Writing your own business plan can seem like an overwhelming task, however as long as you can identify the key components of your business, it doesn’t have to be difficult. The key is to create an internal working business plan before you start on the more complex business plans for banks and investors. Once you have created your internal working plan, creating more official business plans are a snap.

When writing your own business plan, there are 4 basic components to the content and analysis:

1.Product or Service

Every company creates something of value for the consumer, regardless of whether it is a product or service. By truly understanding what value you are providing to your customers, you will already have all of the information necessary for formal executive summaries, about us, and the company description.

2.Customers

When it comes to your customers there are several important aspects that you need to understand. The first is who are your primary customers going to be. By identifying your customer profiles, it is much easier to know who you will marketing to. Different customer bases require different strategies and tactics.

Next, you must understand how many potential customers exist. If there are only 10 people who want your product or service, then your business will not be very profitable. The easiest way to determine how large your customer base may be is to look at your competitors that are already targeting your customer base.

In order to do this, you must be able to clearly identify who your competitors are. By knowing this information about your potential customers, you will be able to create formal market analysis, primary and secondary markets, marketing strategy, marketing plan, market size, and competitive analysis.

3.Action Plan

Now that you have identified your customers, it is important to create an action plan and set of goals. What will your company look like in 1, 3, and 5 years? This questions will help guide what actions need to be taken. Additionally, you need to create short term goals that can be accomplished within a few months or even a year. Finally, what steps will need to be taken in order to achieve your goals and projections. This information will later help you create your implementation strategy, milestones, time-lines, and exit strategy.

4.Show Me the Money

When it comes to your finances, there are two basic facts that need to be identified. The first is how much money it will cost to create your product or provide the services. The second is how much money you will charge in order to create a profit. These two pieces of information will help you create your financial analysis, financial projections, profit/loss statement, income statement, cash-flow projections, and startup costs.

By understanding these four concepts and creating an internal business plan, writing your own business plan will be simple. All of the information that you gathered for your internal plan, can easily be reformatted and modified to create more a more formal version for banks and investors.

Author Bio: Read business plan software reviews to help you choose the right software package for your needs.

Category: Business Management
Keywords: business plan,business plan writing,plan writing service,writing business plans