Jane Khedair, managing director of Business Plan Services, shares the key issues to be considered when preparing your business plan.
It's important to get your business plan right the first time round, because your business may not get a second chance. Here are the top five issues to consider before putting pen to paper.
- Work out who your business plan is for to make sure that you address the requirements of that audience type.
- Start by thinking 'big picture' and keep focused to create a 'vision' for your business in, say, three years' time. If you don't know where you are going, it is hard to work out how to get there.
- Make sure that you can clearly identify the market before you design a product so that you can be sure that you are filling a need rather than trying to create demand.
- Listen to potential customers to size your market from the bottom up rather than the top down, enabling you to understand what is important to them rather than assuming that the whole market will attach equal importance to what you intend to sell. Not everyone will be your customer.
- It is unwise to propose a valuation for any equity finance you want to raise, since this will serve only to set an upper limit to such a valuation, leaving little or no room for negotiation.
Taken from: Successful Business Plans – Get Brilliant Results Fast by Jane Khedair and Michael Anderson
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Business Plan Services operates in association with the London Business School, providing independent business planning assistance. Drawing on a team of 80 consultants, they manage the process from nurturing new ideas and business planning, to delivering a complete business plan to senior management for budgetary approval and implementation. The Government's Train 2 Gain funding programme, available to businesses based in Greater London with five or more employees, can be used to offset 60% (£875) of the cost of the firm's new 'Successful Business Plan Programme'. |
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