A Business Plan

If you are approaching a banker for a loan for a start-up business, your loan officer may suggest a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, which will require a business plan. If you have an existing business and are approaching a bank for capital to expand the business, they often will not require a business plan, but they may look more favorably on your application if you have one. Reasons for writing a business plan include: * Define a new business * Support a loan application * Raise equity funding * Define objectives and describe programs to achieve those objectives * Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion * Create a regular business review and course correction process * Define agreements between partners * Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes What’s in a business plan? A business plan should prove that your business will generate enough revenue to cover your expenses, but a business plan may vary depending on your audience. If you are writing a plan for your colleagues and partners to expand an existing business, then the focus of that plan may be more operational than financial. If you are writing a plan for a bank, the most important aspect to the bank manager will be your financials. Are your assumptions realistic? Will the cash flow be enough that you can make the monthly payments for the loan you have requested? If your business is making $1,000 a month and your payments are $1,200 a month, the bank is likely to turn you away. A business plan will be hard to implement unless it is simple, specific, realistic and complete. Even if it is all these things, a good plan will need someone to follow up and check on it. The plan depends on the human elements around it, particularly the process of commitment and involvement, and the tracking and follow-up that comes afterward. Successful implementation starts with a good plan. There are elements that will make a plan more likely to be successfully implemented. Some of the clues to implementation include: 1. Is the plan simple? Is it easy to understand and to act on? Does it communicate its contents easily and practically? 2. Is the plan specific? Are its objectives concrete and measurable? Does it include specific actions and activities, each with specific dates of completion, specific persons responsible and specific budgets? 3. Is the plan realistic? Are the sales goals, expense budgets, and milestone dates realistic? Nothing stifles implementation like unrealistic goals. 4. Is the plan complete? Does it include all the necessary elements? Requirements of a business plan vary, depending on the context. There is no guarantee, however, that the plan will work if it doesn’t cover the main bases. As far as beginning, the success of any business plan is within the quality of the information provided. Once you determine the type of business you want to go into, the plan itself is to represent the operation on paper as if it already exists. How much revenue is expected, from where, the marketing plan that prompts the sales, the infrastructure needed to meet the needs of doing business as well as other related actions and costs. Take your time and talk to as many people as possible for information.