be an effective space for your target market.

Consider things like:

• Neighborhood demographics
• Foot traffic
• Labor costs
• Accessibility

Hand in hand with location, your restaurant’s interior design—both in its floor plan and its ambiance—is also crucial to your business’s viability. Come up with a captivating restaurant design that communicates your theme and matches your cuisine, creating a memorable customer experience. Decide how many tables you’ll be serving, and plan out any outdoor seating.

Touch on things like:

• Team uniforms
• Flatware and glassware

7. Marketing strategy

How do you plan to market your restaurant? Your plan for grabbing customers’ attention is vital to getting diners through the door, especially at the beginning before word-of-mouth advertising has taken off.

What kind of offers will you provide? Will you have promotional events, direct mail, or a social media strategy ? Go through your planned marketing campaigns and explain how each of them will help secure your target market. 

8. Takeout and delivery options

If you’ve decided to have takeout and delivery at your restaurant—pretty important for most target markets—decide whether you’ll use your own drivers or a professional fleet like Uber Eats or DoorDash.

Show how you’ll provide the smooth digital experience your customers will expect. Decide if and how your website will come into play, bearing in mind that in 2023, 40% of consumers preferred to order directly from the restaurant website .

9. Financial projections

Your restaurant’s projected budget need to be solid, especially if you’re using your business plan to get startup funds. Without this, investors have no way of knowing if your business is a good investment or when it will become profitable.

Hire an experienced accountant with expertise in running restaurants and write down your market research, your planned costs , and your projected income. Show how investor funds will be used and whether you’ll be putting up collateral to get a loan. Give a sales forecast, usually for the first five years, and make sure to give a break-even analysis.

Get started with our free restaurant business plan template.  

As the team behind Homebase , we know how much there is to consider when you’re starting a new restaurant. We’re proud to be an all-in-one partner for thousands of restaurants large and small—helping make everything from staffing, to scheduling, to team communication easier for business owners.

And we know that your restaurant business plan is a high-stakes document. That’s why we created our free restaurant business plan template to make sure nothing gets overlooked.

Check out our free, downloadable template to get your ideas into shape, get started on your restaurant journey—and get investors excited to jump on board with you. 

Download your restaurant business plan template for free: Restaurant business plan + free template (2024)

Stop chasing down phone numbers with our built-in team communication tool. Message teammates, share updates, and swap shifts — all from the Homebase app.

Restaurant business plan template FAQs

What is the basic planning document for a successful restaurant.

The basic planning document for successful restaurants is a restaurant business plan. A restaurant business plan lays out a restaurant’s long and short-term goals and its plans for achieving those goals. Restaurant planners use it both to finetune their ideas and to secure investor funding.

How to write a restaurant business plan.

When writing a restaurant business plan, include an executive summary, a detailed restaurant description, market analysis research, a sample menu, a breakdown of your business structure, the design and location of your restaurant, your planned takeout and delivery options, your marketing strategy, and your financial projections.

What makes a business plan template for restaurants different from a standard business plan?

A restaurant business plan template differs from a standard business plan by including things like menu engineering, interior design, kitchen operations, front-of-house management, takeout and delivery offerings, and location analysis, which are unique to the food service industry.

Remember:  This is not legal advice. If you have questions about your particular situation, please consult a lawyer, CPA, or other appropriate professional advisor or agency.

Related posts

June 29, 2024

Writing an Effective One-Page Business Plan: What You Need to Know (+ Free Template)

If you’ve started—or are starting—a small business, you’ve probably heard the words ‘business plan’ thrown around. That’s because a business…

June 26, 2024

How to Start a Construction Business in 8 Easy Steps

Being able to build something from the ground up is an incredible skill: a skill you can monetize into your…

Top 4 Strategies to Grow Your Construction Business

For those in the construction business, laying the foundation for a house can be a piece of cake. But what…

How to Start a Retail Business: A Beginner’s Guide

So, you want to start a retail business. What now? There’s the idea, the products, the space, taxes, the employees,…

How to Start a Cleaning Business in 6 Steps

So you want to start a cleaning business. You want to work for yourself, you love a good Mr. Clean…

How to Start a Coffee Business in 10 Steps

Does the thought of running your own business make you jittery with excitement? How about going to work every day…

Subscribe to our newsletter

Looking for ways to stay up to date on employment laws and small business news?

Homebase makes managing hourly work easier for over 100,000 local businesses. With free employee scheduling , time tracking , and team communication , managers and employees can spend less time on paperwork and more time on growing their business.

• Hiring & onboarding
• Team communication
• Employee happiness
• HR & compliance
• Integrations
• Food & beverage
• Beauty & wellness
• Medical & veterinary
• Home & repair
• Hospitality & leisure
• Education & caregiving
• Contact sales
• Become a Partner
• Careers – We’re hiring!
• #realtalk Blog

You're reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool's Premium Investing Services. Become a Motley Fool member today to get instant access to our top analyst recommendations, in-depth research, investing resources, and more. Learn More

If You Bought 1 Share of Coca-Cola at Its IPO, Here's How Many Shares You'd Own Now

• Investors have been drawn to companies conducting forward-stock splits.
• Including stock dividends, Coca-Cola's shareholders have enjoyed 11 stock-split events since the company went public 105 years ago.
• Despite underperforming in the current bull market, Coca-Cola stock is still bubbling with opportunity.
• Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert

Wall Street's most-chosen consumer brand has navigated its way through 10 stock splits and one stock dividend since its initial public offering (IPO) in 1919.

Companies enacting stock splits are currently all the rage on Wall Street.

A stock split allows a publicly traded company to alter its share price and outstanding share count without impacting its market cap or operating performance. Although all eyes have been on high-profile stock-split stocks like Nvidia and Broadcom , which both recently announced 10-for-1 forward splits , investors shouldn't overlook the time-tested businesses that are truly stock-split champions.

Beverage colossus Coca-Cola ( KO -0.58% ) is a perfect example.

Image source: Getty Images.

Unraveling Coca-Cola's stock-split history

On Sept. 5, 1919, Coca-Cola debuted as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange at an initial public offering (IPO) price of $40 per share. Over 105 years, this iconic business has navigated 10 forward-stock splits and one stock dividend:

• April 1927: 1-for-1 stock dividend
• November 1935: 4-for-1 stock split
• January 1960: 3-for-1
• January 1965: 2-for-1
• May 1968: 2-for-1
• May 1977: 2-for-1
• June 1986: 3-for-1
• May 1990: 2-for-1
• May 1992: 2-for-1
• May 1996: 2-for-1
• July 2012: 2-for-1

This means a single share purchased in 1919 would have grown to a cumulative 9,216 shares, worth $578,488.32, as of June 21, not including dividends.

Is Coca-Cola still a magnificent business?

Admittedly, Coca-Cola's stock has performed poorly in the current bull market. But when push comes to shove, Coca-Cola is flush with competitive advantages that make it a phenomenal business.

Coca-Cola has over two-dozen global brands generating at least $1 billion in annual sales, and it operates in all but three countries worldwide (North Korea, Cuba, and Russia). Kantar's "Brand Footprint" report also finds that Coca-Cola has been the most-chosen brand by consumers for an astounding 12 consecutive years.

Moreover, Coca-Cola's marketing prowess is top tier . It relies on well-known brand ambassadors and digital campaigns to connect with younger audiences, while leaning on more than a century of history to engage with its mature consumers.

For long-term-minded investors, Coca-Cola stock is still bubbling with opportunity ( and a hearty dividend ).

Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

Related Articles

Premium Investing Services

Invest better with The Motley Fool. Get stock recommendations, portfolio guidance, and more from The Motley Fool's premium services.

Barcelona plan to raise capital by floating ‘Barca Media’ arm on NASDAQ stock exchange officially over

Barcelona ’s plan to raise hundreds of millions of euros to help fix their severe financial problems by floating a ‘Barca Media’ on the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York is officially over.

Barcelona president Joan Laporta announced the scheme in August 2023, with the new ‘Barca Media’ brand containing all of the club’s digital and audiovisual production activities valued at $1billion by the club .

Advertisement

The initial idea was to launch a SPAC investment vehicle on the NASDAQ by the end of 2023.

However, problems quickly emerged with German company Libero’s involvement as investors, and the launch date was regularly pushed further and further back in the following months.

Barcelona’s search for another quick fix – and questions over their ‘$1bn’ media brand

A formal end to the idea has now come with Mountain Partners — the Swiss company who had raised €120m ($129m) in investment, and were looking for a partner to launch a media company on the NASDAQ — and Barcelona informing the SEC of the termination of their business agreement. Mountain is now looking for a new ‘SPAC’ investment opportunity instead.

This means further financial problems for Laporta’s board — given that the Barca Media company was given a €400m valuation in the club’s 2022-23 accounts, a valuation which will now likely have to be revised downwards.

La Liga also took the Barca Media scheme into account when calculating Barca’s salary limit for 2022-23. The problems with Libero, and other investors Socios and Orpheus, meant that limit was revised down mid-season. This is also why the club are not currently able to register new players for 2023-24, with a search for new investors to enter the scheme having not yet been successful.

The Athletic has approached Mountain for comment. Barcelona had no comment when approached.

Barcelona squad audit: Big transfers are unlikely, so who does Flick have to work with?

OK, so what does this mean?

It was always difficult to see how the Barca Media scheme was going to really fix the club’s financial problems. The €1bn overall valuation seemed wildly optimistic, and the club’s former financial vice-president Eduardo Romeu admitted ahead of last October’s AGM that the €400m value in their accounts was “just financial engineering”.

Barcelona’s board have taken Libero to a German court to force payment of €40m the Catalan club say they are owed, but there is no sign of that case being resolved soon. A deadline of June 30 has also passed without Socios or Orpheus making payments totalling €60m for their shares of Barca Media.

So as things stand, Barcelona cannot register any new players for the 2024-25 campaign, or even register existing players Vitor Roque or Inigo Martinez with La Liga.

There was more confusion on Sunday (June 30), when Barcelona first announced official goodbyes for Joao Felix and Joao Cancelo, with their loans from Atletico Madrid and Manchester City ending, but then quickly deleted the social media posts .

Laporta has said that he would like both ‘Joaos’ to return on loan next season, but La Liga will not allow those deals to happen until a significant solution is found to the Barca Media problem.

It is sure to be another long summer of drama at the Catalan club, with huge uncertainty over which current players can continue and which potential transfer targets can actually be signed.

Barca's €130m hole in their accounts - and why a June 30 deadline is key

(Top photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)

Get all-access to exclusive stories.

Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.

Dermot joined The Athletic in 2020 and has been our main La Liga Correspondent up until now. Irish-born, he has spent more than a decade living in Madrid and writing about Spanish football for ESPN, the UK Independent and the Irish Examiner. Follow Dermot on Twitter @ dermotmcorrigan