How to write a business plan step by step

Introduction

The cornerstone of your company is its business plan. Using a business plan template, you may quickly and effectively learn how to develop a business plan. It provides information about a company's activities, leadership, staffing, products or services offered, revenue generation methods, and other vital information.

The investor process accepts the entrepreneur thanks to the business plan. Many investor organizations won't even agree to an interview without a strategy being provided. And if the objective is to attract investment capital, it must be exceptional.

Entrepreneurs and corporate managers must have a thorough, well-thought-out company plan to succeed. You will never encounter a writing task that is more difficult than creating a business plan, whether you are beginning a new company, looking for funding for current product lines, or suggesting a new activity in a corporate division.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a written statement of an organization's objectives, hopes, and desires, as well as the timetable, resources, and strategies required to realize those objectives. It might also contain a mission statement and information on the particular goods or services provided. It concerns whatever else you would require to begin.

A business plan is a thorough road map for the expansion and development of your small firm. It expresses who you are, what you intend to do, and how you intend to do it. Additionally, it aids in luring talent and investment.

But keep in mind that a business concept or idea is not the same as a plan.

A solid business plan helps you at every step of beginning and running your company. Your business plan will serve as a guide for how to set up, manage, and expand your new company. It helps you consider your company's essential components. A well-written business plan should contain information on your company's objectives, goods or services, and finances.

A business plan is a great place to start if you're searching for an organized strategy to organize your thoughts and ideas and communicate them with people who can significantly impact your success.

The importance of a business plan

A new business's launch involves many steps. Along with coming up with a business idea, you must also decide on the specifics of the enterprise, such as the goods or services you will offer, the location of your operations, and the people who will work there. A company strategy can offer direction during this process, which can assist prevent errors. It can give you insight into the actions you must take to launch your company, as well as the resources you will require.

A comprehensive business plan must demonstrate to all interested parties, including partners, employees, investors, and yourself, that you are dedicated to growing the company. Making your plan forces you to consider and decide on growth-promoting tactics. A business strategy not only helps you concentrate on specific goals, but it also demonstrates to others that you have considered things through.

Your company strategy may be able to attract new investors or business partners. Having one in place will give investors more assurance that they will get their money back. The resource you will employ to convince people that collaborating with you (or investing in your company) is a wise choice is your business plan.

An effective business plan is a crucial tool because it enables entrepreneurs, small business owners, and their staff to outline their goals and monitor their success as their company expands. When launching a new firm, business strategy should come first. Business plans are crucial for attracting investors because they enable them to assess whether your company is headed in the right direction and is worthwhile for their capital.

Making a business plan enables you to decide in advance on some of the most important company decisions.

Passion is the driving force behind many enterprises, but it's not a very reliable indicator of success.

The most crucial stage between concept and reality is probably planning out exactly how you will transform that vision into a prosperous business. You can use business plans to confirm whether your big idea makes good business sense.

If you want to move your current firm in a new direction, you might also write a business plan. It is possible to assess if a change will be lucrative by outlining the specifics and financials of the new strategy. This includes identifying your target market, your target clients, and the best way to contact them.

An excellent business plan aids in resource management and organization for the company. It gives insight into the outcomes of actions like setting up additional offices, hiring new employees, changing production, and so forth. Additionally, it aids in the financial impact analysis for the company.

Businesses can save time, money, and resources when they develop plans while keeping in mind the shortcomings and failures of the past as well as what worked for them and what didn't. Businesses have the chance to steer clear of future mistakes with such plans.

How to write a business plan? Check out the 9 key elements of a well-written business plan.

1. Write an executive summary.

Give your reader a brief description of your business and explain why it will succeed. Include a brief description of your company's objective, your product or service, and the leadership team, staff, and location of your business. If you intend to request funding, you should also provide financial details and high-level growth objectives.

2.Develop your service.

Although this phase should logically come after completing research, most firms begin with an idea for a particular good or service. Consider refining a product or service you currently have in mind. Having a clear notion of what you want to sell will help you get your study going, but be ready to change your mind as you learn more.

3. Refine and tighten your concept.

Your Summary highlights the key components of your strategy, omitting the less crucial details in favor of the most crucial ones.

Naturally, you'll concentrate on the issues that impact your Summary's likelihood of success. Go back and start over if your idea is too nebulous, general, or complex. The majority of great companies can be described in a few sentences rather than a few pages.

4. Demonstrate Feasibility to Investors.

One of the most difficult aspects of starting a business is finding funding. Before investing their money in your business idea, every investor—whether a bank or a venture capitalist—wants to understand its potential and viability.

This is the exact reason why investors demand that you submit a business plan that comprehensively addresses all of their concerns. Your business plan serves as proof that your venture can withstand market risks and competition.

5. Attract the right talent.

A business plan could require additional experts, such as lawyers, landlords, consultants, or accountants.Attracting competent employees and partners is essential for a small firm to prosper. A business plan for hiring personnel should include strategies for attracting the best talent, from executives to skilled workers, by outlining the company's goals and potential for expansion. Additionally, it can aid in securing vendor accounts, particularly with premium suppliers.

6. Turn Your Ideas into Actions with a Business Plan.

A company plan is a crucial tool for management and planning. It covers each phase of starting your business, managing it, and directing it toward your objective. Make a thorough business strategy for your organization that fulfills the aforementioned objectives.

7. Size Up Your Competitors.

Determine your direct and indirect competitors and consider how your product or service compares to theirs. Note key attributes and success factors, evaluate your business against the competition, and then identify your competitive advantage or develop one using the information obtained in the competitor analysis.

8. Do some market analysis.

You'll need a good understanding of your industry outlook and target market. Competitive research will show you what other businesses are doing and what their strengths are. In your market research, look for trends and themes. What do successful competitors do? Why does it work? Can you do it better? Now's the time to answer these questions.

9. Determine Your Financial Needs.

Calculate how much must be invested to start your business. You will need to fund operations until the business can sustain itself. Keep in mind that actual sales are usually lower and expenses higher than forecast. Decide which, if any, outside sources of funding your business will utilize, and draft a plan for securing those funds.

Let’s Make it into action

Until now we were talking about How to write a business plan theoretically. Now we apply the steps of writing a business plan to some examples:

How to write a business plan for a restaurant?

For writing a restaurant business plan, you can use these tips:

1. Branded cover

Include your logo (even if it’s not finalized), the date, and your name.

2. Sample Menu

The following item you must add is a sample menu. Make sure to emphasize both your food and beverage selections. You should devote a lot of time to this section of the restaurant business plan because the menu is essential to both your establishment and your brand. Instead of just listing everything, try to come as near to a complete menu as you can. Use a cleverly designed format and include alluring descriptions. If necessary, use this opportunity to splurge on the assistance of a design expert.

3. Marketing

You should expand on the details you introduced in the Market Analysis section of your restaurant business plan in the marketing section. Explain in detail how you intend to launch your restaurant to the public and maintain it there in their minds.

4. Competitive Analysis

In this part, you can go into further detail about what other businesses are nearby your proposed location.

You'll be describing the current competitive environment: List the number of additional eateries in the neighborhood, paying special attention to those with comparable concepts. Investors are going to want to know why customers would choose your restaurant over the competition. What will distinguish your cuisine and customer service? Will you be open longer than your rivals each week? Engage in anything that will give your company a competitive edge.

5. Staffing

How many people are you anticipating in each of the various roles, and what positions will be required? How will you distinguish yourself as a top employer? What will each position's expected pay be in general? What are the hiring requirements for each position, and how will you go about finding employees?

How to write a business plan for a hotel?

For writing a hotel business plan, follow these steps:

1. Company Analysis

More specific information about your hotel concept's USPs (unique selling points).

2. Management Team

Include your team's biographies. Pay attention to how you are uniquely suited to make your hotel such a success. Success depends on having a great team, and stakeholders will be impressed if the added value that each team member contributes to the project is explained in detail.

3. Analyze The Data and Determine the Feasibility

Checking the numbers comes next after deciding whether to buy or build. The numbers will show you how much capital you'll require, how much that capital will cost when it will become profitable, and what the potential benefits are for you as the operator, owner, or investor.

4. Appendix

This section of the fundamental business plan should contain all of your financial projections and supporting documentation. Include letters from significant partners, information about any automation technology patents, and other pertinent documents.

5. Revenue and pricing

At the end of the day, your company must be successful (or at least break even!) to continue operating, thus you must strive to maintain a positive cash flow.

Think carefully about the kinds of rooms you have to sell and the price points you want to use. Include topics like special offers and discounts, policies regarding cancellation and refunds, methods of payment, and rate parity.

How to write a business plan for dairy farming?

For writing a dairy farming business plan, you can use these tips:

1. Finding the right location 

You must produce some or all of the forages if your dairy farm is to be profitable. To grow grains and other foods for your herd, you must have enough acreage. Ideally, you want to choose a location that will allow for future expansion so you can accommodate long-term growth.

You also need a location where you can sell your milk promptly and for a little extra expense to your farm. It gets easier to sell the milk for reasonable prices and still have good margins the closer you are to your potential customers.

Last but not least, you require a reliable source of clean water that can meet all of your farm's water needs.

2. Executive Summary

It is worthwhile to create a business plan for your dairy farming operation. You'll have a thorough understanding of your market, competitors, and customers. You will have created a marketing strategy and fully comprehend what it takes to start and expand a dairy farm.

3. Financial Plan

Your 5-year financial statement should be broken down both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually in your financial plan. Your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements are all parts of your financial statements.

4. Creating a realistic budget 

Making money in this industry isn't always simple because it requires paying for land, buildings, machinery, crops, and dairy cattle. Budget carefully and prepare for unpredicted events like decreased productivity due to climate change, a drop in the price of milk, or increased medical costs.

5. Appendix

Include all of your financial projections in the appendix of your plan, along with any additional materials that will strengthen your case. You could, for instance, list the products your dairy farm will sell, the kinds of clients you'll be aiming for, and the regions it will serve.

How to write a business plan more easily and quickly

So, always there's a way to simplify what you need to do. And in this case, to write a business plan, you can use so many temples, tools, and album collections in WPS Office. You can use it for organizing your ideas and sharing information needed with your investors, coworkers and consultant, etc., through the messenger available in the app -installable on iOS, Android, Mac, and Linux- and speed up your way to writing a well-written business plan. Also, there are free tutorials for easing up using WPS Office features.

You can write your business plan by using options like schedules, checklists, calendars, reports, and budget templates in an accurate way.

For the financial part of your business plan, there are templates like projects, customer services, sales, finance statements, and so on.

Here are some useful templates for writing a business Plan:

1. Creative Business Plan

In this template you have options like Infographics, album collection, introducing your new products and services, etc.

2. Simple Frame Business Plan

In this template, you can show your audience where your branches locate, what is your process, the team members, and so on.

You can find this template in the link below:

3. Fresh Hexagon Creative Business Plan

Here, you can define and demonstrate your schedule, deadlines, and your goals during a specified time, the types of your products or services.

4. Orange flat business general Plan

This template can help you to make your audience and investors confident about your services. By applying impressive images, you can make them sure to trust you.

Also, you can show the process of your business by adding specific numbers which made your business plan clear for them.

Conclusion

The strategies and suggestions for writing a business plan are presented in the text above. Additionally, you can follow WPS Academy if you want to learn more specifics about business ideas.

You can download WPS Office and install it on your computer to get started working if you want to learn more about business plan templates. It makes your access to the tools and templates more easily and quickly.  Additionally, WPS Office now offers additional free business plan templates as mentioned above.