Starting a New Business Part 7 - The Business Plan

The Business Plan
There are lots of templates available for different business plans and there are even sites where you can pick up specific examples, but I would recommend that you don't spend too much time selecting a template its your content that is important.  Some templates:

Enterprise Ireland Business Plan Template

Fingal County Enterprise Board Business Plan Template

Dublin City Enterprise Board Sample Business Plan

Business Planning Software Product Tool

You can also create your own, basic business plan sections would be:

• Executive Summary - Concise and interesting summary of the whole plan
• Company Description - what we do, how we do it, why we do it
• Product or Services - Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People
• Market Analysis - Size, Competitors, Target, Trend, SWOT Analysis
• Strategy and Implementation - Premises, equipment, operational plans 
• Marketing Plan - Advertisement, Web site plans, 
• Management Team - Management team, staff requirements, staff plans
• Financial Analysis - Profit and Loss, Cashflow, Balance Sheet, Assumptions

Once you have selected a template, for this purpose the elephant, then eat the elephant one bite at a time, it is amazing how the structure comes together when you take just one section and focus on its content and it does not have to be perfect first time.  This is an ongoing process do not expect to have your business plan written in a few days it will evolve with your business idea, your target market, your products, your prices evolve and before you know it you will be ready to write the executive summary, your one page pitch at the start of the document. 

It can be a time consuming process to get all of your creative ideas, facts, market analysis information into a structured document - The Skills Academy can help here - we meet with you once each week to gather your business information and we structure draft by draft your business plan to reflect your data.  This process is quicker and our business mentor can also keep you focussed on the end result and on areas of your business plan which may be weak.  

Call us on 01 4939433 or 085 1676143 to discuss, or email theskillsacademy@eircom.net