What is a business plan?
A business plan provides the outline of a company's goals and strategies to achieve them.
What are the parts of a business plan?
Executive Summary
Company Description
Market Analysis
Products or Services
Marketing and Sales Strategy
Operations and Management
Financial Projections
Funding Requests
Appendix
Before registering your business, you must choose the business structure. This will allow you to get a tax ID number and to be able to file for the appropriate licenses and permits.
The most common types of business structures are:
For more information on determining your business structure, see Choose a Business Structure from the SBA or Selecting a Business Structure from the Texas Secretary of State.
Information provided for educational purposes only. Decisions on management structures for your business are best discussed with your attorney.
Bplans.com has a business plan template that can be downloaded as a word document. According to them, this template has been used by over 500,000 businesses and has been approved by universities such as Princeton and Babson. This site sells plans, but also offers some free ones.
CLP provides dozens of sample business plans for a variety of industries.
The U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA, has created a step-by-step tool for building, editing, and downloading your business plan. Once you register with the SBA, you can edit all of the sections of your plan, save them, update them, and export them to PDF files.
Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) provides business plan templates.
How to Write a Business Plan by
If you are starting or selling your own business, or wanting to expand your company, business plans are essential. Get expert guidance on how to make an impact with your business plan and successfully communicate your strategic vision.Whether it is to raise finance, sell a business or develop a specific project, this is your one-stop guide to producing the most professional and convincing business plan for a new venture. This 7th edition now features even more practical exercises, useful templates and top tips to help you write a comprehensive and compelling plan, as well as content on digital developments such as crowdfunding, online retailing and digital marketing.The Creating Success series of books...Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.
How to Write a Business Plan by
Discusses financing, bank applications, cash flow forecasts, and capital spending plans, and explains how to create an effective business plan and loan proposal.
The Successful Business Plan by
Explains the purpose of a business plan, describes each step in creating an effective plan, and includes advice on obtaining financing.
How to Write a Great Business Plan by
In How to Write a Great Business Plan, Harvard Business School professor William A. Sahlman provides a framework that assess the four interdependent factors critical to every entrepreneur and new business venture.
Judging by all the hoopla surrounding business plans, you'd think the only things standing between would-be entrepreneurs and spectacular success are glossy five-color charts, bundles of meticulous-looking spreadsheets, and decades of month-by-month financial projections. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, often the more elaborately crafted a business plan, the more likely the venture is to flop.
Why? Most plans waste too much ink on numbers and devote too little to information that really matters to investors. The result? Investors discount them.
In How to Write a Great Business Plan, William A. Sahlman shows how to avoid this all-too-common mistake by ensuring that your plan assesses the factors critical to every new venture:
The people—the individuals launching and leading the venture and outside parties providing key services or important resources
The opportunity—what the business will sell and to whom, and whether the venture can grow and how fast
The context—the regulatory environment, interest rates, demographic trends, and other forces shaping the venture's fate
Risk and reward—what can go wrong and right, and how the entrepreneurial team will respond
Timely in this age of innovation, How to Write a Great Business Plan helps you give your new venture the best possible chances for success.
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