Business plan 

The procedure for drawing up a business plan: yourself, sample, design, step-by-step instructions for writing

Don't think about whether you are right or wrong. The most important thing in business is how much money you made by being right and how much money you lost by being wrong (George Soros)

Before you write a correct and competent business plan for a small business, you must understand why it is needed in principle and clarify your understanding of this document in commerce.

A business plan is an instruction written step by step, used when discovering and developing a new business idea, with an analysis of all the actions and steps that are taken to move towards the final result.

Based on such a business plan, a businessman can see implicit and explicit risk options on the way to the growth of a business idea and decide which methods will best help reduce and reduce negative actions on the way to launching this idea.

Even before the start of the launch of his project, a businessman can, at the stage of drawing up a business plan, understand how much money will be needed as start-up capital and how much capital will need to be invested in the project. Among other things, with a correctly and intelligently written and independently compiled business plan, the chance of additional cash injections, which can be provided by interested investors, will increase.

As an example, let’s try to make a business plan for a planned wellness center.

Competent design

  1. A business plan must be drawn up completely correctly. This point needs to be given special attention, since it will play a serious role for investors when making a decision on whether to provide finance for the implementation of your business idea.
  2. With regard to the appearance and correctness of the sample business plan, all actions are compared with the relationship to the thesis for the listed university. What does it mean?
  3. A properly made business plan should have a presentable appearance, by which we mean a folder made of good paper on a spring with a transparent cover with a company logo. All sheets must have continuous page numbering, and sheets must be printed exclusively on one side.
  4. It is allowed to use only font sizes 12-14, and the fonts themselves are only Arial and Times New Roman. Subheadings and headings should stand out.
  5. The title page contains all the basic details of the company, that is, the name of the company, its legal address, electronic and legal addresses, all available telephone numbers and contact persons must be present.
  6. The page following the title page contains the mandatory page numbers on which the headings are located.

What to write in a business plan

The activities of commercial organizations come in various types and each of them has its own specific characteristics. There is no set template that allows you to create any business plan yourself from scratch. But for a business plan for any area of ​​small or large business, there are points that are common to different activities.

The first point is a short description of your idea:

Here the plan and project for opening the business you have chosen are written in the most concise and rather concise form. Don't think that just because the presentation is short, it must be empty. On the contrary, it should be in a form that will help to interest the investor immediately.

Define here:

  • business mission and goals,
  • carry out a turnover forecast,
  • volume of products produced,
  • Give the basic economic indicators calculated in advance.

These indicators include:

  • the amount of capital investment,
  • the need for the project,
  • sales volume,
  • the period required for payback to occur,
  • size of net income and the like.

In light of the fact that any experienced investor will first look at the brief description of the presented project, it is necessary to include all the main highlights of the business idea and point out to the investor the most advantageous places in the right perspective. In order for this to work out correctly, a brief description is drawn up only after the entire business plan has been written and all the relevant calculations have been made.

Let's see what all this means with this example:

As an example of a business, we took the opening of a health center, therefore in a short description of the business plan it is necessary to indicate the main goal for its opening, that is, the provision of health-improving procedures and assistance in maintaining good physical shape.

The main points here will be:

  • use of exclusively high technology equipment in operation,
  • the quality of service is exceptionally correct,
  • the degree of difference among similar services provided by competing firms is greatest.

Market research

When thinking about and writing the second point, you need to:

  • reveal the perspective in which your project will develop,
  • show all its main features,
  • clarify the situation that currently exists in the fragment of the consumer market you have selected.

Do not forget to provide a detailed description in the business plan when drawing up for the target audience for which your business is designed.

Such a description of a business plan should be listed according to the following criteria:

  • demographic data,
  • user behavior,
  • consumer character,
  • geographical data,
  • levels of monetary income and so on.

The second point of the plan should explain and tell forecasts of changes in relations in the market, identify facts and trends that are quite capable of influencing the correct course of commercial activity.

Now let's look at an example:

Using the example of a planned health center, the audience can be classified as a population with different levels of material income. This fact gives advantages to running this business, because health centers focus on clients with different incomes.

When considering the expectations of people who will use the services offered, it can be determined that almost half of those visiting this type of center choose swimming from all the services offered, which means that if the designed health center has a swimming pool, this will greatly increase the number of people using this proposed project.

The ratio of future clients by gender shows that three-quarters of them are women and only a quarter are men.
According to the worst forecast, 10 people will come to the center on weekdays, and 20 people on weekends. In the most optimistic scenario, there will be about 30 visitors on a working day, and 40 people on a weekend.

To achieve the desired result in the fight against competing companies in a given geographical area, a program was planned that included the following marketing moves:

  • introduction of promotions and discounts at the wellness center,
  • setting quite affordable fees for all types of services,
  • personal approach to each visitor to the center,
  • unique equipment,
  • the efficient process of the procedures offered and the friendliness of the staff.

Characteristics of goods or services

The third point when drawing up a business plan yourself is to characterize the service or product provided.

Here, a detailed disclosure of the services offered and/or goods produced is carried out, followed by a description of the benefits of using your goods and/or services. If a businessman has a patent for the selected service or product, then this patent is indicated at this point.

Let's look at an example again. Since we are looking at a wellness center as an example, the list of advantages should include:

  • non-standard or completely unique services of this center,
  • its convenient location from public and private transport lines,
  • availability of parking space near the building.

The disadvantages of this type of business include:

  • inconvenient location (if any),
  • large rental costs (this matters if you are not the owner of the building of the future health center),
  • major competition in the designated type of activity, limited target audience based on gender (since the majority of clients of such centers are women).

For a complete analysis, you need to make a description of all the special equipment that will be used to carry out the service process in the center:

  • vibration platforms,
  • tone tables,
  • climbing simulators and the rest).

In the fourth paragraph, when drawing up a sample business plan, indicate the ways in which the idea will be promoted.

Since this paragraph includes pricing issues, here you need to provide ways in which you will promote your business idea on the market.

Here you also need to outline a marketing policy for bringing the idea to the market and designate ways to sell the product.

Let's go back to the example:

For our project, that is, a wellness center, there is a large segment of clients, including both clients from corporations and individuals.

When planning an advertising program, the following points are indicated:

  • a work of professional stylistic and center design method,
  • focus on quality service provision,
  • acquiring a serious status as a business project,
  • creating your personal brand based on the highest quality of work in providing services to clients of the health center,
  • calculation of the center’s discount system and subscriptions for frequent visitors.

In order to correctly show prices for services provided, it is necessary to calculate the cost of a specific process per buyer of the service, which includes rental payments, electricity charges, wages paid to center employees, fees for production and business needs, and depreciation.

All these costs are added up and VAT is charged on them, after which the center's markup is added. The resulting amount will be the cost of the specific procedure.

To attract more visitors to the health center, it was decided to actively use a variety of advertising solutions. This is advertising in the media and through the printing of banners, leaflets, etc. It was also decided to hold discussions with large companies so that there would be an option to attract corporate clients.

Description of the production process

The fifth point in drawing up a business plan will be an inventory of the direct production process.

Here you need to provide a detailed analysis of the type and purpose of the building in which the business center will operate, the special equipment operating here, the amount of turnover and the amount of material injections that will be needed to carry out the process.

Remember here to provide a diagram and a description of the ongoing work process. Here you need to draw up a calendar schedule from the moment the project starts until the beginning of the planned period, when the money poured into it will begin to pay off.

For example:

When drawing up a development and work plan, you need to provide a plan for spending the borrower’s money and the technical and operational characteristics of the equipment of the health complex.

Company structure

In the sixth point of the business plan, focus on the management of the business, its composition and working personnel.

It is necessary to describe the work and responsibilities of the services available, their interaction and the organizational and legal form of the case. To make what is described more clear, you can use schematic drawings and graphs.

The second additional point of the sixth paragraph is a description of the manager, his role in the work, his responsibilities, work experience and a short biography. An additional paragraph under the third number should be devoted to the staff of employees, professional requirements for the employees who make up the team, and their responsibilities. It also indicates the level of pay for the entire working staff.

Using the example of a health center:

A project such as a wellness center can be given the organizational and legal form of an LLC; the staff will consist of seven people, the recruitment of which will be carried out with the help of recruitment agencies based on interviews.

Risk assessment and ways to reduce them

The seventh point of the plan includes risk assessments and solutions that can be used to reduce them.

Here you will need to describe all the risks that may well arise during the work process. It will also be necessary to calculate such ways in order to reduce or prevent them as much as possible. In the case of planned insurance, be sure to indicate the amount for which insurance is provided and the risks against which the business will be insured.

Example:

At a health center, all risks are divided into internal and external.

External ones include:

  • raising the tax rate and changing tax legislation,
  • increase in payment for rented buildings,
  • increase in utility bills,
  • natural disasters and emergencies,
  • tightening methods of overtaking competitors.

Internal ones include:

  • deterioration of specialized equipment and its final breakdown,
  • reduction in the quality of services,
  • unprofessional work of the staff.

Ways to avoid consequences are:

  • warnings,
  • reservation,
  • insurance.

Forecasting project financial flows

Point eight indicates the cash flows of the business idea.

Here, preliminary reports on the finances of the future enterprise are compiled, which include: the balance of the enterprise’s money, a report on the movement of money, a report on losses and profits, calculation of the profitability of the work, calculation of profit, the size of investors’ injections, the calendar period when the payback of the business project will begin.

Example at a wellness center:

  1. We calculate the maximum specific term of the loan and show its repayment schedule.
  2. We draw up a budget from expenses and income, which must be written down for each month during the first year of work, and then broken down by year from the second year.
  3. We calculate the time it will take for the idea to pay off, and also give an assessment of the need for this type of business.

Applications

The final, ninth paragraph of the business plan indicates various applications.

Here it is necessary to make a list of all the additional materials used that were taken to help in the calculation and preparation of the entire plan.

Such materials will be:

  • copies of all existing agreements and contracts,
  • various types of graphs,
  • photos,
  • scheme,
  • biographies,
  • materials from the necessary sources of information, reports and the rest.

Conclusion

Here is an approximate plan for writing a business plan yourself with the given example of planning a wellness center. If you want to better understand this topic, we have given an example and a sample business plan for a wellness center in which the calculations were made.