A) Executive Summary
This is the first section of a business plan. This section is a brief overall summary of the business. It will define the nature of the business. The executive summary should be the last thing written. Once the rest of the components of a business plan have be written, entrepreneurs will have a clearer sense of what to write as their executive summary. The executive summary contains the following:
Mission Statement- This is where the business plan states how the customer will benefit from what the business has to offer. The business plan needs to state what products and services the company will be providing.
Objective – This is what entrepreneurs expect the business to accomplish, basically setting goals for the company.
B) Company Description
In this section, the business plan will go over a detail description of the business. The company description section contains the following:
Ownership – What type of ownership will the company be: sole proprietary, partnership, or corporation.
Location – This states where the business will be located. Office’s, retail shop and any other type of facility that is associated with the business should be mentioned. A website address should be listed if the business has one.
Product & Services – What will the business be providing, will it be a service or a product?
Funding – This is where it is stated how the small business will get funded. Funding is broken down into two parts, start-up expenses and start-up assets. Start-up expenses is legal bills, renovation and leased equipment. Start-up Assets are items that the business owners will be using for the business operation. For example, cash, purchased equipment and inventory.
C) Management & Operation Plan
This section of the business plan details how the business will function on a day to day basis. It contains the following:
Management – This will be a list of the personnel that will have a managerial position and the definition of their role in the business.
Operation – This describe the process that it takes for the business to deliver the products or services to the consumer.
D) Marketing Plan
It details the small business effort’s to sell the products or services to the customer base. A marketing plan will contain a list of the following items:
Industry – This lists all the players in the market; the competition, the type of products and service that they have, the strengths that they have and how they attract customers.
Potential customers – This section provides information about the individuals who will be purchasing from the business. The customer demographics will be based on the industry of the company.
Advertising- It involves promoting the products or services to the customer base. It lists the different ways in which the business will do this. For example, newspaper, radio, television, magazines, direct mail, Internet or telemarketing.
