When you start a new business, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of creating products and services, updating social media, or searching for clients.
Creating a business plan seems comparatively dull fare. It sounds formal, complicated, and time consuming.
But planning for the future is essential to business success, enabling you to form a brand identity, develop ways of keeping track of your finances, or plot future growth.
The good news is that a business plan doesn’t need to be a 40 page corporate document. For most entrepreneurs, especially those launching a small business, side hustle, or early stage startup, a simple, well structured plan is more than enough to clarify your thinking and guide decisions.
By developing a simple business plan, you will be able to articulate what you’re building, why it matters, and how you’ll make it work. Such a plan will become a roadmap which you can revisit and refine.
When putting a business plan together, it is useful to create sections which allow you to breakdown different elements of your business and how it can be developed.
The below examples provide a useful structure for a simple business plan:
Creating a concise overview of your business will not only help you to define exactly what it is you are hoping to achieve, but can be used as an ‘elevator pitch’ when speaking to potential clients and investors.
Think of your executive summary as capturing the essence of your business idea. It should include details of what your business does, who it serves, the problems you hope to address, your unique value, and any future goals over the next year or two.
Although such a summary will appear first in your plan, it will probably be easier to write it once the rest of the plan is clear.
In this section, the foundation of the business should be outlined, including details of what it is, why it exists, and what you aim to achieve.
It should also outline some basic elements such as your business name and structure – whether that be sole trader, partnership or limited company; your mission statement; and your vision.
This overview should feature your values and principles, explaining how they will guide any future decisions. This is where you define your identity as a business, not just your product.
It is important to be clear what you’re selling. Take some time to explain what your key product or service is, and the problem it solves. This section should include your key features and benefits, a pricing strategy, and any future product ideas or add-ons.
You should also take some time to think about any intellectual property or proprietary methods. These items function as your intellectual property and identifying them will help you to achieve specific outcomes.
The overall goal here is to show that your offering is both valuable and viable.
This section should enable you to understand the market you operate in and the unique proposition you provide. By conducting market analysis, you will be able to know your customers and the environment you’re entering.
Be sure to investigate your target audience (their demographics, behaviour and needs), the size of your market, any industry trends and what your competitors are doing.
Any competitor analysis doesn’t have to be a degree-style dissertation. Instead, a simple competitor table, looking at rivals’ strengths, weaknesses, products and pricing, will work really well.
One vital part of creating a business plan is outlining your marketing and sales strategy. Essentially, this involves looking at how you intend to attract and retain customers.
It should include your brand identity concentrating on how you want to be perceived and what your values are, the marketing channels you intend to use, and your sales process.
Information to be listed in this section includes a list of the social media platforms you want to use and other marketing methods such as SEO, emails or paid advertising. You should also think about customer retention, whether that comes from loyalty programmes or by building community.
In this section, you should outline behind the scenes engine of your business from daily operations to logistics.
Think of this as the ‘how’ behind your business, covering aspects such as your key tools and software, suppliers and partners, your production process, and any staffing needs.
Every business plan needs to create a clear financial picture. Many small businesses will collapse due to cash flow issues or because they haven’t got their pricing right, so be sure to invest some time in thinking your financial plan through.
You should analyse everything from your start-up costs and revenue streams to your pricing, projected income levels, and any funding you may require.
Your numbers don’t have to be perfect, but it is important that they are realistic, well reasoned estimates and provide perspective on exactly where you are financially as a business.
This is where your plan becomes actionable, charting key goals, deadlines, metrics for success, and dependencies – what needs to happen before the next stage of a process begins.
A simple timeline or checklist works beautifully here, keeping you focused and enabling you to track progress.
This format is intentionally lean. By creating clarity without drowning you in detail, this sort of business plan is flexible enough for any business type and robust enough to guide real decisions.
Most importantly, it’s a living document which can be updated as and when your business grows and evolves.
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