Business Plan – Why Your Company Needs a Business Plan
By Rajib Dam
Many entrepreneurs start off their businesses with a good idea, but without a startup business plan. An idea is the genesis of a small business, but a business plan is the blueprint that the company will follow to success. If you are unfamiliar with how to write a business plan, then hire a business plan consultant to see you through the process. It is critical that your business plan be as comprehensive as possible to give your business a path to follow to success.
One of the key elements of any business plan is the description of products and services. Any startup business plan writer will tell you that having the description of what the company does in writing helps the company leaders to make proper decisions. The description of the company products or services tells you what the company does and what it does not do. If elements within the company start to see other opportunities to make money, the statement of products and services will dictate if those opportunities fit within the company guidelines. In some cases, it may be necessary to start a whole new division within the company to address new opportunities. It depends on what the company business plan says.
Your business plan is the document you use to attract investors and get top talent to join your organization. One of the ways you do that is to develop an operating budget and sales projections for the next three to five years. The operating budget will show investors how you are able to keep costs down while running your company. The sales projections will indicate to investors and prospective key employees how you intend to grow the company in the coming years. This is the kind of information you will need to get critical people involved in the growth of your organization.
If you want to learn how to write a business plan on your own, then check out the many sample business plans available online. Even if you decide to draft your business plan yourself, you should still get it looked over by a business plan expert to make sure that you have included everything you need. In the end, the business plan will be the document you refer to most often to make important company decisions and to run the company on a day to day basis. Without a plan, your company will not have a direction and it will lack the ability to generate growth as time goes by.