Network Solutions – Small business conversations and working together for small business success

Frame the Plan – Part 3 of the 2009 Business Plan Series

February 17, 2009 :: Steve Fisher

In Part 2 we talked about selecting the right type of plan to fit your needs. Now that you have decided that, let’s get into the general structure of a business plan. While the outline structure I may propose works, there are many different ways to skin the cat. Here are a few examples…

Example Outline #1 – SBA Example Business Plan Outline

The Small Business Administration is focused on helping you sell the plan to a bank and get an SBA loan. They take a three section approach:

• Cover sheet
  
• Statement of purpose
  
• Table of contents
  
• Part I – The Business
  
• Part II -Financial Data
  
• Part III – Supporting Documents

Example Outline #2 – Business-Plan.com Consulting Firm

This is from Business-Plan.com and is from the book “Anatomy of a Business Plan & Automate Your Business Plan”:

• Cover Sheet
• Executive Summary
• Table of Contents
• Part I: The Organizational Plan
• Part II: The Marketing Plan
• Part III: Financial Documents
• Part IV: Supporting Documents

Example Outline #3 -BPlans.com (Business Plan Pro) Example

Business Plan Pro is the go-to program if you are looking to have software help you with the heavy lifting. This can be good in some ways but can really make you look amateurish if you are not careful. They use many wizards to gather information and this is the rough outline they produce:

• Cover Page
  
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
• Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
• Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
• Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc.
• Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budgets. Make sure you can track results.
• Web Plan Summary: For e-commerce, include discussion of website, development costs, operations, sales and marketing strategies.
• Management Team: Describe the organization and the key management team members.
• Financial Analysis: Make sure to include at the very least your projected Profit and Loss and Cash Flow tables.

Now let’s get started…

Now that have had your questions answered, selected the type of plan you need to write and have an outline on how to approach this thing, let’s get writing. The first and last thing to write? The Executive Summary. Why? We will talk about that next time.

Comments are moderated and will appear shortly. See terms.

blog comments powered by Disqus