Remember, your business plan is a tool to help you build a better business, not just a homework assignment.
There are 3 key rules for writing a business plan:
1. Keep it Short
Business plans should be short and concise. The reasoning for that is twofold:
First, you want your business plan to be read (and no one is going to read a 100-page or even 40-page business plan).
Second, your business plan should be a tool you use to run and grow your business, something you continue to use and refine over time. An excessively long business plan is a huge hassle to revise—you’re almost guaranteed that your plan will be relegated to a desk drawer, never to be seen again.
2. Know your Audience
Write your plan using language that your audience will understand; avoid jargon, or acronyms that won’t be familiar.
3. Don’t be Intimidated
The vast majority of business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t business experts. Just like you, they’re learning as they go and don’t have degrees in business.
Writing a business plan may seem like a big hurdle, but it doesn’t have to be. You know your business—you’re the expert on it. For that reason alone, writing a business plan and then leveraging your plan for growth won’t be nearly as challenging as you think.
And you don’t have to start with the full, detailed business plan. In fact, it can be much easier to start with a simple, one-page business plan and you can then come back and build a slightly longer, more detailed business plan later.
Think about:
- What your business will do
- The products/services it will provide
- How customers will access your products or services
- Your approach to pricing
- Your long and short-term objectives - including a series of benchmarks if possible that you can check your progress against
Gov.uk - Write a business plan
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