Business Plan Template: A perfect guide to write the best plan

Every individual intends to start a business for their career but before making such a decision, one
should write an exact business plan template to create an outline for their business.

Writing a business plan is really a wonderful opportunity as it represents your business in every aspect
of getting a loan, strategic operation, etc.

There is no second chance in writing a perfect plan with or without using a template.

Before writing a plan, you should consider all the available opportunities, weaknesses, challenges that
are likely to come in the way, etc.

A well-written plan should be able to convince investors and/or financiers to fund your business startup.

The good plan should be more descriptive and consists of all the challenges and counteraction measures
prepared to overcome.

Most importantly, it serves as a roadmap guiding the launch and the progressive growth of the business.

Why should you write a business plan template?

Before you plan to start a business, it may be a small start-up, micro, medium-scale, or even large scale,
you should have structural planning.

A good business plan template will help get your thoughts organized and guide you every step of
starting your company to successful growth.

It will show you a general outline of your business so that you won’t get stuck in the middle of anything.
A proper plan consists of all the instructions for the employee, staff, and managing authorities,
describing their roles, and every other step forward.

How to write using a template?

There are lots of free business planning templates are available on the Internet where you can
download one plan sample format today.

The second option is you can hire a freelancer expert or other people who have previous knowledge in
writing the business plans.

Business plan software is available that will automatically create a plan with step-by-step instructions,
video tutorials, automatic financial forecasting and chart preparation, etc.

You can write a plan by using any of the three methods I described above.

Be careful in choosing the right person to write the proper plan for your business because this is what
you show to the investors and/or the bankers to avail necessary funds.

Why not use a template?

There are many benefits when talking about writing a perfect plan template, but there is another side
that may not bring you good luck during the proposal.

Every business is different in its nature and hence a standard business template may not be suitable for
all business types.

Why? Because before writing a template you should have enough knowledge about the full process of
the business.

3 Important rules of writing a business plan template:

1.) Keep it short: Do not write essays describing much detail about your business. No one shows interest
to read your lengthy plan of about 10 pages or 40 pages or even 100 pages.

Also, your plan is not evergreen, probably it needs to be refined and refreshed over time and it will
become a very tedious process of changing a long plan.

2.) Write for your audience: Write a plan that is easily readable and understandable. A detailed
explanation in simple plain English is enough.

Your investors may not be techies and hence it’s not necessary to use complex terms and technical
terminology. The plan should be easily understandable by a person outside the industry.

3.) Do not force: No one is an expert in starting and running a business. Everyone will learn how to do
the business as they go.
If you have true interest and passion for your business, then write a plan in the way you like and don’t
let its looks forcing in nature.

Avoid sweeping statements or unsustainable growth, as investors and bankers like to see your realistic
projections and expect your suggestions only.

Elements of a Business Plan Template

1. Summary

2. Description

3. Products and Services

4. Management and organization

5. Marketing Plan

6. Operational Plan

7. Financial Plan

8. Appendix

Writing a plan may seem to be a big task if you are starting a business for the very first time. So, it’s
better to get help from an expert to know how the modern business plan template will look like.

Let’s get into the actual part of this discussion on various key elements of a sample business plan
template.

1. Summary

A summary is the brief introduction of a business plan that describes your business, products or services,
problems, target market, and financial management, etc.
  It should include your business name, the primary area of your business (location), contact
details of the authority.

 Write a brief description of your product or service you offer and how it is different from the
market, why it is necessary today?

 All the products or services are available for selling, which means, a target audience or market.

 The summary should include and describe the market, demographic location, target age group
of people and everything.

 You should include size and scale of your business. The infrastructure requirements such as
computers, tables, chairs, software etc are needed to be written clearly.

Your monthly goal, yearly goal, and the long-term goal should be mentioned neatly with a bar chart,
graph, etc.

The sales target for the first year and also for the coming years add more value to your summary as it
helps to convince your investors or bank people.

Not all business needs summaries, but it will help in all the internal and external process of the business.

Most investors and bankers will read only the summary and decide whether or not to read the rest of
the plan.

Hence, it is very necessary to grab your reader’s attention and let them know that you are very serious
about your business proposal.

2. Description
Description or company profile is the next section that follows the executive summary of a business plan
template.

 First decide whether you are going to start your business individually or by partnering with your
friends, colleagues, relatives or family members.

 Think of a long-term business to make a firm decision and then choose an awesome name for
the company (Compelling and easily reachable).

 Write a Mission and Vision Statement with a brief explanation for the company’s reason for
being into this industry. It can be from one sentence to one paragraph.

Avoid getting into too much about the business detail and plan of action in the description section.
Rather focus on describing the industry where you primarily going to start the business (food industry,
retail industry, wholesale industry, etc.).

Highlight the trends and importance of your role in the business and try to prove as much as the
possibility of various opportunities that lead to your success.

Mention the target audience, market, and your plans on promoting your business, product distribution,
and other factors including advertising, media ads, and customer service, etc.

Write the unique style in your business and tell how your business is going to make a profit?

The length of the description completely depends on the business and varies with the complexity. You
can write in one paragraph or one page or even more and you are solely responsible.

Be descriptive and not narrative in your business because investors and bankers want to see your
success strategy to make a decision.

Clearly mention your label details, trademark registration if any, etc in the business plans description.

This will help investors, lenders, and/or bankers to have a basic understanding of your company
structure, vision, mission, goals and target market, etc.

3. Products and Services

This section includes brief information about the products and/or services that your company offers.

It should include:

 What product do you manufacture or services you are going to offer and how do you sell or
reach the target audience?

 Every business exists for a reason to provide a solution for the customers. Similarly, explain your
product benefits, features and how it helps customers?

 How you compete with your competitors who were already in the market?
Include other proprietary features such as patent rights, exclusive agreements with suppliers or vendors,
license for the product, technology or service, etc.

Attach other technical specifications, photos, drawings, patent documents, and all supporting
information with your template.

4. Management and Organization

So far we have discussed the most important three sections of a business plan template that is
summary, description, and products and services.

Now, we shall look into the next part of the template (format), management, and organization role
which includes the description of the people behind the business.

You have already mentioned that how you going to start your business if it is a proprietorship in nature,
you are going to be the manager, CEO, owner, or whatsoever is called.

 So, the management section should include the list of founders, their qualifications, experience,
their part in the business operation etc.

 Create a management hierarchy and allocating their duties and responsibilities is the key factor
in this section.

 It should also consist of different departments such as HR, Admin, Sales, Customer Support,
Marketing, Accounting, and finance.

 Explain the need for these departments and the required number of the people to manage and
work on these parts of your business.

The management and organization section is a very important aspect in planning every business as it
determines the type of people needed for running your business.

5. Marketing Plan

It defines the entire marketing strategy of your business. It should disclose all the marketing plans in
detail and how you take the product or service to the customers.

The most important part of the marketing plan is deciding the product’s price which determines the
success of your business.

 Quote the prices less compared to the current market but at the same time do not compromise
the quality of the product.

 Next, the distribution process and how you will execute the process.

 Disclose all information such as, what is your competitor doing and how you overcome them?
  What are the various channels you utilize to distribute your products or services, explain the
available options on the market?

Disclose the various channels of marketing strategy such as direct sales, OEM sales, sales
representatives, wholesale distributors, retailers, etc.

Also, write a precise note about the finances required to spend including advertising, for the product.

If you already did market research either yourself or information from other sources such as journals,
magazines, newspapers, Census data, etc. include them in your marketing plan.

This will help investors, funders, and/or bankers to come with a decision of funding your project as it will
explain the market sustainability.

6. Operational Plan

A business needs a principal place of operation, some office equipment such as computers, tables,
chairs, printers, and machines used for manufacturing the products and manpower to operate this
equipment.

Hence, your business plan template should include an operational plan which describes all the functions
of the business and related finances.

It will vary depending on the nature of the business and the various services you are going to offer.

This section should include various operating cycles involved in product manufacturing, packing, and
distributing. Describe your production methods, the equipment you will use.

A description of all necessary skills and labors, raw materials required should be written. Mention how
much it will cost you to produce the product?

It should consist of all the expenses including inventory stocking expenses, other purchases,
manufacturing costs, marketing budget, salaries to the staff and employees, etc.

Quality control describes how you maintain consistency in terms of production and quality maintenance.

Size of your company:

Briefly explain your company overview such as the size of your location, type of building, employee
requirements, suppliers, transportation facilities.

Include various costs involved in rent, machine maintenance, utility expenses, salaries, transportation
costs, etc.

Do not forget to include the future aim, goal, additional new job roles, expected market growth, and
other effects related to your business growth.

7. Financial Plan
The main reason for writing a business plan template is to search for the capital investment either from
the investors or the funders or the bankers.

Hence, this section plays a significant role in the perfect business plan format. You should write your
various financial requirements for the start-up, operation, and market of your business.

Write a clear breakup statement disclosing all your various financial expenses such as start-up capital
investments require for buying raw materials, things for infrastructure development, etc.

These three sections are very much important in your business template and those are the income
opportunities statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet.

Investors will mostly look into these charts to determine the odds in your proposal and decide whether
to fund your startup or not.

Describe clearly as much as possible and be transparent in providing the information such as projections
of income, cost of raw materials, the price of finished products, net profit, depreciation, etc.

Do not forget to include various taxes, profit after taxes, and taxes involved in purchasing raw materials,
machines, equipment, etc.

Also, mention how frequently you generate the balance sheets that include profit/loss calculation, a
summary of all financial breakdowns, future growth.

8. Appendix

Though this is not an important section of the business plan template, it is useful to attach any charts,
tables, definitions, legal notes, supporting documents such as contracts or licenses, etc.
This will help readers to avoid boredom while reading the actual plan. Avoid cluttering your plan by
adding these least necessary documents inside the content.

Add them to the appendices so that the reader can find them if needed. You can also include other
supporting materials to support your business such as projections, illustrations, examples, etc.

Attach photos of your proposed location, product sample, charts, breakdown statements, etc.

Conclusion

This is a common standard template that is used to create many business proposal plans and I hope this
article will be an exciting and awesome note on our blog.

There is a perfect business plan for every successful business that instructs the various operations of all
the cadets in the business.

Be realistic and practical as much as possible when you explain projections that will help you get
success.

It is becoming very riskier to arrange funding sources to start any business implementing various ideas
due to the rise of thousands of new start-ups.

Most of them are coming with new ideas, but do not survive due to competition and not having a proper
business plan and flow of operation.

Hence, in those cases, it is thus becoming necessary to write a perfect business plan template to help
your business in the long run.