A brilliant idea paves the way to successful entrepreneurship. Even though an idea leads the path to an organization’s success, it is not the only factor that defines the success of the organization. Without the knowledge of converting that brilliant idea into an actionable plan that has to be presented to the investors, it is useless. An idea itself has no power if it is not presented competently in front of the investors. This is what a business plan is all about. Presenting your idea in front of your investors in such a way that it engages your investors and encourages them to invest in your company.
However, like every other plan, a business plan is made up of a few elements that make it outstanding. Here are a few of them-
- Executive Summary
Even though it appears first in the queue when it comes to a business plan, it should be written at the very end so that you can condense all the important ideas from all the other sections and sum it up in form of an executive summary. It is also the most significant part of a business plan so it should be well-scripted and precise. The executive summary should be created in such a way that compels the investors to go through the entire business plan and prompts them to make an investment.
- Company Profile
Before investing in your plan, an investor would like to know everything about your company. So, your company should have a well-defined company profile with includes your company’s history, the products, and services you deal in, the resources you use, your target market and audience along with your mission/ goal statement. A proper analytical statement mentioning your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are to be mentioned in your company profile. Investors would also like to know the organizational structure as well as the competency and the experience of the people at the top of the hierarchy and at the decision-making, level to analyze whether your company is worth the investment or not.
Having a well-built company profile makes the entire process of creating an outstanding business plan a whole lot easier.
- Product Description
Describe the product and service your company deals in and what makes it unique from others out there. Give a strong reason as to how your product is a competent one in the market and why people should prefer your product/ service over others. Details concerning product lifecycle, any research, and development activities to be undertaken and any intellectual issues can be mentioned in this part. If your product or service is based on an entirely different concept, then explain it clearly in this section. Also, mention the problems that need to addressed and the extra benefits that your product and service will offer.
- Target market
Selecting the right target market is very critical to the overall success of a business. Extensive market research has to be conducted by competent employees to ascertain this. Details like business’s marketing penetration strategy, market share, main competitors, targeted customers in the industry are to be discussed here. You should also present the analyzed size, growth, new developments, trends and potential of your target market in this section.
- Marketing and sales plan
A great business plan should always include an aggressive and strategic marketing plan. It should discuss your business’s marketing penetration strategy, a strategy to help your business grow once market penetration has been accomplished, subsequent channels of distribution and a communication strategy that can help you reach your customers. It should also include information on marketing mediums, the timing for each and every marketing campaign and other critical decisions. Additionally, it should showcase the sales strategy outlining your sales activities.
- Financial analysis of the business
Financial data always come at the end, but that doesn’t mean it is less important in comparison to other points. As the main aim of every business is to make money, proper revenue projections, cash flow analysis, and break-even analysis has to be done as well as documented. This will help in instilling confidence and trust in the minds of potential investors. The financial data should consist of both historical information in the form of income statements, cash flow statements and balance sheets for the last three to five years and financial projections of the new product or service. Also, the assumptions made while deciding upon the company’s finances should be discussed in this section.
So, don’t just wait and waste your brilliant ideas. Turn these ideas into an actionable business plan and present it in front of your investors with the help of PowerPoint templates available online to get your business funded. Include these 6 elements in your business plan and you are sure to create a business plan that sells!
Author Bio – Jenna Davis is a Business Analyst at SlideTeam, the world’s largest PPT templates provider on any topic. Reading and writing are one of her favorite activities in free time. She is passionate to assist businesses to attain a competitive edge with her writing skills on small business topics, marketing, branding and business success stories.