business plan review example

24 of My Favorite Sample Business Plans & Examples For Your Inspiration

Published: February 06, 2024

I believe that reading sample business plans is essential when writing your own.

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As you explore business plan examples from real companies and brands, it’s easier for you to learn how to write a good one.

But what does a good business plan look like? And how do you write one that’s both viable and convincing. I’ll walk you through the ideal business plan format along with some examples to help you get started.

Table of Contents

Business Plan Format

Business plan types, sample business plan templates, top business plan examples.

Ask any successful sports coach how they win so many games, and they’ll tell you they have a unique plan for every single game. To me, the same logic applies to business.

If you want to build a thriving company that can pull ahead of the competition, you need to prepare for battle before breaking into a market.

Business plans guide you along the rocky journey of growing a company. And if your business plan is compelling enough, it can also convince investors to give you funding.

With so much at stake, I’m sure you’re wondering where to begin.

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First, you’ll want to nail down your formatting. Most business plans include the following sections.

1. Executive Summary

I’d say the executive summary is the most important section of the entire business plan. 

Why? Essentially, it's the overview or introduction, written in a way to grab readers' attention and guide them through the rest of the business plan. This is important, because a business plan can be dozens or hundreds of pages long.

There are two main elements I’d recommend including in your executive summary:

Company Description

This is the perfect space to highlight your company’s mission statement and goals, a brief overview of your history and leadership, and your top accomplishments as a business.

Tell potential investors who you are and why what you do matters. Naturally, they’re going to want to know who they’re getting into business with up front, and this is a great opportunity to showcase your impact.

Need some extra help firming up those business goals? Check out HubSpot Academy’s free course to help you set goals that matter — I’d highly recommend it

Products and Services

To piggyback off of the company description, be sure to incorporate an overview of your offerings. This doesn’t have to be extensive — just another chance to introduce your industry and overall purpose as a business.

In addition to the items above, I recommend including some information about your financial projections and competitive advantage here too.:

Keep in mind you'll cover many of these topics in more detail later on in the business plan. So, keep the executive summary clear and brief, and only include the most important takeaways.

Executive Summary Business Plan Examples

This example was created with HubSpot’s business plan template:

This executive summary is so good to me because it tells potential investors a short story while still covering all of the most important details.

Image Source

Tips for Writing Your Executive Summary

• Start with a strong introduction of your company, showcase your mission and impact, and outline the products and services you provide.
• Clearly define a problem, and explain how your product solves that problem, and show why the market needs your business.
• Be sure to highlight your value proposition, market opportunity, and growth potential.
• Keep it concise and support ideas with data.
• Customize your summary to your audience. For example, emphasize finances and return on investment for venture capitalists.

Check out our tips for writing an effective executive summary for more guidance.

2. Market Opportunity

This is where you'll detail the opportunity in the market.

The main question I’d ask myself here is this: Where is the gap in the current industry, and how will my product fill that gap?

More specifically, here’s what I’d include in this section:

• The size of the market
• Current or potential market share
• Trends in the industry and consumer behavior
• Where the gap is
• What caused the gap
• How you intend to fill it

To get a thorough understanding of the market opportunity, you'll want to conduct a TAM, SAM, and SOM analysis and perform market research on your industry.

You may also benefit from creating a SWOT analysis to get some of the insights for this section.

Market Opportunity Business Plan Example

I like this example because it uses critical data to underline the size of the potential market and what part of that market this service hopes to capture.

Tips for Writing Your Market Opportunity Section

• Focus on demand and potential for growth.
• Use market research, surveys, and industry trend data to support your market forecast and projections.
• Add a review of regulation shifts, tech advances, and consumer behavior changes.
• Refer to reliable sources.
• Showcase how your business can make the most of this opportunity.

3. Competitive Landscape

Since we’re already speaking of market share, you'll also need to create a section that shares details on who the top competitors are.

After all, your customers likely have more than one brand to choose from, and you'll want to understand exactly why they might choose one over another.

My favorite part of performing a competitive analysis is that it can help you uncover:

• Industry trends that other brands may not be utilizing
• Strengths in your competition that may be obstacles to handle
• Weaknesses in your competition that may help you develop selling points
• The unique proposition you bring to the market that may resonate with customers

Competitive Landscape Business Plan Example

I like how the competitive landscape section of this business plan below shows a clear outline of who the top competitors are.

It also highlights specific industry knowledge and the importance of location, which shows useful experience in this specific industry. 

This can help build trust in your ability to execute your business plan.

Tips for Writing Your Competitive Landscape

• Complete in-depth research, then emphasize your most important findings.
• Compare your unique selling proposition (USP) to your direct and indirect competitors.
• Show a clear and realistic plan for product and brand differentiation.
• Look for specific advantages and barriers in the competitive landscape. Then, highlight how that information could impact your business.
• Outline growth opportunities from a competitive perspective.
• Add customer feedback and insights to support your competitive analysis.

4. Target Audience

Use this section to describe who your customer segments are in detail. What is the demographic and psychographic information of your audience?

If your immediate answer is "everyone," you'll need to dig deeper. Here are some questions I’d ask myself here:

• What demographics will most likely need/buy your product or service?
• What are the psychographics of this audience? (Desires, triggering events, etc.)
• Why are your offerings valuable to them?

I’d also recommend building a buyer persona to get in the mindset of your ideal customers and be clear on why you're targeting them.

Target Audience Business Plan Example

I like the example below because it uses in-depth research to draw conclusions about audience priorities. It also analyzes how to create the right content for this audience.

Tips for Writing Your Target Audience Section

• Include details on the size and growth potential of your target audience.
• Figure out and refine the pain points for your target audience , then show why your product is a useful solution.
• Describe your targeted customer acquisition strategy in detail.
• Share anticipated challenges your business may face in acquiring customers and how you plan to address them.
• Add case studies, testimonials, and other data to support your target audience ideas.
• Remember to consider niche audiences and segments of your target audience in your business plan.

5. Marketing Strategy

Here, you'll discuss how you'll acquire new customers with your marketing strategy. I’d suggest including information:

• Your brand positioning vision and how you'll cultivate it
• The goal targets you aim to achieve
• The metrics you'll use to measure success
• The channels and distribution tactics you'll use

I think it’s helpful to have a marketing plan built out in advance to make this part of your business plan easier.

Marketing Strategy Business Plan Example

This business plan example includes the marketing strategy for the town of Gawler.

In my opinion, it really works because it offers a comprehensive picture of how they plan to use digital marketing to promote the community.

Tips for Writing Your Marketing Strategy

• Include a section about how you believe your brand vision will appeal to customers.
• Add the budget and resources you'll need to put your plan in place.
• Outline strategies for specific marketing segments.
• Connect strategies to earlier sections like target audience and competitive analysis.
• Review how your marketing strategy will scale with the growth of your business.
• Cover a range of channels and tactics to highlight your ability to adapt your plan in the face of change.

6. Key Features and Benefits

At some point in your business plan, you'll need to review the key features and benefits of your products and/or services.

Laying these out can give readers an idea of how you're positioning yourself in the market and the messaging you're likely to use. It can even help them gain better insight into your business model.

Key Features and Benefits Business Plan Example

In my opinion, the example below does a great job outlining products and services for this business, along with why these qualities will attract the audience.

Tips for Writing Your Key Features and Benefits

• Emphasize why and how your product or service offers value to customers.
• Use metrics and testimonials to support the ideas in this section.
• Talk about how your products and services have the potential to scale.
• Think about including a product roadmap.
• Focus on customer needs, and how the features and benefits you are sharing meet those needs.
• Offer proof of concept for your ideas, like case studies or pilot program feedback.
• Proofread this section carefully, and remove any jargon or complex language.

7. Pricing and Revenue

This is where you'll discuss your cost structure and various revenue streams. Your pricing strategy must be solid enough to turn a profit while staying competitive in the industry. 

For this reason, here’s what I’d might outline in this section:

• The specific pricing breakdowns per product or service
• Why your pricing is higher or lower than your competition's
• (If higher) Why customers would be willing to pay more
• (If lower) How you're able to offer your products or services at a lower cost
• When you expect to break even, what margins do you expect, etc?

Pricing and Revenue Business Plan Example

I like how this business plan example begins with an overview of the business revenue model, then shows proposed pricing for key products.

Tips for Writing Your Pricing and Revenue Section

• Get specific about your pricing strategy. Specifically, how you connect that strategy to customer needs and product value.
• If you are asking a premium price, share unique features or innovations that justify that price point.
• Show how you plan to communicate pricing to customers.
• Create an overview of every revenue stream for your business and how each stream adds to your business model as a whole.
• Share plans to develop new revenue streams in the future.
• Show how and whether pricing will vary by customer segment and how pricing aligns with marketing strategies.
• Restate your value proposition and explain how it aligns with your revenue model.

8. Financials

To me, this section is particularly informative for investors and leadership teams to figure out funding strategies, investment opportunities, and more.

 According to Forbes , you'll want to include three main things:

• Profit/Loss Statement - This answers the question of whether your business is currently profitable.
• Cash Flow Statement - This details exactly how much cash is incoming and outgoing to give insight into how much cash a business has on hand.
• Balance Sheet - This outlines assets, liabilities, and equity, which gives insight into how much a business is worth.

While some business plans might include more or less information, these are the key details I’d include in this section.

Financials Business Plan Example

This balance sheet is a great example of level of detail you’ll need to include in the financials section of your business plan.

Tips for Writing Your Financials Section

• Growth potential is important in this section too. Using your data, create a forecast of financial performance in the next three to five years.
• Include any data that supports your projections to assure investors of the credibility of your proposal.
• Add a break-even analysis to show that your business plan is financially practical. This information can also help you pivot quickly as your business grows.
• Consider adding a section that reviews potential risks and how sensitive your plan is to changes in the market.
• Triple-check all financial information in your plan for accuracy.
• Show how any proposed funding needs align with your plans for growth.

As you create your business plan, keep in mind that each of these sections will be formatted differently. Some may be in paragraph format, while others could be charts or graphs.

The formats above apply to most types of business plans. That said, the format and structure of your plan will vary by your goals for that plan. 

So, I’ve added a quick review of different business plan types. For a more detailed overview, check out this post .

1. Startups

Startup business plans are for proposing new business ideas.

If you’re planning to start a small business, preparing a business plan is crucial. The plan should include all the major factors of your business.

You can check out this guide for more detailed business plan inspiration .

2. Feasibility Studies

Feasibility business plans focus on that business's product or service. Feasibility plans are sometimes added to startup business plans. They can also be a new business plan for an already thriving organization.

3. Internal Use

You can use internal business plans to share goals, strategies, or performance updates with stakeholders. In my opinion, internal business plans are useful for alignment and building support for ambitious goals.

4. Strategic Initiatives

Another business plan that's often for sharing internally is a strategic business plan. This plan covers long-term business objectives that might not have been included in the startup business plan.

5. Business Acquisition or Repositioning

When a business is moving forward with an acquisition or repositioning, it may need extra structure and support. These types of business plans expand on a company's acquisition or repositioning strategy.

Growth sometimes just happens as a business continues operations. But more often, a business needs to create a structure with specific targets to meet set goals for expansion. This business plan type can help a business focus on short-term growth goals and align resources with those goals.

Now that you know what's included and how to format a business plan, let's review some of my favorite templates.

1. HubSpot's One-Page Business Plan

Download a free, editable one-page business plan template..

The business plan linked above was created here at HubSpot and is perfect for businesses of any size — no matter how many strategies we still have to develop.

Fields such as Company Description, Required Funding, and Implementation Timeline give this one-page business plan a framework for how to build your brand and what tasks to keep track of as you grow.

Then, as the business matures, you can expand on your original business plan with a new iteration of the above document.

Why I Like It

This one-page business plan is a fantastic choice for the new business owner who doesn’t have the time or resources to draft a full-blown business plan. It includes all the essential sections in an accessible, bullet-point-friendly format. That way, you can get the broad strokes down before honing in on the details.

2. HubSpot's Downloadable Business Plan Template

We also created a business plan template for entrepreneurs.

The template is designed as a guide and checklist for starting your own business. You’ll learn what to include in each section of your business plan and how to do it.

There’s also a list for you to check off when you finish each section of your business plan.

Strong game plans help coaches win games and help businesses rocket to the top of their industries. So if you dedicate the time and effort required to write a workable and convincing business plan, you’ll boost your chances of success and even dominance in your market.

This business plan kit is essential for the budding entrepreneur who needs a more extensive document to share with investors and other stakeholders.

It not only includes sections for your executive summary, product line, market analysis, marketing plan, and sales plan, but it also offers hands-on guidance for filling out those sections.

3. LiveFlow’s Financial Planning Template with built-in automation

This free template from LiveFlow aims to make it easy for businesses to create a financial plan and track their progress on a monthly basis.

The P&L Budget versus Actual format allows users to track their revenue, cost of sales, operating expenses, operating profit margin, net profit, and more.

The summary dashboard aggregates all of the data put into the financial plan sheet and will automatically update when changes are made.

Instead of wasting hours manually importing your data to your spreadsheet, LiveFlow can also help you to automatically connect your accounting and banking data directly to your spreadsheet, so your numbers are always up-to-date.

With the dashboard, you can view your runway, cash balance, burn rate, gross margins, and other metrics. Having a simple way to track everything in one place will make it easier to complete the financials section of your business plan.

This is a fantastic template to track performance and alignment internally and to create a dependable process for documenting financial information across the business. It’s highly versatile and beginner-friendly.

It’s especially useful if you don’t have an accountant on the team. (I always recommend you do, but for new businesses, having one might not be possible.)

4. ThoughtCo’s Sample Business Plan

One of the more financially oriented sample business plans in this list, BPlan’s free business plan template dedicates many of its pages to your business’s financial plan and financial statements.

After filling this business plan out, your company will truly understand its financial health and the steps you need to take to maintain or improve it.

I absolutely love this business plan template because of its ease-of-use and hands-on instructions (in addition to its finance-centric components). If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of writing an entire business plan, consider using this template to help you with the process.

6. Harvard Business Review’s "How to Write a Winning Business Plan"

Most sample business plans teach you what to include in your business plan, but this Harvard Business Review article will take your business plan to the next level — it teaches you the why and how behind writing a business plan.

With the guidance of Stanley Rich and Richard Gumpert, co-authors of " Business Plans That Win: Lessons From the MIT Enterprise Forum ", you'll learn how to write a convincing business plan that emphasizes the market demand for your product or service.

You’ll also learn the financial benefits investors can reap from putting money into your venture rather than trying to sell them on how great your product or service is.

This business plan guide focuses less on the individual parts of a business plan, and more on the overarching goal of writing one. For that reason, it’s one of my favorites to supplement any template you choose to use. Harvard Business Review’s guide is instrumental for both new and seasoned business owners.

7. HubSpot’s Complete Guide to Starting a Business

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know writing a business plan is one of the most challenging first steps to starting a business.

Fortunately, with HubSpot's comprehensive guide to starting a business, you'll learn how to map out all the details by understanding what to include in your business plan and why it’s important to include them. The guide also fleshes out an entire sample business plan for you.

If you need further guidance on starting a business, HubSpot's guide can teach you how to make your business legal, choose and register your business name, and fund your business. It will also give small business tax information and includes marketing, sales, and service tips.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of starting a business, in addition to writing your business plan, with a high level of exactitude and detail. So if you’re in the midst of starting your business, this is an excellent guide for you.

It also offers other resources you might need, such as market analysis templates.

8. Panda Doc’s Free Business Plan Template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is one of the more detailed and fleshed-out sample business plans on this list. It describes what you should include in each section, so you don't have to come up with everything from scratch.

Once you fill it out, you’ll fully understand your business’ nitty-gritty details and how all of its moving parts should work together to contribute to its success.

This template has two things I love: comprehensiveness and in-depth instructions. Plus, it’s synced with PandaDoc’s e-signature software so that you and other stakeholders can sign it with ease. For that reason, I especially love it for those starting a business with a partner or with a board of directors.

9. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers several free business plan templates that can be used to inspire your own plan.

Before you get started, you can decide what type of business plan you need — a traditional or lean start-up plan.

Then, you can review the format for both of those plans and view examples of what they might look like.

We love both of the SBA’s templates because of their versatility. You can choose between two options and use the existing content in the templates to flesh out your own plan. Plus, if needed, you can get a free business counselor to help you along the way.

I’ve compiled some completed business plan samples to help you get an idea of how to customize a plan for your business.

I chose different types of business plan ideas to expand your imagination. Some are extensive, while others are fairly simple.

Let’s take a look.

1. LiveFlow

One of the major business expenses is marketing. How you handle your marketing reflects your company’s revenue.

I included this business plan to show you how you can ensure your marketing team is aligned with your overall business plan to get results. The plan also shows you how to track even the smallest metrics of your campaigns, like ROI and payback periods instead of just focusing on big metrics like gross and revenue.

Fintech startup, LiveFlow, allows users to sync real-time data from its accounting services, payment platforms, and banks into custom reports. This eliminates the task of pulling reports together manually, saving teams time and helping automate workflows.

"Using this framework over a traditional marketing plan will help you set a profitable marketing strategy taking things like CAC, LTV, Payback period, and P&L into consideration," explains LiveFlow co-founder, Lasse Kalkar .

When it came to including marketing strategy in its business plan, LiveFlow created a separate marketing profit and loss statement (P&L) to track how well the company was doing with its marketing initiatives.

This is a great approach, allowing businesses to focus on where their marketing dollars are making the most impact. Having this information handy will enable you to build out your business plan’s marketing section with confidence. LiveFlow has shared the template here . You can test it for yourself.

2. Lula Body

Sometimes all you need is a solid mission statement and core values to guide you on how to go about everything. You do this by creating a business plan revolving around how to fulfill your statement best.

For example, Patagonia is an eco-friendly company, so their plan discusses how to make the best environmentally friendly products without causing harm.

A good mission statement  should not only resonate with consumers but should also serve as a core value compass for employees as well.

Patagonia has one of the most compelling mission statements I’ve seen:

"Together, let’s prioritise purpose over profit and protect this wondrous planet, our only home."

It reels you in from the start, and the environmentally friendly theme continues throughout the rest of the statement.

This mission goes on to explain that they are out to "Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to protect nature."

Their mission statement is compelling and detailed, with each section outlining how they will accomplish their goal.

4. Vesta Home Automation

This executive summary for a smart home device startup is part of a business plan created by students at Mount Royal University .

While it lacks some of the sleek visuals of the templates above, its executive summary does a great job of demonstrating how invested they are in the business.

Right away, they mention they’ve invested $200,000 into the company already, which shows investors they have skin in the game and aren’t just looking for someone else to foot the bill.

This is the kind of business plan you need when applying for business funds. It clearly illustrates the expected future of the company and how the business has been coming along over the years.

5. NALB Creative Center

This fictional business plan for an art supply store includes everything one might need in a business plan: an executive summary, a company summary, a list of services, a market analysis summary, and more.

One of its most notable sections is its market analysis summary, which includes an overview of the population growth in the business’ target geographical area, as well as a breakdown of the types of potential customers they expect to welcome at the store. 

This sort of granular insight is essential for understanding and communicating your business’s growth potential. Plus, it lays a strong foundation for creating relevant and useful buyer personas .

It’s essential to keep this information up-to-date as your market and target buyer changes. For that reason, you should carry out market research as often as possible to ensure that you’re targeting the correct audience and sharing accurate information with your investors.

Due to its comprehensiveness, it’s an excellent example to follow if you’re opening a brick-and-mortar store and need to get external funding to start your business .

6. Curriculum Companion Suites (CSS)

If you’re looking for a SaaS business plan example, look no further than this business plan for a fictional educational software company called Curriculum Companion Suites. 

Like the business plan for the NALB Creative Center, it includes plenty of information for prospective investors and other key stakeholders in the business.

One of the most notable features of this business plan is the executive summary, which includes an overview of the product, market, and mission.

The first two are essential for software companies because the product offering is so often at the forefront of the company’s strategy. Without that information being immediately available to investors and executives, then you risk writing an unfocused business plan.

It’s essential to front-load your company’s mission if it explains your "Why?" and this example does just that. In other words, why do you do what you do, and why should stakeholders care? This is an important section to include if you feel that your mission will drive interest in the business and its offerings.

7. Culina Sample Business Plan

Culina's sample business plan is an excellent example of how to lay out your business plan so that it flows naturally, engages readers, and provides the critical information investors and stakeholders need. 

You can use this template as a guide while you're gathering important information for your own business plan. You'll have a better understanding of the data and research you need to do since Culina’s plan outlines these details so flawlessly for inspiration.

8. Plum Sample Business Plan

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550+ Business Plan Examples to Launch Your Business

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Example business plan format

Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format . You'll find that the plans in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections:

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally only one to two pages. You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan.

Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements (if you are raising money).

Products & services

The products & services chapter of your business plan is where the real meat of your plan lives. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and any traction that proves that it truly meets the need you identified.

This is your chance to explain why you're in business and that people care about what you offer. It needs to go beyond a simple product or service description and get to the heart of why your business works and benefits your customers.

Market analysis

Conducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base.

Competition

Part of defining your opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage may be. To do this effectively you need to get to know your competitors just as well as your target customers. Every business will have competition, if you don't then you're either in a very young industry or there's a good reason no one is pursuing this specific venture.

To succeed, you want to be sure you know who your competitors are, how they operate, necessary financial benchmarks, and how you're business will be positioned. Start by identifying who your competitors are or will be during your market research. Then leverage competitive analysis tools like the competitive matrix and positioning map to solidify where your business stands in relation to the competition.

Marketing & sales

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments. You'll address how you plan on selling to those target markets, what your pricing plan is, and what types of activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success.

The operations section covers the day-to-day workflows for your business to deliver your product or service. What's included here fully depends on the type of business. Typically you can expect to add details on your business location, sourcing and fulfillment, use of technology, and any partnerships or agreements that are in place.

Milestones & metrics

The milestones section is where you lay out strategic milestones to reach your business goals.

A good milestone clearly lays out the parameters of the task at hand and sets expectations for its execution. You'll want to include a description of the task, a proposed due date, who is responsible, and eventually a budget that's attached. You don't need extensive project planning in this section, just key milestones that you want to hit and when you plan to hit them.

You should also discuss key metrics, which are the numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common data points worth tracking include conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, profit, etc.

Company & team

Use this section to describe your current team and who you need to hire. If you intend to pursue funding, you'll need to highlight the relevant experience of your team members. Basically, this is where you prove that this is the right team to successfully start and grow the business. You will also need to provide a quick overview of your legal structure and history if you're already up and running.

Financial projections

Your financial plan should include a sales and revenue forecast, profit and loss statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You may not have established financials of any kind at this stage. Not to worry, rather than getting all of the details ironed out, focus on making projections and strategic forecasts for your business. You can always update your financial statements as you begin operations and start bringing in actual accounting data.

Now, if you intend to pitch to investors or submit a loan application, you'll also need a "use of funds" report in this section. This outlines how you intend to leverage any funding for your business and how much you're looking to acquire. Like the rest of your financials, this can always be updated later on.

The appendix isn't a required element of your business plan. However, it is a useful place to add any charts, tables, definitions, legal notes, or other critical information that supports your plan. These are often lengthier or out-of-place information that simply didn't work naturally into the structure of your plan. You'll notice that in these business plan examples, the appendix mainly includes extended financial statements.

Types of business plans explained

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. To get the most out of your plan, it's best to find a format that suits your needs. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan

The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used for external purposes. Typically this is the type of plan you'll need when applying for funding or pitching to investors. It can also be used when training or hiring employees, working with vendors, or in any other situation where the full details of your business must be understood by another individual.

Business model canvas

The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

The structure ditches a linear format in favor of a cell-based template. It encourages you to build connections between every element of your business. It's faster to write out and update, and much easier for you, your team, and anyone else to visualize your business operations.

One-page business plan

The true middle ground between the business model canvas and a traditional business plan is the one-page business plan . This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business.

By starting with a one-page plan , you give yourself a minimal document to build from. You'll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences making it much easier to elaborate or expand sections into a longer-form business plan.

Growth planning

Growth planning is more than a specific type of business plan. It's a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, forecast, review, and refine based on your performance.

It holds all of the benefits of the single-page plan, including the potential to complete it in as little as 27 minutes . However, it's even easier to convert into a more detailed plan thanks to how heavily it's tied to your financials. The overall goal of growth planning isn't to just produce documents that you use once and shelve. Instead, the growth planning process helps you build a healthier company that thrives in times of growth and remain stable through times of crisis.

It's faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

Download a free sample business plan template

Ready to start writing your own plan but aren't sure where to start? Download our free business plan template that's been updated for 2024.

This simple, modern, investor-approved business plan template is designed to make planning easy. It's a proven format that has helped over 1 million businesses write business plans for bank loans, funding pitches, business expansion, and even business sales. It includes additional instructions for how to write each section and is formatted to be SBA-lender approved. All you need to do is fill in the blanks.

How to use an example business plan to help you write your own

How do you know what elements need to be included in your business plan, especially if you've never written one before? Looking at examples can help you visualize what a full, traditional plan looks like, so you know what you're aiming for before you get started. Here's how to get the most out of a sample business plan.

Choose a business plan example from a similar type of company

You don't need to find an example business plan that's an exact fit for your business. Your business location, target market, and even your particular product or service may not match up exactly with the plans in our gallery. But, you don't need an exact match for it to be helpful. Instead, look for a plan that's related to the type of business you're starting.

For example, if you want to start a vegetarian restaurant, a plan for a steakhouse can be a great match. While the specifics of your actual startup will differ, the elements you'd want to include in your restaurant's business plan are likely to be very similar.

Use a business plan example as a guide

Every startup and small business is unique, so you'll want to avoid copying an example business plan word for word. It just won't be as helpful, since each business is unique. You want your plan to be a useful tool for starting a business —and getting funding if you need it.

One of the key benefits of writing a business plan is simply going through the process. When you sit down to write, you'll naturally think through important pieces, like your startup costs, your target market , and any market analysis or research you'll need to do to be successful.

You'll also look at where you stand among your competition (and everyone has competition), and lay out your goals and the milestones you'll need to meet. Looking at an example business plan's financials section can be helpful because you can see what should be included, but take them with a grain of salt. Don't assume that financial projections for a sample company will fit your own small business.

If you're looking for more resources to help you get started, our business planning guide is a good place to start. You can also download our free business plan template .

Think of business planning as a process, instead of a document

Think about business planning as something you do often , rather than a document you create once and never look at again. If you take the time to write a plan that really fits your own company, it will be a better, more useful tool to grow your business. It should also make it easier to share your vision and strategy so everyone on your team is on the same page.

Adjust your plan regularly to use it as a business management tool

Keep in mind that businesses that use their plan as a management tool to help run their business grow 30 percent faster than those businesses that don't. For that to be true for your company, you'll think of a part of your business planning process as tracking your actual results against your financial forecast on a regular basis.

If things are going well, your plan will help you think about how you can re-invest in your business. If you find that you're not meeting goals, you might need to adjust your budgets or your sales forecast. Either way, tracking your progress compared to your plan can help you adjust quickly when you identify challenges and opportunities—it's one of the most powerful things you can do to grow your business.

Prepare to pitch your business

If you're planning to pitch your business to investors or seek out any funding, you'll need a pitch deck to accompany your business plan. A pitch deck is designed to inform people about your business. You want your pitch deck to be short and easy to follow, so it's best to keep your presentation under 20 slides.

Your pitch deck and pitch presentation are likely some of the first things that an investor will see to learn more about your company. So, you need to be informative and pique their interest. Luckily, just like you can leverage an example business plan template to write your plan, we also have a gallery of over 50 pitch decks for you to reference.

With this gallery, you have the option to view specific industry pitches or get inspired by real-world pitch deck examples.

Ready to get started?

Now that you know how to use an example business plan to help you write a plan for your business, it's time to find the right one.

Use the search bar below to get started and find the right match for your business idea.

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How to Write a Business Plan (Plus Examples & Templates)

May 24, 2021

Have you ever wondered how to write a business plan step by step? Mike Andes, told us: 

This guide will help you write a business plan to impress investors.

Throughout this process, we’ll get information from Mike Andes, who started Augusta Lawn Care Services when he was 12 and turned it into a franchise with over 90 locations. He has gone on to help others learn how to write business plans and start businesses.  He knows a thing or two about writing  business plans!

We’ll start by discussing the definition of a business plan. Then we’ll discuss how to come up with the idea, how to do the market research, and then the important elements in the business plan format. Keep reading to start your journey!

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is simply a road map of what you are trying to achieve with your business and how you will go about achieving it. It should cover all elements of your business including: 

• Finding customers
• Plans for developing a team
•  Competition
• Legal structures
• Key milestones you are pursuing

If you aren’t quite ready to create a business plan, consider starting by reading our business startup guide .

Get a Business Idea

Before you can write a business plan, you have to have a business idea. You may see a problem that needs to be solved and have an idea how to solve it, or you might start by evaluating your interests and skills. 

Mike told us, “The three things I suggest asking yourself when thinking about starting a business are:

• What am I good at?
• What would I enjoy doing?
• What can I get paid for?”

If all three of these questions don’t lead to at least one common answer, it will probably be a much harder road to success. Either there is not much market for it, you won’t be good at it, or you won’t enjoy doing it. 

As Mike told us, “There’s enough stress starting and running a business that if you don’t like it or aren’t good at it, it’s hard to succeed.”

If you’d like to hear more about Mike’s approach to starting a business, check out our YouTube video

Conduct Market Analysis

Market analysis is focused on establishing if there is a target market for your products and services, how large the target market is, and identifying the demographics of people or businesses that would be interested in the product or service. The goal here is to establish how much money your business concept can make.

Product and Service Demand

A search engine is your best friend when trying to figure out if there is demand for your products and services. Personally, I love using presearch.org because it lets you directly search on a ton of different platforms including Google, Youtube, Twitter, and more. Check out the screenshot for the full list of search options.

With quick web searches, you can find out how many competitors you have, look through their reviews, and see if there are common complaints about the competitors. Bad reviews are a great place to find opportunities to offer better products or services. 

If there are no similar products or services, you may have stumbled upon something new, or there may just be no demand for it. To find out, go talk to your most honest friend about the idea and see what they think. If they tell you it’s dumb or stare at you vacantly, there’s probably no market for it.

You can also conduct a survey through social media to get public opinion on your idea. Using Facebook Business Manager , you could get a feel for who would be interested in your product or service.

 I ran a quick test of how many people between 18-65  you could reach in the U.S. during a week. It returned an estimated 700-2,000 for the total number of leads, which is enough to do a fairly accurate statistical analysis.

Identify Demographics of Target Market

Depending on what type of business you want to run, your target market will be different. The narrower the demographic, the fewer potential customers you’ll have. If you did a survey, you’ll be able to use that data to help define your target audience. Some considerations you’ll want to consider are:

• Other Interests
• Marital Status
• Do they have kids?

Once you have this information, it can help you narrow down your options for location and help define your marketing further. One resource that Mike recommended using is the Census Bureau’s Quick Facts Map . He told us,  

“It helps you quickly evaluate what the best areas are for your business to be located.”

How to Write a Business Plan

Now that you’ve developed your idea a little and established there is a market for it, you can begin writing a business plan. Getting started is easier with the business plan template we created for you to download. I strongly recommend using it as it is updated to make it easier to create an action plan. 

Each of the following should be a section of your business plan:

• Business Plan Cover Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Description of Products and Services

SWOT Analysis

• Competitor Data
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Expenses Strategy 

Pricing Strategy

• Distribution Channel Assessment
• Operational Plan
• Management and Organizational Strategy
• Financial Statements and/or Financial Projections

We’ll look into each of these. Don’t forget to download our free business plan template (mentioned just above) so you can follow along as we go. 

How to Write a Business Plan Step 1. Create a Cover Page

The first thing investors will see is the cover page for your business plan. Make sure it looks professional. A great cover page shows that you think about first impressions.

A good business plan should have the following elements on a cover page:

• Professionally designed logo
• Company name
• Mission or Vision Statement
• Contact Info

Basically, think of a cover page for your business plan like a giant business card. It is meant to capture people’s attention but be quickly processed.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 2. Create a Table of Contents

Most people are busy enough that they don’t have a lot of time. Providing a table of contents makes it easy for them to find the pages of your plan that are meaningful to them.

A table of contents will be immediately after the cover page, but you can include it after the executive summary. Including the table of contents immediately after the executive summary will help investors know what section of your business plan they want to review more thoroughly.

Check out Canva’s article about creating a  table of contents . It has a ton of great information about creating easy access to each section of your business plan. Just remember that you’ll want to use different strategies for digital and hard copy business plans.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 3. Write an Executive Summary

An executive summary is where your business plan should catch the readers interest.  It doesn’t need to be long, but should be quick and easy to read.

Mike told us,

How long should an executive summary bein an informal business plan?

For casual use, an executive summary should be similar to an elevator pitch, no more than 150-160 words, just enough to get them interested and wanting more. Indeed has a great article on elevator pitches .  This can also be used for the content of emails to get readers’ attention.

It consists of three basic parts:

• An introduction to you and your business.
• What your business is about.
• A call to action

Example of an informal executive summary 

One of the best elevator pitches I’ve used is:

So far that pitch has achieved a 100% success rate in getting partnerships for the business.

What should I include in an executive summary for investors?

Investors are going to need a more detailed executive summary if you want to secure financing or sell equity. The executive summary should be a brief overview of your entire business plan and include:

• Introduction of yourself and company.
• An origin story (Recognition of a problem and how you came to solution)
• An introduction to your products or services.
• Your unique value proposition. Make sure to include intellectual property.
• Where you are in the business life cycle
• Request and why you need it.

Successful business plan examples

The owner of Urbanity told us he spent 2 months writing a 75-page business plan and received a $250,000 loan from the bank when he was 23. Make your business plan as detailed as possible when looking for financing. We’ve provided a template to help you prepare the portions of a business plan that banks expect.

Here’s the interview with the owner of Urbanity:

When to write an executive summary?

Even though the summary is near the beginning of a business plan, you should write it after you complete the rest of a business plan. You can’t talk about revenue, profits, and expected expenditures if you haven’t done the market research and created a financial plan.

What mistakes do people make when writing an executive summary?

Business owners commonly go into too much detail about the following items in an executive summary:

• Marketing and sales processes
• Financial statements
• Organizational structure
• Market analysis

These are things that people will want to know later, but they don’t hook the reader. They won’t spark interest in your small business, but they’ll close the deal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 4. Company Description

Every business plan should include a company description. A great business plan will include the following elements while describing the company:

• Mission statement
• Philosophy and vision
• Company goals

Target market

• Legal structure

Let’s take a look at what each section includes in a good business plan.

Mission Statement

A mission statement is a brief explanation of why you started the company and what the company’s main focus is. It should be no more than one or two sentences. Check out HubSpot’s article 27 Inspiring Mission Statement for a great read on informative and inspiring mission and vision statements. 

Company Philosophy and Vision

The company philosophy is what drives your company. You’ll normally hear them called core values.  These are the building blocks that make your company different. You want to communicate your values to customers, business owners, and investors as often as possible to build a company culture, but make sure to back them up.

What makes your company different?

Each company is different. Your new business should rise above the standard company lines of honesty, integrity, fun, innovation, and community when communicating your business values. The standard answers are corporate jargon and lack authenticity. 

Examples of core values

One of my clients decided to add a core values page to their website. As a tech company they emphasized the values:

•  Prioritize communication.
•  Never stop learning.
•  Be transparent.
•  Start small and grow incrementally.

These values communicate how the owner and the rest of the company operate. They also show a value proposition and competitive advantage because they specifically focus on delivering business value from the start. These values also genuinely show what the company is about and customers recognize the sincerity. Indeed has a great blog about how to identify your core values .

What is a vision statement?

A vision statement communicate the long lasting change a business pursues. The vision helps investors and customers understand what your company is trying to accomplish. The vision statement goes beyond a mission statement to provide something meaningful to the community, customer’s lives, or even the world.

Example vision statements

The Alzheimer’s Association is a great example of a vision statement:

A world without Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementia.

It clearly tells how they want to change the world. A world without Alzheimers might be unachievable, but that means they always have room for improvement.

Business Goals

You have to measure success against goals for a business plan to be meaningful. A business plan helps guide a company similar to how your GPS provides a road map to your favorite travel destination. A goal to make as much money as possible is not inspirational and sounds greedy.

Sure, business owners want to increase their profits and improve customer service, but they need to present an overview of what they consider success. The goals should help everyone prioritize their work.

How far in advance should a business plan?

Business planning should be done at least one year in advance, but many banks and investors prefer three to five year business plans. Longer plans show investors that the management team  understands the market and knows the business is operating in a constantly shifting market. In addition, a plan helps businesses to adjust to changes because they have already considered how to handle them.

Example of great business goals

My all time-favorite long-term company goals are included in Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux . These goals were written in 2016 and drive the company’s decisions through 2026. They are the reason that investors are so forgiving when Elon Musk continually fails to meet his quarterly and annual goals.

If the progress aligns with the business plan investors are likely to continue to believe in the company. Just make sure the goals are reasonable or you’ll be discredited (unless you’re Elon Musk).

You did target market research before creating a business plan. Now it’s time to add it to the plan so others understand what your ideal customer looks like. As a new business owner, you may not be considered an expert in your field yet, so document everything. Make sure the references you use are from respectable sources. 

Use information from the specific lender when you are applying for lending. Most lenders provide industry research reports and using their data can strengthen the position of your business plan.

A small business plan should include a section on the external environment. Understanding the industry is crucial because we don’t plan a business in a vacuum. Make sure to research the industry trends, competitors, and forecasts. I personally prefer IBIS World for my business research. Make sure to answer questions like:

• What is the industry outlook long-term and short-term?
• How will your business take advantage of projected industry changes and trends?
• What might happen to your competitors and how will your business successfully compete?

Industry resources

Some helpful resources to help you establish more about your industry are:

• Trade Associations
• Federal Reserve
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

Legal Structure

There are five basic types of legal structures that most people will utilize:

• Sole proprietorships
• Limited Liability Companies (LLC)

Partnerships

Corporations.

• Franchises.

Each business structure has their pros and cons. An LLC is the most common legal structure due to its protection of personal assets and ease of setting up. Make sure to specify how ownership is divided and what roles each owner plays when you have more than one business owner.

You’ll have to decide which structure is best for you, but we’ve gathered information on each to make it easier.

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is the easiest legal structure to set up but doesn’t protect the owner’s personal assets from legal issues. That means if something goes wrong, you could lose both your company and your home.

To start a sole proprietorship, fill out a special tax form called a  Schedule C . Sole proprietors can also join the American Independent Business Alliance .

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

An LLC is the most common business structure used in the United States because an LLC protects the owner’s personal assets. It’s similar to partnerships and corporations, but can be a single-member LLC in most states. An LLC requires a document called an operating agreement.

Each state has different requirements. Here’s a link to find your state’s requirements . Delaware and Nevada are common states to file an LLC because they are really business-friendly. Here’s a blog on the top 10 states to get an LLC.

Partnerships are typically for legal firms. If you choose to use a partnership choose a Limited Liability Partnership. Alternatively, you can just use an LLC.

Corporations are typically for massive organizations. Corporations have taxes on both corporate and income tax so unless you plan on selling stock, you are better off considering an LLC with S-Corp status . Investopedia has good information corporations here .

There are several opportunities to purchase successful franchises. TopFranchise.com has a list of companies in a variety of industries that offer franchise opportunities. This makes it where an entrepreneur can benefit from the reputation of an established business that has already worked out many of the kinks of starting from scratch.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 5. Products and Services

This section of the business plan should focus on what you sell, how you source it, and how you sell it. You should include:

• Unique features that differentiate your business products from competitors
• Intellectual property
• Your supply chain
• Cost and pricing structure 

Questions to answer about your products and services

Mike gave us a list  of the most important questions to answer about your product and services:

• How will you be selling the product? (in person, ecommerce, wholesale, direct to consumer)?
• How do you let them know they need a product?
• How do you communicate the message?
• How will you do transactions?
• How much will you be selling it for?
• How many do you think you’ll sell and why?

Make sure to use the worksheet on our business plan template .

How to Write a Business Plan Step 6. Sales and Marketing Plan

The marketing and sales plan is focused on the strategy to bring awareness to your company and guides how you will get the product to the consumer.  It should contain the following sections:

SWOT Analysis stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Not only do you want to identify them, but you also want to document how the business plans to deal with them.

Business owners need to do a thorough job documenting how their service or product stacks up against the competition.

If proper research isn’t done, investors will be able to tell that the owner hasn’t researched the competition and is less likely to believe that the team can protect its service from threats by the more well-established competition. This is one of the most common parts of a presentation that trips up business owners presenting on Shark Tank .

SWOT Examples

Examples of strengths and weaknesses could be things like the lack of cash flow, intellectual property ownership, high costs of suppliers, and customers’ expectations on shipping times.

Opportunities could be ways to capitalize on your strengths or improve your weaknesses, but may also be gaps in the industry. This includes:

• Adding offerings that fit with your current small business
• Increase sales to current customers
• Reducing costs through bulk ordering
• Finding ways to reduce inventory
•  And other areas you can improve

Threats will normally come from outside of the company but could also be things like losing a key member of the team. Threats normally come from competition, regulations, taxes, and unforeseen events.

The management team should use the SWOT analysis to guide other areas of business planning, but it absolutely has to be done before a business owner starts marketing. 

Include Competitor Data in Your Business Plan

When you plan a business, taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the competition is key to navigating the field. Providing an overview of your competition and where they are headed shows that you are invested in understanding the industry.

For smaller businesses, you’ll want to search both the company and the owners names to see what they are working on. For publicly held corporations, you can find their quarterly and annual reports on the SEC website .

What another business plans to do can impact your business. Make sure to include things that might make it attractive for bigger companies to outsource to a small business.

Marketing Strategy

The marketing and sales part of business plans should be focused on how you are going to make potential customers aware of your business and then sell to them.

If you haven’t already included it, Mike recommends:

“They’ll want to know about Demographics, ages, and wealth of your target market.”

Make sure to include the Total addressable market .  The term refers to the value if you captured 100% of the market.

Advertising Strategy

You’ll explain what formats of advertising you’ll be using. Some possibilities are:

• Online: Facebook and Google are the big names to work with here.
• Print : Print can be used to reach broad groups or targeted markets. Check out this for tips .
• Radio : iHeartMedia is one of the best ways to advertise on the radio
• Cable television : High priced, hard to measure ROI, but here’s an explanation of the process
• Billboards: Attracting customers with billboards can be beneficial in high traffic areas.

You’ll want to define how you’ll be using each including frequency, duration, and cost. If you have the materials already created, including pictures or links to the marketing to show creative assets.

Mike told us “Most businesses are marketing digitally now due to Covid, but that’s not always the right answer.”

Make sure the marketing strategy will help team members or external marketing agencies stay within the brand guidelines .

This section of a business plan should be focused on pricing. There are a ton of pricing strategies that may work for different business plans. Which one will work for you depends on what kind of a business you run.

Some common pricing strategies are:

• Value-based pricing – Commonly used with home buying and selling or other products that are status symbols.
• Skimming pricing – Commonly seen in video game consoles, price starts off high to recoup expenses quickly, then reduces over time.
• Competition-based pricing – Pricing based on competitors’ pricing is commonly seen at gas stations.
• Freemium services –  Commonly used for software, where there is a free plan, then purchase options for more functionality.

HubSpot has a great calculator and blog on pricing strategies.

Beyond explaining what strategy your business plans to use, you should include references for how you came to this pricing strategy and how it will impact your cash flow.

Distribution Plan

This part of a business plan is focused on how the product or service is going to go through the supply chain. These may include multiple divisions or multiple companies. Make sure to include any parts of the workflow that are automated so investors can see where cost savings are expected and when.

Supply Chain Examples

For instance, lawn care companies  would need to cover aspects such as:

• Suppliers for lawn care equipment and tools
• Any chemicals or treatments needed
• Repair parts for sprinkler systems
• Vehicles to transport equipment and employees
• Insurance to protect the company vehicles and people.

Examples of Supply Chains

These are fairly flat supply chains compared to something like a clothing designer where the clothes would go through multiple vendors. A clothing company might have the following supply chain:

• Raw materials
• Shipping of raw materials
• Converting of raw materials to thread
• Shipping thread to produce garments
• Garment producer
• Shipping to company
• Company storage
• Shipping to retail stores

There have been advances such as print on demand that eliminate many of these steps. If you are designing completely custom clothing, all of this would need to be planned to keep from having business disruptions.

The main thing to include in the business plan is the list of suppliers, the path the supply chain follows, the time from order to the customer’s home, and the costs associated with each step of the process.

According to BizPlanReview , a business plan without this information is likely to get rejected because they have failed to research the key elements necessary to make sales to the customer.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 7. Company Organization and Operational Plan

This part of the business plan is focused on how the business model will function while serving customers.  The business plan should provide an overview of  how the team will manage the following aspects:

Quality Control

• Legal environment

Let’s look at each for some insight.

Production has already been discussed in previous sections so I won’t go into it much. When writing a business plan for investors, try to avoid repetition as it creates a more simple business plan.

If the organizational plan will be used by the team as an overview of how to perform the best services for the customer, then redundancy makes more sense as it communicates what is important to the business.

Quality control policies help to keep the team focused on how to verify that the company adheres to the business plan and meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Quality control can be anything from a standard that says “all labels on shirts can be no more than 1/16″ off center” to a defined checklist of steps that should be performed and filled out for every customer.

There are a variety of organizations that help define quality control including:

• International Organization for Standardization – Quality standards for energy, technology, food, production environments, and cybersecurity
• AICPA – Standard defined for accounting.
• The Joint Commission – Healthcare
• ASHRAE – HVAC best practices

You can find lists of the organizations that contribute most to the government regulation of industries on Open Secrets . Research what the leaders in your field are doing. Follow their example and implement it in your quality control plan.

For location, you should use information from the market research to establish where the location will be. Make sure to include the following in the location documentation.

• The size of your location
• The type of building (retail, industrial, commercial, etc.)
• Zoning restrictions – Urban Wire has a good map on how zoning works in each state
• Accessibility – Does it meet ADA requirements?
• Costs including rent, maintenance, utilities, insurance and any buildout or remodeling costs
• Utilities – b.e.f. has a good energy calculator .

Legal Environment

The legal requirement section is focused on defining how to meet the legal requirements for your industry. A good business plan should include all of the following:

• Any licenses and/or permits that are needed and whether you’ve obtained them
• Any trademarks, copyrights, or patents that you have or are in the process of applying for
• The insurance coverage your business requires and how much it costs
• Any environmental, health, or workplace regulations affecting your business
• Any special regulations affecting your industry
• Bonding requirements, if applicable

Your local SBA office can help you establish requirements in your area. I strongly recommend using them. They are a great resource.

Your business plan should include a plan for company organization and hiring. While you may be the only person with the company right now, down the road you’ll need more people. Make sure to consider and document the answers to the following questions:

• What is the current leadership structure and what will it look like in the future?
• What types of employees will you have? Are there any licensing or educational requirements?
• How many employees will you need?
• Will you ever hire freelancers or independent contractors?
• What is each position’s job description?
• What is the pay structure (hourly, salaried, base plus commission, etc.)?
• How do you plan to find qualified employees and contractors?

One of the most crucial parts of a business plan is the organizational chart. This simply shows the positions the company will need, who is in charge of them and the relationship of each of them. It will look similar to this:

Our small business plan template has a much more in-depth organizational chart you can edit to include when you include the organizational chart in your business plan.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 8. Financial Statements 

No business plan is complete without financial statements or financial projections. The business plan format will be different based on whether you are writing a business plan to expand a business or a startup business plan. Let’s dig deeper into each.

Provide All Financial Income from an Existing Business

An existing business should use their past financial documents including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement to find trends to estimate the next 3-5 years.

You can create easy trendlines in excel to predict future revenue, profit and loss, cash flow, and other changes in year-over-year performance. This will show your expected performance assuming business continues as normal.

If you are seeking an investment, then the business is probably not going to continue as normal. Depending on the financial plan and the purpose of getting financing, adjustments may be needed to the following:

• Higher Revenue if expanding business
• Lower Cost of Goods Sold if purchasing inventory with bulk discounts
• Adding interest if utilizing financing (not equity deal)
• Changes in expenses
• Addition of financing information to the cash flow statement
• Changes in Earnings per Share on the balance sheet

Financial modeling is a challenging subject, but there are plenty of low-cost courses on the subject. If you need help planning your business financial documentation take some time to watch some of them.

Make it a point to document how you calculated all the changes to the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement in your business plan so that key team members or investors can verify your research.

Financial Projections For A Startup Business Plan

Unlike an existing business, a startup doesn’t have previous success to model its future performance. In this scenario, you need to focus on how to make a business plan realistic through the use of industry research and averages.

Mike gave the following advice in his interview:

Financial Forecasting Mistakes

One of the things a lot of inexperienced people use is the argument, “If I get one percent of the market, it is worth $100 million.” If you use this, investors are likely to file the document under bad business plan examples.

Let’s use custom t-shirts as an example.

Credence Research estimated in 2018 there were 11,334,800,000 custom t-shirts sold for a total of $206.12 Billion, with a 6% compound annual growth rate.

With that data,  you can calculate that the industry will grow to $270 Billion in 2023 and that the average shirt sold creates $18.18 in revenue.

Combine that with an IBIS World estimate of 11,094 custom screen printers and that means even if you become an average seller, you’ll get .009% of the market.

Here’s a table for easier viewing of that information.

The point here is to make sure your business proposal examples make sense.

You’ll need to know industry averages such as cost of customer acquisition, revenue per customer, the average cost of goods sold, and admin costs to be able to create accurate estimates.

Our simple business plan templates walk you through most of these processes. If you follow them you’ll have a good idea of how to write a business proposal.

How to Write a Business Plan Step 9. Business Plan Example of Funding Requests

What is a business plan without a plan on how to obtain funding?

The Small Business Administration has an example for a pizza restaurant that theoretically needed nearly $20k to make it through their first month.

In our video, How to Start a $500K/Year T-Shirt Business (Pt. 1 ), Sanford Booth told us he needed about $200,000 to start his franchise and broke even after 4 months.

Freshbooks estimates it takes on average 2-3 years for a business to be profitable, which means the fictitious pizza company from the SBA could need up to $330k to make it through that time and still pay their bills for their home and pizza shop.

Not every business needs that much to start, but realistically it’s a good idea to assume that you need a fairly large cushion.

Ways to get funding for a small business

There are a variety of ways to cover this. the most common are:

• Bootstrapping – Using your savings without external funding.
• Taking out debt – loans, credit cards
• Equity, Seed Funding – Ownership of a percentage of the company in exchange for current funds
• Crowdsourcing – Promising a good for funding to create the product

Keep reading for more tips on how to write a business plan.

How funding will be used

When asking for business financing make sure to include:

• How much to get started?
• What is the minimum viable product and how soon can you make money?
• How will the money be spent?

Mike emphasized two aspects that should be included in every plan, 

How to Write a Business Plan Resources

Here are some links to a business plan sample and business plan outline. 

• Sample plan

It’s also helpful to follow some of the leading influencers in the business plan writing community. Here’s a list:

• Wise Plans –  Shares a lot of information on starting businesses and is a business plan writing company.
• Optimus Business Plans –  Another business plan writing company.
• Venture Capital – A venture capital thread that can help give you ideas.

How to Write a Business Plan: What’s Next?

We hope this guide about how to write a simple business plan step by step has been helpful. We’ve covered:

• The definition of a business plan
• Coming up with a business idea
• Performing market research
• The critical components of a business plan
• An example business plan

In addition, we provided you with a simple business plan template to assist you in the process of writing your startup business plan. The startup business plan template also includes a business model template that will be the key to your success.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our business hub .

Have you written a business plan before? How did it impact your ability to achieve your goals?

80% of businesses fail... Learn how not to.

Learn from business failures and successes in 5 min or less. The stories, frameworks, and tactics that will make you a 10x better founder.

Brandon Boushy

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How to Start an $80M/Year Construction Company

Have you ever wondered how to start a construction company but hesitated because you don’t have business experience or a previous business failed?

Marc Rousso knows what it’s like. His real estate business failed during the 2009 recession and left him owing the bank $2.5 million after liquidating everything. But within seven years, he grew JayMarc Homes into a construction company that makes $80 million annually, and he’s already paid off all the debt from his prior business.

We combine his insight with industry research to share everything you need to know to get into contracting (even if you have no money to invest).

How to start a construction company

We’ll cover each of the following topics. Read from start to finish or click any link to jump to the step you need help navigating right now.

• Learn about the construction industry.
• Decide how to start your own construction company.
• Write a construction company business plan.
• Choose a construction company name.
• Learn how to open a construction company.
• Set up your construction business finances.
• Establish safety protocols.
• Get equipment and supplies.
• Hire employees.
• Consider how to grow a construction business.
• Document your own business processes.

Step 1. Learn about the construction industry

• How much do construction companies make? According to IBISWorld Report 23 , the average company makes around $696K in revenue, but JayMarc Homes makes approximately $ 80 million per year.
• How much do construction company owners make? The profit margin for construction work is 3.4% before taxes, which means that the average small business owner makes approximately $23,664 in profit plus any salary they take from contracting.
• How many construction companies are in the U.S.? There are over 3.8 million construction companies in the United States, with an average of 2.63 employees.
• What is the most profitable construction niche? Land developers have the most profitable niche with an average pre-tax margin of 17%, followed by remodeling and excavation at 7.2%. Check out the table below for other segments' profit margins.
• How to start a construction company with no experience: Starting a construction company with no experience may be a challenge. The average home requires 22 subcontractors to build a house, so you’ll need lots of basic knowledge and soft skills to manage a contracting company without experience.
• How to start a construction company with no money: You can always book jobs and then rent the equipment needed to complete the job. Reinvest the profits into the business to reduce your costs over time.
• How much does it cost to start a construction company? Marc started his contracting business with around $15K. But other construction companies have started with much less. In fact, the VP Homes CEO entered the construction industry with $80 of tools and is now making $1.2 million per year.
• What skills do I need to own a construction business? You must understand building materials, each subcontracting field, and safety requirements. You might also need certifications depending on your niche.

Pro Tip: Subscribe to construction industry publications and local industry publications to keep updated on trends in your industry. Check out some of the popular industry organizations .

Case Study: JayMarc Homes

JayMarc Homes focuses on building custom homes. It was their second construction business after a company closure. They currently make about $80 million in revenue annually with a 10% profit margin, but Marc warned:

[su_quote] In any 10 years, you’ll probably have a 5% year, 10% year, 17% year, and 27% year. It all depends on the economy. [/su_quote]

Check out our interview with Marc below:

Next, you'll want to decide how to start a construction company.

Step 2. Decide how to start your own construction company

People who want to start contracting and construction companies have two main options:

• General contracting
• Subcontracting

Find out more about how to start a construction company as each of these types of contractors.

What is a general contractor?

A general contractor is the primary contact between a property owner and the construction project. Their role includes:

• Creating and managing the construction budget
• Hiring, managing, and paying subcontractors
• Working with the architect to implement and revise design specifications
• Maintaining project schedule and timing
• Scheduling inspections
• Making payments to vendors and specialty contractors
• Collecting and tracking lien waivers
• Managing post-construction issues with warranties and payments

How to start a general contracting business

Starting a general contracting business will normally require some or all of the following:

• time in the field
• education in the field
• passing an exam
• background checks
• security bonds

Find your state’s licensing requirements for how to start a small construction business as a general contractor .

What is a subcontractor?

Subcontracting businesses are normally construction services focused on specific trades like HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, carpentry, or other fields with specialized construction equipment or tools. The bigger specialty contractors may also compete as general contractors.

For instance, when I worked at Honeywell, we would compete for both HVAC and general construction work when bidding on government contracts for new federal, state, and local projects.

There are plenty of business ideas in the construction industry to consider. Check out our courses here . The cleaning business, pressure washing, and flooring courses will all guide you toward success in the construction industry.

Once you've decided whether you want to be a general contractor or a subcontractor, you'll want a business plan to guide you through the process of how to start a construction company and succeed.

Step 3. Write a construction company business plan

You’ll need a construction business plan to be successful.

A solid business plan includes:

• Contracting insurance information
• Competitive analysis
• Construction equipment list
• Financial projections
• Location details
• Licenses and permits
• Marketing plan
• Money-making strategies

Pro Tip: Our business plan guide walks you through writing a business plan and includes a free template for getting your business plan in order.

We can't discuss how to start a construction company without discussing choosing a business name…

Step 4. Choose a construction company name

Choosing a name can be exciting! Consider the following tips when choosing a construction business name:

• Add your details: JayMarc Homes communicates what field the business entity is in, though it could also be a real estate business.
• Easy and clear: JayMarc Homes might be changed to JayMark by potential customers. When it comes to getting a website, I would buy both domains, just in case.
• Location: Construction companies can rank higher in search results with a business name that includes the city name.
• Branding: A new construction company will have other branding elements. How will they tie in with your new business name?

Pro Tip: Try out our construction business name generator . Find a name that ensures your business’s future success and click on it to buy the domain.

Next, we’ll discuss how to start a contracting business legally.

Step 5. How to open a construction company

After writing a business plan, you’ll need to establish a legal structure. While some businesses can get away without creating a business entity, it is legally necessary for a local construction company.

Building companies should consult with a business lawyer to make sure they comply with all the laws that govern small construction companies in their area.

Your new construction builder will likely need assorted licenses, permits, insurance, and tax forms. Find out what you’ll need from the Small Business Administration (SBA) and Municode Library .

Business structure for construction companies

Construction companies need to create a separate legal entity to keep company property and personal assets separate. Most construction companies will form one of the following structures through their state’s Secretary of State website:

• S-Corporation: Best for high-earning companies that want to lower business owner taxes. A limited number of stockholders, provides personal liability protection, requires business owners to receive a salary (and optional dividends), no double taxation.
• C-Corporation: Best for companies trying to change the world. Unlimited stockholders, provides personal liability protection, high compliance costs, and double taxation. Business owners can earn money through multiple income streams with different tax codes.
• Limited Liability Company: Best for companies that want to separate business entities from personal assets. Provides limited liability, pass-through income, and no double taxation.

Pro Tip: To learn more about business structures, check out our blog on 11 structure options .

You’ll also want to get your business licensed. Some states let you do it all at once. Don’t forget to grab an employer identification number (sometimes called a federal tax ID) from the IRS . It’s used for payroll and business taxes when starting a contracting business.

What licenses are needed to start a construction business?

A successful construction business will need different business licenses depending on your location and business plan. There are main categories of business licenses for a contractor business: general contractor’s license or subcontractor license. Check with local industry associations and the state and local government for more information.

Next, you'll need to thing about finances as you learn how to start a construction company.

Step 6. Set up your construction business finances

Financial management is an essential part of how to start your own construction business. Once you arrive at this step, you should already know your budget, but let’s look at how to:

• Get a business bank account
• Get small business insurance.
• Secure funding
• Create a pricing structure

Business bank account

To run a successful business, you need to open a business bank account because you need to separate your business and personal finances and assets. Business bank accounts can be either online or from brick-and-mortar (legacy) banks and credit unions.

Online banks tend to have better offers, but they might not have as broad a range of business credit card accounts and service offerings as the legacy banking system. If credit accounts or making cash deposits are important to you, go with the legacy banks. Learn more from our business bank account guide .

Get business insurance

You’ll want to get business insurance, including:

• General liability insurance: Covers against customer injuries
• Property insurance: Protects the business owner from expenses due to property damage
• Workers compensation insurance: Pays employees for lost wages and medical bills when they get hurt
• State disability insurance: Covers against full or partial disability
• Unemployment insurance: Covers former employees who are laid off
• Commercial vehicle insurance: Covers against accidents when driving

Pro Tip: Consider Simply Business to get the most competitive general liability insurance quotes for your business.

The contracting industry doesn’t cost a lot to get into, but funding is an essential part of starting a successful business. You might consider:

• Small business loans (including SBA loans)
• Equipment loans
• Angel investors
• Business partners
• Credit cards
• Crowdfunding
• Government programs
• Home equity loan
• Friends or family
• Personal finance through savings or wages
• Rollover for business startups ( ROBS )

Each method has its pros and cons. For example, SBA loans may be a good way for a new business to get a business loan because they typically have better interest rates than any other business loan. That said, the interest could start accruing before your first building is complete.

A business line of credit only charges interest on the money you use, making it a cost-effective way to fund your own construction company.

Pro Tip: National Business Credit is our preferred business financing partner.

Pricing structure

A construction company will have different ways of pricing. Some of the common ones are:

• Time and materials: You charge based on the time and materials used for the construction project.
• Flat rate: Charge an all-inclusive fee.
• Market value: If you’re designing and building a home, you might sell the property at market value. This can have huge profit margins if you can purchase materials for less than most local companies.

We cant talk about how to start a construction company without reminding you there are lots of safety laws you need to follow

Step 7. Establish safety protocols

Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA ) governs workplace safety and has special requirements about how to run a construction company. Supervisors will need the OSHA 30 certification. There are also personal protective equipment requirements for each trade.

Take OSHA requirements seriously to keep all parties safe from injury, fines, and legal action.

You'll need to get equipment because it's a crucial aspect of how to start a construction company.

Step 8. Get equipment and supplies

Construction businesses need lots of equipment and supplies, including:

• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) : Hard hats, safety vests, safety goggles, lockout-tagout equipment, and eye protection
• Project Management Software: You’ll need construction management software like Monday Sales CRM .
• Heavy Machines: You might need excavators, dump trucks, cranes, concrete mixers, and other machinery .
• Hand Tools: You’ll need various tools depending on your specialization, but most construction workers will need at least a hammer and screwdrivers.
• Power Tools: Buy or rent drills, saws, and other power tools to make your construction jobs faster and easier.
• Specialty Equipment: Each field in the construction industry will need different tools. Make sure to research the crucial tools for your industry.

Check out our interview with Avanni Petras to find out how he dealt with the cost of equipment when he started Petras Homes on a shoestring budget.

When you think about how to start a construction company, are you thinking about having employees? If you are check out our next section.

Step 9. Hire employees

Hiring employees in the construction industry is a crucial aspect of how to start a home-building company. We asked Marc how many employees they have and he told us:

[su_quote]We have 45 employees, 30 in the office and 15 out in the field. Almost all our employees are referrals.[/su_quote]

Marc described some of the ways they help make JayMarc Homes a great place to work. He told us:

• During the first week, we don’t send them out to the field. We help them get to know everyone so they feel like they are part of the family.
• We have them read the book Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit . It helps align new employees with quality services and business strategy.
• Once everyone gets to know the new employees, we get together and tell them positive adjectives that describe them — it builds them up and lets them know how amazing we think they are.
• Then, we do a naming ceremony where we establish team names.

He also told us

[su_quote]Over 10% of our workforce has left and come back.[/su_quote]

Pro Tips: It helps if the people you hire possess technical skills, but they can be taught. Here’s a great new hire checklist for a contracting business.

[su_quote]We’re a luxury brand. We sell premium customer service and have every model available as a home.[/su_quote]

Step 10. Consider how to grow a construction business

JayMarc Homes holds webinars where they teach people about the aspects of custom home building and home ownership.

[su_quote]Our webinars don’t make us money, but they help us build relationships where people trust us more and come to us when they are ready to build a custom home.[/su_quote]

Marc specifically recommends identifying your niche and mastering it. He told us:

[su_quote]If you don’t master a niche, you’ll have a hard time making a profit. You’ll effectively pay a dumb tax by trying to jump all over the place.[/su_quote]

Market research: Identify your customer

Hopefully, you did some market research about your target market when writing your business plan, but if you didn’t, it’s time for market research now. Small businesses in the construction industry might specialize in specific construction areas like remodeling. In Marc’s case, they have three primary customers they identify:

• High-end home buyers: The target audience for the homes they build and sell themselves. These will normally be people with 700+ credit scores who can afford a $3 million home.
• Landowners: Wealthy families who own undeveloped land and need to build their homes. These clients will normally have special features they want in their homes. JayMarc is able to offer them standard models or combine two or more home models.
• Distraught housing owners: These customers own or rent properties in wealthy neighborhoods. They create great opportunities to make higher profits by demolishing the home and replacing it with a new one in better condition.

[su_quote]We specifically drive the neighborhoods we want to build in and look for homes in the third category. We then build a relationship with them. It helps attract business when we remove an eye sore and replace it with a beautiful new home.[/su_quote]

Read more about identifying ideal customers and creating a customer persona.

Use this information in your own marketing strategy to help you find customers using digital marketing, which we’ll discuss next.

Digital marketing

In the digital age, your online presence is how customers find you. A website, social media accounts, email newsletters, and digital advertising are all practical marketing tools. Check out UpFlip’s helpful guide on creating a website .

Be sure to implement SEO for the best results. Services like Surfer can help you with that. And the best part is you can always perform a quick test to determine if your SEO is working.

Check out what Entrepreneur.com has to say about finding a reputable SEO company. And once you have your website, don’t forget to explore the following opportunities to improve SEO:

Try a digital business card service, like Popl , that allows you to link your contacts, websites, social pages, payment apps, and promotional material all from one page.

Instead of spending too much time scrolling through social media, make it work for your business! Facebook and Instagram provide free insights on business accounts with opportunities to run paid ads.

Managing multiple social media accounts can take a lot of time, and that’s something most small business owners don’t have to spare. Tailwind makes this easier by managing your email and social media marketing across platforms and is an especially useful tool for small businesses that don’t have the budget to hire dedicated marketing staff.

A newsletter is an excellent way to keep in touch with customers and send them coupons. Mailchimp and Constant Contact provide awesome email marketing tools.

Take your ad dollars one step further with broader digital marketing efforts. Consider pay per click (PPC), marketing automation, and other avenues.

Consider creating mailers, brochures, business cards, car magnets, flyers, t-shirts, and other promotional swag as a way of getting your name out there. Use an application like Canva to help.

Cold-calling and door-to-door advertising are less common these days than they were through the mid-’90s, but these methods can still be effective if done responsibly.

Pro Tip: Consider simple uniforms and vehicle branding to look professional and maximize advertising.

Get reviews to feed the crews

In addition, actively seek reviews ! You’ll need to ask every customer for reviews. Otherwise, negative reviews will prevail. For bad reviews (warranted or not), respond professionally .

Good feedback leads to new customers and encourages repeat business.

Step 11. Document your own business processes

Construction companies have lots of processes that have to be followed. From getting permits to inspections and proper building techniques, you’ll need to make sure everyone knows what to do.

Good processes scale easily for others to follow. You won’t stop being actively involved completely, but good processes will help you delegate better. Use Lucidchart to document them in a process map .

Here’s a basic “process” for documenting your processes:

• Set a goal for your process mapping session.
• Include all roles involved in the workflow.
• Identify the issue you hope to solve with the map.
• List all activities.
• Determine the triggers, inputs, and outputs.
• Flow out the steps and decisions because you can’t always depend on the “ideal” path.
• Make the final draft, get all roles to agree, and sign off on the process map.

For instance, the basic home building process includes:

• Commit to an architectural plan.
• Clear the land.
• Get building permits.
• Arrange for utility and infrastructure (electrical and plumbing) installation.
• Lay the foundation.
• Add the framing and roof.
• Install in-home plumbing and electric.
• Get inspections.
• Install fixtures.
• Get more inspections.
• Perform construction site cleanup.

Each of these will have subprocesses that need to be performed or managed, too.

Now you know how to start a construction company. It's up to you to do the rest.

Create a successful contracting business

The internet won’t replace the construction industry. Before starting your construction business, ask yourself these two fundamental questions:

• What do I need to research?
• Am I capable of providing a great experience through top-level customer service?

It might seem like a lot, but don’t overcomplicate it. In truth, you can start a construction business quickly.

Provide outstanding service, make money, and satisfy your customers. That’s all you need to succeed. Now you know how to start construction business operations. It's time to go forward and build.

What construction practices would you like to see improved?

KAIZEN: A Systematic Way to Transform Your Business (2024)

What is Kaizen?

What are the 5 elements of kaizen.

• Teamwork- Working toward a common goal
• Personal discipline- Holding oneself responsible for doing what is right
• Improved morale- Higher levels of happiness
• Quality- Fewer flaws, better craftsmanship
• Suggestions for improvement- Openness to ways to improve

What are the main principles of kaizen philosophy?

Know your customer, eliminate waste or "muda".

• Practice Gemba (be where work is performed)

Empower Your People

Measure and honestly share data.

• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Database of customer suggestions and complaints
• Industry Trends
• You are your customer
• Demographics
• Behavioral Research
• Carpenters, Craftsmen, Cabinet Makers
• Care about Efficiency
• Care about Quality

• Overproduction-producing too much of a product
• Waiting- Wasted time
• Transportation- Sending goods out of the way during the supply chain
• Overprocessing- Adding unnecessary features
• Movement- Taking steps that don't contribute to the process
• Inventory- Storing too much product and tying up cash
• Making Defective Parts- Wasting inputs.
• Underutilized Talent- Failing to allow employees to contribute as well as they could.

Practice Gemba

How Does Kaizen work?

Kaizen events, what is a kaizen blitz, what are kaizen workshops.

Continuous Improvement Best Practices

• Start your day with the 3S- Sweep, Sort, Standardize. Watch Paul explaining the 3S .
• Daily team meeting to get everyone involved in creating better change.
• If it bugs you, change it.
• Share your solutions so they can be standardized.

What are examples of kaizen?

Influencers.

How to Start a $50K/Month Dropshipping Business

What is Drop Shipping?

How does dropshipping work, is dropshipping worth it, is dropshipping legal, how to start dropshipping with no money, step 1. research dropshipping ideas, step 2. choose a dropshipping opportunity, step 3. write a business plan, step 4. choose a business structure, step 5. select a dropshipping supplier, step 6. open an online store (optional), step 7. market your online business, never make these dropshipping mistakes, make the dropshipping business model work for you.

• Customer orders a product from an online store.
• Online store takes their profit and sends the order and payment for product and shipping to the supplier.
• Supplier prepares the order and ships to customer.

How to Start Dropshipping 

• Sign up on the platform
• Get a supplier
• Create designs
• Create website (if needed)
• Do marketing

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Dropshipping Business?

• Ebay : Anything you sell on Amazon Merch
• Etsy : Design files sell well on Etsy
• Amazon Central : Sell the same designs or your own dropshipping products
• Amazon KDP : Apply the dropshipping business model to books
• Red Bubble : This is an Australian dropshipping supplier that Ryan has had success with

How to Start a Dropshipping Business

• Research Dropshipping Ideas
• Choose a Dropshipping Opportunity
• Write A Business Plan
• Choose A Business Structure
• Select a Dropshipping Supplier
• Open an Online Store
• Market Your Dropshipping Store

• Limited Liability Company : Offers personal liability protection and protects personal assets under most scenarios if you keep your personal and business finances separate. Apply with your state’s Secretary of State
• Business License : These are required in many states to operate a business. You may also need local or county licenses.
• Sales Tax Permit: To collect sales tax, you will need a tax permit, which may also be called a tax ID. You’ll also need to pay the sales tax office after you collect the taxes. Each state handles these differently so just search “Sales Tax Permit” in Google.

Wholesale Central

• Amazon FBA Suppliers
• Wholesale Dropshipping Suppliers

Amazon Drop Shipping

• Fulfillment By Amazon : Have Amazon fulfill orders for your ecommerce store. Find out how to sell products using this business model.
• Amazon Merch : Make between $1.93 and $9.32 royalty per t-shirt sold with Amazon Merch online store.
• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) : Start a dropshipping business selling books on Amazon KDP .

Alibaba Dropshipping

Aliexpress dropshipping center.

Shopify Dropshipping

• DSers : Connect AliExpress to your website and pull in the information from the AliExpress website with this dropshipping Shopify app. There are free and paid plans as low as $19.90 per month.
• Spocket : Find dropshipping suppliers. USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and China are all places you can connect your ecommerce business to with a free plan. A small business can upgrade for $24.99/month.
• Modalyst : Sync AliExpress to your own site on Shopify. Starting a dropshipping business is easier with this app because it provides branded dropshipping lists to make your marketing easier. It isn’t free, though. You’ll be paying $35 per month.
• Print-on-Demand : Companies like Printful and Gelato are great for branded dropshipping. A customer makes a purchase, then the company prints the product and then mails it directly to them.

• Create a Marketing Strategy

Register with Search Engines

Create content.

• Collect Data
• Automate Email Marketing

Define Your Marketing Strategies

• Define what online tools you’ll use.
• Choose how you’ll communicate with your target market.
• Specify the kind of content you’ll post.
• Be consistent with how often you post. 

Collect Customer Data

Automate SMS and Email Marketing

• Sales Price : $50
• Tax : $4.25
• Ecommerce Fees : $7.50
• Processing Fee : $1
• Cost of Product : $34.25
• Gross Profit : $3
• Net Loss : -$19

Choosing The Wrong Target Market

Underestimating the importance of seo, not automating processes.

Negative Customer Experience

Relying too much on a single supplier, poor customer support.

• Thank you email after they purchase.
• Shipping email once the order has a tracking number.
• Delivery email (or text) once the product arrives.
• Satisfaction questionnaire after they’ve had time to test the product.
• New product updates they might like periodically.

Failing to Build a Brand

Accepting payments for undeliverable products, marketing something that’s then hard to find.

nice work https://binarychemist.com/

My Name is PRETTY NGOMANE. A south African female. Aspiring to do farming. And finding a home away from home for the differently abled persons in their daily needs.

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Business Plan Review

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A business plan review is an in-depth examination of your business plan and its viability. It can be conducted by a single expert, a panel of experts, or you and your colleagues.

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is essential for any company wishing to start or expand its operations. It provides a framework for decision-making and helps to make sure that all sections of the organization are working together towards common goals. A good business plan can also help attract investors or obtain loans from banks or other lending institutions.

The main purpose of a business plan is to provide investors with information about the opportunities and challenges facing your company so they can make informed decisions about whether or not they want to invest in it. If they decide to invest, they'll know how much money they are likely to make and what risks might arise during their investment term (usually between five years and ten years).

Of course, not all startups need a full-blown business plan — but if you seek outside funding or investment, it's best to start developing yours as early as possible. And even if you don't seek outside funding, it's still smart to develop a comprehensive plan for your business to clearly define what success looks like and how you'll get there.

What Is a Business Plan Review?

A business plan review should be conducted before you begin your venture, at least once during its life cycle (preferably after you have experienced some success), and when it comes time for you to close up shop. The objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses in your plan so that you can take steps toward improving those areas.

The purpose of a business plan review is not to evaluate the likelihood of success for a given project or company but rather to determine whether the project has been adequately researched and whether the information presented is accurate and comprehensive enough for investors or other stakeholders to make an informed decision about investing in it.

Why Should You Have Your Business Plan Reviewed?

Your business plan is a living document. Over time, it will change as you grow and learn more about your business, market and competition.

But even when the plan isn't changing, it's important to review it regularly to ensure that you're still on track. Here are seven reasons why:

A good review will give you an unbiased look at your plan, highlighting areas where more information is required or gaps in your thinking. This can help ensure that your plan contains everything it needs to, which makes it easier to manage and gives investors confidence in your business.

A business plan is a blueprint for reaching your long-term goals. But a good review will help you see how well your current strategy aligns with those goals and whether there are any holes in the plan. If there are gaps, the reviewer can help you identify what needs to be changed and where resources must be allocated to achieve those goals.

Having someone look over your plan from an objective point of view can help you see potential problems before they become major issues. You might find that something is missing from your strategy or that too many steps are involved in achieving your goals. It could also reveal other important information that will help improve the overall quality of your plan.

Business plans don't just cover what's happened so far — they also forecast what's going to happen next year, six months from now and beyond. So if things change along the way, they may not be reflected in the plan written today. A review can help keep your focus on where you want to go in the future by reviewing your progress each month and adjusting accordingly if needed.

A good consultant will give you constructive feedback about areas where your business plan falls short. This is invaluable when it comes time to revise your plan to more accurately reflect the reality of what's happening in your company, whether due to external factors or internal mistakes. A comprehensive review will also show you where there are holes in your strategy and suggest how they can be filled to strengthen your company's position in its marketplace.

Looking at how your business has performed over time, you can identify areas of concern before they become serious problems.

For example, if sales are declining or profits are shrinking, these trends might be due to temporary factors that can be corrected with better marketing or product development. If sales continue to fall despite these efforts, however, there could be deeper-rooted problems that need addressing.

A good business plan will give you an idea of what your company can accomplish in the short term and over time.

A good business plan also helps potential investors understand what your business is about and why it has the potential for success. This means that if they invest in your company, they can be more confident that they're making a smart choice that will make them money.

• Business Strategy: Planning a company's strategic direction and goals. The business strategy consists of setting a business's vision and mission, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating growth opportunities.
• Business Forecast: A business forecast predicts how well the company's revenue and expenses will fare for the next few years. It typically includes financial statements for the current year, estimates for the following year, and projections for two or three subsequent years.
• Bank-Ready Business Plan: A business plan that has been carefully prepared to meet all criteria set by banks when applying for a loan. The bank will want financial projections showing how your business can repay the loan and reasonable evidence that you have identified all costs associated with starting and operating your new business.

Hire the best lawyers for a business plan review through Contracts Counsel where you can find many qualified and vetted lawyers to help you go over your business plan.

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20 Questions for Your Q1 Business Plan Review

The end of Q1 is the ideal time for a business plan review.

So how do you even review a business plan?

You’ve heard me say before that having a business plan is an absolutely essential part of getting to where you want to be in life. But no matter how good of a plan you make, at the end of the day, it’s still only a plan – which means it’s meant to be followed, not written and set aside. That’s what this business plan review is for.

It’s the role of a good coach to check in on your progress and keep you on pace, so that’s exactly what I’m hoping to accomplish here in this blog.

According to your business plan , the strategies you’ve put in place so far can either:

• Launch you to where you want to be (if you refine them) or
• Send you spiraling into a crash (if they’re left unchecked)

It’s probably fair to say you’d prefer the first one, right? In that case, I’m giving you one of my favorite simple business plan review techniques. All you have to do is get all your numbers ready, pull up your business plan, and answer 20 questions.

Got everything ready? Then let’s get started…

How often should a business plan be reviewed?

Your business plan should be reviewed at least once per year. In today’s fast-paced business world, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations and lose sight of the bigger picture. That’s why it’s crucial to schedule regular business plan reviews. Updating your business plan annually helps ensure that your company stays competitive and on track to meet its long-term goals. With so much at stake, you can’t afford to wait until the last minute to sift through all the numbers and make necessary changes. By reviewing your business plan regularly, you’ll be able to identify areas of improvement and make strategic adjustments. Don’t let your business plan become a static document. Keep it alive and thriving by scheduling regular reviews.

Business Plan Review Questions to Ask Yourself

Question No. 1: What’s your WHY? This is something you should already have written in your business plan , but it’s a question worth repeatedly asking not just at the end of every quarter but every day. So look at what you wrote down in December and then ask the question again. Has your answer changed? It’s okay if it has but make the adjustment.

Question No. 2: What’s your role?

Define your job, because your job title defines how you approach both your work and your business plan review. Are you operating as a real estate agent or like the CEO of your company?

Question No. 3: Did you make enough money to achieve your WHY?

Before we dive into any of your actual numbers, let’s establish a monetary value for your WHY. Not everything in life has a price tag: love, peace, honesty… But most things do, or at least money plays a role in them. Maybe you want to pay for your kid’s college. Maybe you want to start investing in properties. So ask yourself if over the last three months you’re on the right track for these goals and what being on the right track would actually look like.

Goals vs. Reality

Question No. 4: Units Closed vs. Goal Units Closed?

Question No. 5: Volume vs. Goal Volume?

Question No. 6: GCI vs. Goal GCI?

Question No. 7: What’s your average price per listing?

Add up the sum total of what all your listings have sold for and divide by the number of listings taken.

Are You Following Your Plan?

Question No. 8: Are you using all the lead sources you said you would on your business plan?

Question No. 9: Which lead sources are you underutilizing?

Question No. 10: Have you put in place the systems you wanted to have by Q2?

Question No. 11: In what ways do you need to adjust your plan to catch up to where you want to be by Q3?

Question No. 12: Expenses vs. Income. Are you staying in the right range?

If not, how far off are you and where is that money going?

Finding Your Personal Metrics

Question No. 13: How many conversations did you have?

Then break this down to how many you had each day, week, and month. Create a daily average.

Question No. 14: How many appointments did you take?

Question No. 15: How many conversations does it take you to get an appointment?

It’s simple division that creates massive predictability for your business. You should know this number and “live it” every day. Remember: Appointments are the only currency that matters today.

Question No. 16: How many appointments does it take for you to convert a listing?

Important Questions to Have Framed in Your Office

Question No. 17: How much money do you make from each conversation you have?

Divide your GCI by the total number of conversations you had. Then take this number and put it somewhere that you and every person on your team can see every day. When you don’t feel like making your calls, just remind yourself that this is how much every call is worth to you.

Question No. 18: What went well for you in Q1 and how can you do more of it?

It’s important to not only focus on where you’ve fallen short, because you’re strengths are what you need to rely on here – which means it’s important to know what they are!

Question No. 19: What do you need to stop doing and leave behind in Q2?

It’s time to strip away all the baggage that’s slowing you down, whether that means it’s time to hire someone or maybe it’s a lifestyle habit that’s getting in the way of your success.

Question No. 20: Are you getting to support you need?

In my 35+ years in this business, I’ve never seen anyone figure everything out by themselves. Even for people who are thriving right now, imagine what you could do if you had professional support to guide you on your journey…

My guess is, you’d learn that you’re not setting your goals high enough. Because we don’t know what we’re capable of until we have a valued mentor bring it out of us, push us to new limits, and show us the blind spots we can’t see for ourselves. So, if you’re ready to take this next step and fully commit to becoming the best version of yourself in Q2 and beyond, self-schedule a free coaching consultation right here . It only takes about an hour and might just change your life.

And if you’re already a coaching member or Sphere subscriber , be sure to watch Kay Fairchild’s webinar on conducting a more detailed quarterly business plan review inside of illūm, where she takes you step-by-step through her own extremely valuable quarterly review process.

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What is a business plan?

1. write an executive summary, 2. describe your company, 3. state your business goals, 4. describe your products and services, 5. do your market research, 6. outline your marketing and sales plan, 7. perform a business financial analysis, 8. make financial projections, 9. summarize how your company operates, 10. add any additional information to an appendix, business plan tips and resources.

A business plan outlines your business’s financial goals and explains how you’ll achieve them over the next three to five years. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a business plan that will offer a strong, detailed road map for your business.

ZenBusiness

A business plan is a document that explains what your business does, how it makes money and who its customers are. Internally, writing a business plan should help you clarify your vision and organize your operations. Externally, you can share it with potential lenders and investors to show them you’re on the right track.

Business plans are living documents; it’s OK for them to change over time. Startups may update their business plans often as they figure out who their customers are and what products and services fit them best. Mature companies might only revisit their business plan every few years. Regardless of your business’s age, brush up this document before you apply for a business loan .

» Need help writing? Learn about the best business plan software .

This is your elevator pitch. It should include a mission statement, a brief description of the products or services your business offers and a broad summary of your financial growth plans.

Though the executive summary is the first thing your investors will read, it can be easier to write it last. That way, you can highlight information you’ve identified while writing other sections that go into more detail.

» MORE: How to write an executive summary in 6 steps

Next up is your company description. This should contain basic information like:

Your business’s registered name.

Address of your business location .

Names of key people in the business. Make sure to highlight unique skills or technical expertise among members of your team.

Your company description should also define your business structure — such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation — and include the percent ownership that each owner has and the extent of each owner’s involvement in the company.

Lastly, write a little about the history of your company and the nature of your business now. This prepares the reader to learn about your goals in the next section.

» MORE: How to write a company overview for a business plan

The third part of a business plan is an objective statement. This section spells out what you’d like to accomplish, both in the near term and over the coming years.

If you’re looking for a business loan or outside investment, you can use this section to explain how the financing will help your business grow and how you plan to achieve those growth targets. The key is to provide a clear explanation of the opportunity your business presents to the lender.

For example, if your business is launching a second product line, you might explain how the loan will help your company launch that new product and how much you think sales will increase over the next three years as a result.

» MORE: How to write a successful business plan for a loan

In this section, go into detail about the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

You should include the following:

An explanation of how your product or service works.

The pricing model for your product or service.

The typical customers you serve.

Your supply chain and order fulfillment strategy.

You can also discuss current or pending trademarks and patents associated with your product or service.

Lenders and investors will want to know what sets your product apart from your competition. In your market analysis section , explain who your competitors are. Discuss what they do well, and point out what you can do better. If you’re serving a different or underserved market, explain that.

Here, you can address how you plan to persuade customers to buy your products or services, or how you will develop customer loyalty that will lead to repeat business.

Include details about your sales and distribution strategies, including the costs involved in selling each product .

» MORE: R e a d our complete guide to small business marketing

If you’re a startup, you may not have much information on your business financials yet. However, if you’re an existing business, you’ll want to include income or profit-and-loss statements, a balance sheet that lists your assets and debts, and a cash flow statement that shows how cash comes into and goes out of the company.

Accounting software may be able to generate these reports for you. It may also help you calculate metrics such as:

Net profit margin: the percentage of revenue you keep as net income.

Current ratio: the measurement of your liquidity and ability to repay debts.

Accounts receivable turnover ratio: a measurement of how frequently you collect on receivables per year.

This is a great place to include charts and graphs that make it easy for those reading your plan to understand the financial health of your business.

This is a critical part of your business plan if you’re seeking financing or investors. It outlines how your business will generate enough profit to repay the loan or how you will earn a decent return for investors.

Here, you’ll provide your business’s monthly or quarterly sales, expenses and profit estimates over at least a three-year period — with the future numbers assuming you’ve obtained a new loan.

Accuracy is key, so carefully analyze your past financial statements before giving projections. Your goals may be aggressive, but they should also be realistic.

NerdWallet’s picks for setting up your business finances:

The best business checking accounts .

The best business credit cards .

The best accounting software .

Before the end of your business plan, summarize how your business is structured and outline each team’s responsibilities. This will help your readers understand who performs each of the functions you’ve described above — making and selling your products or services — and how much each of those functions cost.

If any of your employees have exceptional skills, you may want to include their resumes to help explain the competitive advantage they give you.

Finally, attach any supporting information or additional materials that you couldn’t fit in elsewhere. That might include:

Licenses and permits.

Equipment leases.

Bank statements.

Details of your personal and business credit history, if you’re seeking financing.

If the appendix is long, you may want to consider adding a table of contents at the beginning of this section.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

Here are some tips to write a detailed, convincing business plan:

Avoid over-optimism: If you’re applying for a business bank loan or professional investment, someone will be reading your business plan closely. Providing unreasonable sales estimates can hurt your chances of approval.

Proofread: Spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can jump off the page and turn off lenders and prospective investors. If writing and editing aren't your strong suit, you may want to hire a professional business plan writer, copy editor or proofreader.

Use free resources: SCORE is a nonprofit association that offers a large network of volunteer business mentors and experts who can help you write or edit your business plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers , which provide free business consulting and help with business plan development, can also be a resource.

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Free QBR and Business Review Templates

By Kate Eby | June 25, 2018 (updated October 20, 2022)

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Companies like Google and Intel use a form of goal planning and a business leadership process to identify OKRs, the objectives and key results that drive internal performance, build customer relationships, and deliver growth. The quarterly business review (QBR) meeting is the delivery platform to discuss and set OKRs and measure and grade performance as determined by a company’s overall mission and values. This article features an overview of QBR meetings, including expert business review planning and presentation techniques. You’ll find a variety of free QBR templates to use, so you can spend less time preparing for your presentations and more time managing your business.  

Customer QBR Meeting Preparation Checklist

Use this checklist to help you prepare a QBR meeting presentation that captures your customer’s attention and demonstrates your commitment to honor their valuable time.

‌ Download Customer QBR Meeting Preparation Checklist

Supplier QBR Template

QBR meetings provide a place and time for suppliers and customers to build a strategic relationship that benefits both parties. Use this supplier QBR template to measure the quantitative value that your managed service providers and vendor partners offer your business. If you’re the supplier, use this template at your next QBR to take a proactive role as a valuable business partner by establishing your customer’s return on investment.

‌   Download Excel Template Try Smartsheet Template   ‌

Annual Business Review Template

Use this annual business review template to compile the key results of your quarterly business review meetings and prepare your presentation. This template is designed as a formal presentation to discuss key business objectives and results. Customize the slides outlined to deliver a concise, impactful review of past performance and articulate future goals for the year ahead.

‌ Download Annual Business Review Template – PowerPoint

Small Business QBR Template

Running a small business requires the optimization of time and money — hold your suppliers to the same standard with this template. Use this form to organize information about the products and services your key vendors provide. Also use it to facilitate critical quarterly checkpoint meetings in order to grade the relationship based on results.

Download Small Business QBR Template

Excel | Word

Executive QBR Template

Use this customizable QBR slide deck to present to executive leadership. It is designed to present the most vital information up front and to summarize objectives and key results to busy executives with tight schedules. This template is perfect for remote online meetings that use video conferencing software. It’s also ideal for a less-than-captive audience.

‌ Download Executive QBR Template – PowerPoint

Sales QBR Template

Sales professionals need an effective QBR business planning process to execute quarterly sales goals and measure the results of their sales team’s efforts. Share this customizable QBR slide deck outline with your team to elevate performance and establish accountability. They can easily modify each slide to present essential information about their market or customers and plan next steps to be reviewed at the next QBR meeting. Adjust the slides and craft a QBR presentation for your customers.  

‌ Download Sales QBR Template – PowerPoint

What Is a QBR Meeting?

The purpose of a QBR meeting is to communicate business-related goals, determine OKRs to measure success, and build relationships with customers or employees. The meeting is most effective when conducted face to face, but technology, the growth of global business, and the increase in geographically distributed teams make remote QBR meetings a popular option.

Internal QBR meetings happen at every level, from executive leadership to product teams. As an external communication tool, the QBR meeting is an opportunity for customer success managers (or related sales and marketing professionals using strategic account management) to discuss KPIs and return on investment (ROI), sign sales contracts, or negotiate service renewal agreements with customers.

What to Include in a Sales QBR

Determining business goals and using key customers to identify the desired results of your efforts are just the beginning of effective QBR planning. Resist the urge to think in a vacuum when creating your slide deck. Consider the customer. Don’t treat the QBR meeting like any other sales call by focusing on complaints, reviewing past performance, etc. Instead, create a customer-oriented agenda and share it with them prior to the meeting.

The agenda of your sales quarterly business review might include the following topics:

Status of outstanding business from previous meeting

Review of program objectives

Performance results and improvement

News and updates on products and services

Future business opportunities

Items from last meeting

Sales and marketing program metrics

Scorecard review (Customer Health Index or Net Promoter Score)

Support ticket review and resolution metrics review

Benchmarking

Customer support desk review

Onboarding and training

Product roadmap and feature development

License renewals and service contracts

Summary of meeting and commitments

Scheduling of next QBR

Guide to Effective Customer QBR Meetings

Nancy Duarte  is Principal at  Duarte, Inc ., a company that helps “write, design, and deliver groundbreaking stories and visual presentations for every occasion.” The following tips were inspired by Duarte’s experience and recommendations from her book  Harvard Business Review Guide to Persuasive Presentations . Use them to plan and deliver a compelling presentation to your customer at the next QBR meeting.

Audience over Ambitions : Duarte points out that your audience has the power, not you. Look past your ambitions for the meeting and prepare a presentation that takes into account who is in attendance, their valuable and limited time, and what each individual customer needs from the QBR meeting. Duarte recommends giving your customer a gift in the form of unique insight or information, providing them with a new skill or mindset to achieve their business goals, and seeking opportunities to get “unstuck” with a solution if there is a problem with their products, services, or operations.   

Filter Big Ideas : As the name suggests, the QBR is about reviewing past performance, but most customer QBR meetings are scheduled for one hour. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the opportunity to present ideas for how to build future business with your customers and add value to the discussion. Duarte is a proponent of filtering big ideas. “If you don’t filter your presentation, the audience will have to, and people will resent you for making them work too hard to identify the most important points,” she writes. This advice is especially relevant for QBR meetings that can quickly devolve into problem solving and complaint resolution sessions before you have time to present your ideas.

Anticipate Adversity : According to Duarte, as a presenter, you’re frequently creating resistance to your message and ideas. QBR meetings are not an opportunity to troubleshoot customer service issues or the performance of your product and services. Duarte suggests preparing for different types of resistance (logical, emotional, practical) by anticipating and addressing your customer’s concerns before they become roadblocks to your meeting. Consider opening the meeting agenda with a statement acknowledging the issues and when they will be addressed during the presentation. “By showing that you’ve considered opposing points of view, you demonstrate an open mind — and invite your audience to respond in kind,” she writes.  

Golden Rule : The motto at Duarte, Inc. is, “Never deliver a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through.” Rehearse your presentation before the QBR meeting. Have a colleague or manager analyze your slides and delivery and provide some feedback. Duarte recommends preparing a shorter version of your presentation in case something goes wrong and time is cut short by an interruption or technical glitches. Your customer can tell if you try to wing it, and they will feel slighted. “It sends the message that you don’t value them or their time,” she writes. “Perhaps most significantly, rehearsing frees you up to be more present in your talk and to fully engage with the people in front of you,” she continues. This creates more opportunities to build future business, ask for recommendations, and schedule your future meetings with the customer.

Quarterly Business Review FAQ

Preparing for and delivering an effective quarterly business review doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Here’s a look at some of the key questions about QBR meetings.

Does Every Customer Get a QBR?

QBR meetings foster relationships between you and your customers, reinforce the value of your products and services, and invite honest discussion about the ROI and the likelihood of renewing business agreements. Every customer that you want to provide this opportunity to is a candidate for regularly scheduled quarterly business reviews.

What Is the Best Strategy for Successful QBR Meetings?

Suppliers and vendors that operate under managed service provider (MSP) contracts leverage the QBR meeting as a strategy to manage expectations and learn how to improve, discuss the customer’s business goals and desired results, and understand the problems that customers try to solve in order to support future business plans. If you prepare and practice accordingly, your QBR meetings create a competitive advantage for you to transform customer relationships into win-win partnerships.

Where Do I Host a Customer QBR?

The likelihood of keeping a consistent, face-to-face QBR meeting on your customer’s calendar every 90 days is slim. Meetings get canceled, key customer contacts change, executives need flexibility to meet via video conference, etc. Plan your QBR presentation with the location in mind, and be flexible with where you host your meetings. Invite your best customers to meet on site at your office, and host the meeting over breakfast and coffee. Prepare a slide deck and online meeting agenda, so you can offer these elements as a hosting option for busy customers.

When Do I Schedule My First Customer QBR?

The answer depends on the product and service you provide. Schedule the first QBR after the customer is onboarded and has time to implement and assess your business and value. Coordinate the details for this meeting when you close the deal, and sign contractual agreements when you have the customer’s attention. This demonstrates that you are committed to delivering value and a return on the customer’s investment and will sit down with them every 90 days or so to review the results of this commitment.

Who Do I Invite to Participate in a Customer QBR?

Schedule your customer QBR meetings to include decision makers from both sides, including management and executive leadership when possible. Make sure you know who is attending each QBR meeting ahead of time, and plan your presentation based on the audience.

Does My QBR Presentation Need to Include Images and Charts?

According to Nancy Duarte, the most effective presenters think like designers. “Each slide should pass what I call the glance test: People should be able to comprehend it in three seconds,” says Duarte. “Think of your slides as billboards. When people drive, they only briefly take their eyes off their main focus — the road — to process billboard information,” she adds. Images and charts improve your audience’s cognitive response to your message. Use them in your QBR presentation to maximize your time and deliver crucial information your audience will remember. You can find free, ready-to-use drag-and-drop software, like the Onomics charting tool available from Priceonomics , to help you design a slide deck like a pro.

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Your Business Check Up: Annual Business Plan Review

Have you done a business check up lately? Make time to review your progress and plan for success in the coming year.

The business plan and goal setting that you completed as part of the application process will be a critical tool as you begin to build your business. This enables you to gauge your progress and to take corrective action when things don’t go according to plan.

As you approach the end of your first year in the program, we recommend a comprehensive business plan review. Be prepared to invest between one and five hours in your review and planning. At the end of the review you will have refocused, prioritized and planned for success in the coming year.

We have captured some best practice thinking around business reviews below:

• Don’t be too concerned about getting it perfect – your plan may need to be revised over time to account for changing conditions. It’s better to have a completed plan with a few flaws than no plan at all.
• Identify anticipated obstacles and how you expect to overcome these challenges. Be prepared – foresight can save you time, money and headaches.
• Include a monthly one-year cash flow projection – this is the easiest way to measure your actual progress.
• Be realistic, not optimistic when estimating sales and costs. Determine a worst case scenario and how it might impact your business.
• Focus primarily on the next year – long term projections serve to provide direction but are rarely accurate.

Prior to writing or revising your business plan for the upcoming year, remember to spend an adequate amount of time reflecting on the progress you made on the previous year’s plan.

Finally, engage your mentor to improve the quality of your plan. Invite him or her to ask challenging questions and suggest specific ways to enhance the plan.

Business Plan Review Template

Use the template to support your business plan review and planning process. Simply make notes on progress to previous goals and identify your focus for the upcoming year.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis can help you understand how your business is positioned in relation to the market and your competitors, and thus provides verification of strategic/competitive analysis.

By carefully evaluating your business before creating next year’s business plan, you can start to craft a strategy that helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors. Create an overview of your business today by thinking through the questions to complete the chart below.

Evaluate Business Plan Components

Use the following evaluation criteria to further assess the key areas of your business plan and ongoing development.

Remember: Simply make notes on progress to previous goals and identify your focus for the upcoming year.

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Quarterly business review (examples, templates, and agendas).

Christine Dzou

Quarterly business reviews (QBRs) are a crucial component of the customer success management process.

They give the customer success manager an opportunity to reconnect on customer goals, align on strategic direction, and share insights on upcoming feature releases (a great way to encourage retention).

Few disagree that the QBR is a valuable activity, but many struggle when it comes to determining what should be included in the agenda.

In this article, we’ll explore several quarterly business review examples. Use them as inspiration for designing your own QBR agendas to strengthen customer relationships and drive retention.

JUMP TO EACH SECTION TO LEARN MORE:

3 quarterly business review examples

The ultimate quarterly business review agenda, the ultimate example of a qbr agenda, a brief 101 on quarterly business reviews.

• Use Gong to improve your quarterly business review agendas

Let’s start by looking at three examples of quarterly business review agendas. If you’re new to QBRs, you may benefit from skipping ahead to our  101 on quarterly business reviews  before circling back to these examples.

1. Generic quarterly business review example

Our first QBR meeting example is a generic agenda that you can use to review the past quarter’s performance in any business context.

( Image Source )

Like any good quarterly review, this QBR example kicks off with a recap on the buyer’s key goals and what they want to accomplish.

This helps the account manager or CSM realign with the customer’s definition of success, as business objectives can shift over time.

2. SaaS quarterly business review example

Our second QBR example is an executive business review built specifically for companies that sell software products.

This regular business review allows the CSM to dive deep into product usage analytics, a best practice for SaaS QBRs.

They can address any roadblocks in product adoption to help the buyer get more out of their platform. It also serves as the perfect opportunity to introduce new features that might have been released since the last quarterly business review.

3. Project-based quarterly business review example

Our third quarterly business review example is for companies that need to provide their clients with project updates, such as website development agencies and construction companies.

This example covers key KPIs like customer health index and scorecards. It also covers action items from the previous review, as well as the buyer’s goals so the account manager can update their understanding of what defines success for that client. Because it’s a project-based QBR, it includes space to discuss potential risks.

Looking for a QBR template to manage customer relationships and ensure your business review agendas are consistent across the board?

The agenda below is what we at  Gong  believe to be the ultimate QBR agenda, drawing from the examples discussed above, as well as our own experience.

Note that the QBR agenda is broken down into 9 core sections:

• Introduction/agenda setting

Summary of goals

Delivery and return on investment, review of support usage, customer health scorecard, lifecycle review.

• Benchmarks, KPIs, and product usage

Product roadmap

Action items and next steps.

Let’s look at how to use the nine critical sections in practice.

By examining several QBR examples like the ones discussed above, we’ve created the ultimate agenda for you to use in your own customer success strategy.

Introductions

Introduce all guests (if everyone has met before, provide a quick recap).

For example:

Meeting attendees:

• Customer Success Manager
• Content Marketing Manager
• Content Specialist

To discuss:

• This is our first meeting, so let’s clarify roles. My role is to help you both get the most out of Semrush in your day-to-day activities. I’d like to know more about the distinction between your two roles and how you work together.

Recap on your current understanding of your buyer’s goals, objectives, and timelines.

• My understanding of goals and timelines comes from Angela Burke, the Account Executive who helped you get set up with Semrush initially. Here’s what I understand:
• Goal 1: Speed up the keyword research process for your agency clients.
• Goal 2: Establish real-time keyword position monitoring for existing clients.
• Goal 3: Assist with identifying opportunities for optimization.
• Timelines: Complete these initial goals within 6 months.
• I’d love to get your feedback on whether I’ve understood all of this correctly, or if anything has changed.

From there, dive into some specific questions about the customer’s current situation to align with any changes in strategic direction or objections.

Sample Questions:

• What’s changed since the last time we spoke?
•  Are the above goals still relevant?
• How have you progressed toward them in the last quarter? Where do you need help?
• Have there been any business changes since our last review?
• I understand you currently serve small and medium businesses in the trades (plumbers, builders, roofers, etc.) on website rebuilds and some content production. Is this still a reasonable summary?
• What are your organizational goals for the upcoming quarter?
• Have any of the above goals been ticked off? 
• What still needs to happen?
• Any new goals?

Discuss how your product utilization data relates to the buyer’s objectives. Use the following questions to guide your conversation:

• Why did the client make the purchase in the first place?
• As per the goals above.
• How have you fulfilled that need to date?
• My usage data tells me that keyword research is being completed regularly but position monitoring hasn’t been set up yet. Do you need assistance with this?
• What opportunities for improvement exist?
• Discuss position monitoring as the goal has not been achieved.
• Are you facing any challenges with this? Are they from a technical or time standpoint? We could go through it now, and I have some content I can send to support.

Review instances where the buyer has accessed customer support, and how well their support tickets have been handled.

• Number of tickets lodged by the client
• 2 tickets lodged last quarter
• Difference between Semrush and GA4 analytics
• Struggling to connect customer website to position monitori ng
• Resolution times per ticket and on average
• Ticket 1: 36h
• Ticket 2: 13h
• Average: 24.5h
• Cases opened and closed 

Review your customer health scorecard and key metrics.

• Recap on your customer health methodology
• This is the first time we’ve discussed this. Let’s walk through the various measurements and how we use that to identify areas to assist.
• Their overall health score
• Currently in the green.
• Review all areas and confirm it seems correct from their perspective.
• Trends, changes, and results
• None to review as this is the first QBR.

Discuss the buyer’s current lifecycle stage. Use the following questions to guide your review:

• Where is the client at right now?
• End of first quarter with us (common early churn point, seek to mitigate by doubling down on the success so far)
• Where were they 90 days ago?
• What’s the next stage, and how are you going to get there together?
• It seems we still have some goals to meet (2 and 3 as per above). I will do some product education on the call, and provide helpful content post-call. Then, I’ll schedule a 1-month check-in notification to gauge progress and avoid being in the same place for the next QBR.

Benchmarks and product usage

Use your product usage data to compare performance against internal benchmarks.

• How is the client engaging with your product compared to others?
• On-track for a first quarter user.
• How can you support increased engagement?
• Per above under  “What’s the next stage, and how are you going to get there together?”
• Usage and adoption
• Both users are active. Interested in learning more about their roles and the company in general to determine if user growth is possible.
• Most and least active users
• N/A – both active
• License deployment

Give your buyer a sneak peek into upcoming product releases, and discuss how they relate to their goals.

• Sneak peek of upcoming product developments and applicable client value
• I’ll need to gain a deeper understanding of their operations before I can point them in the direction of helpful new product developments. Hold off until next quarter.

Close your QBR conversation by recapping on the discussion and assigning action items.

• Recap on next steps
• Send product education content.
• Check in after one month.
• Anything else as discussed in the meeting.
• Set an appointment for the next QBR
• Same time next quarter work?

Whether you’re new to quarterly business reviews or simply looking to refresh your memory before building out your own agenda, the answers to these questions will help you understand what a QBR should look like in practice.

What is a quarterly business review?

A quarterly business review (QBR) is a formal meeting held every three months between your client stakeholders and a customer success manager (CSM) or account manager, depending on the industry.

At each review, your CSM will take the following four actions:

• Provide a recap on their understanding of a buyer’s goals
• Ask for clarity on any changes
• Review product usage, adoption, and challenges
• Agree on plans for moving forward including any strategic changes or product education required

The intention of the QBR is to ensure continued alignment with customer goals and intentions, with the end goal of improving customer retention and  reducing churn rates .

Why should success teams run QBRs?

Holding business review meetings on a quarterly basis offers four important benefits:

• Improved alignment with key business goals
• An opportunity to celebrate and reinforce success
• Development of buyer relationships
• A chance to  identify potential churn signals  

All of this feeds into the overarching goal of QBRs and the customer success department in general: improved retention.

If a CSM’s understanding of their buyer’s goals is outdated, they’re going to make flawed recommendations that fail to catch potential churn signals.

A good CSM works to foster a strong relationship with their clients through regular QBR meetings that ask questions about customer needs, business developments, and satisfaction with product usage.

This makes them better prepared to provide strategic advice, recommendations, and product-related education.

What are the goals of a quarterly business review?

Quarterly business reviews have five primary goals:

• Review business progress
• Build trust with the customer
• Increase adoption of product features
• Improve retention
• Drive revenue growth

Trust is built through building a personal relationship and through the CSM demonstrating that they care about their customer’s goals.

Adoption is increased through product-education based on a CSM’s understanding of their buyers’ goals and needs. All of this drives retention, as satisfied buyers are less likely to churn.

QBRs can also be used to spot revenue growth opportunities, for example, when a CSM identifies that a buyer could benefit from upgrading their plan to one that offers a specific feature relevant to their needs.

What should be included in a QBR agenda?

QBR agendas can look different across companies, industries, and verticals. For instance, a CSM at a software company will discuss product adoption in their QBRs, but this isn’t always relevant for a marketing agency to discuss with their client.

There are, however, some similarities across the board. All QBR agendas should include the following:

• A review of implementation or usage
• A review of performance and value delivery
• An alignment with the buyer’s strategic goals
• A discussion about obstacles and challenges faced in the previous quarter
• A plan for future growth or changes
• A sneak peek of upcoming developments or service offerings (if appropriate)

Ready to create your own QBR agenda? Learn how in our guide:  How to Create a Quarterly Business Review Agenda .

Use Gong to improve your quarterly business review agendas 

A good QBR shouldn’t be an arbitrary reading of product usage, result, and challenges.

Great CSMs will use these meetings as opportunities to forge relationships with buyers, identify at-risk accounts, and spot opportunities to upsell or cross-sell.

Gong’s revenue intelligence platform  is perfect for helping customer success teams identify what works, and then replicate that across all conversations.

Automatic churn signals allow CSMs to get ahead of renewal conversations by catching key terms like “downsizing” or mentions of your competitors.

Conversation intelligence pulls insights from your highest performers’ conversations, helping you coach your team to drive revenue growth and improve retention.

Request a demo with our team today  to discover how you can drive performance in your QBR conversations.

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The Notion of the Business Plan Review

By marshall goldsmith.

As you create your earned life, you will look at the lessons you’ve learned, the insights you’ve had, and the teaching that has had an impact on you. I have had a series of profound insights over the years, which I have used to formulate new ways of coaching. These are the concepts of 

• the referent group
• the notion of feedforward
• stakeholder-centered coaching
• the business plan review (BPR)
• the “what’s next” weekend
• daily questions
• building a coaches community (called 100 coaches)

Here, I’d like to explore the notion of the Business Plan Review (BPR) . 

I adopted this from the way that former Ford CEO Alan Mulally structured weekly meetings. 

Alan explained this brilliant leadership concept to me when we started working together, but I wasn’t paying full attention at the time. I thought it was a rigid schematic for running a meeting—fixed time and day, mandatory attendance, five minutes to report progress, traffic light colors (red, yellow, green) to grade status updates, no judgment, no cynicism, and other rules—the kind of structure that would fascinate a superior engineer like Alan. 

He took the concept with him to Ford and made it the managerial centerpiece of his transformation of the failing automaker. 

On closer inspection, I saw that the BPR wasn’t cold and bloodlessly technocratic. On the contrary, it was grounded in a piercing understanding of people, as if Alan had internalized Drucker’s ideas about the “customer” and employed the weekly BPR to treat his executive team not as his direct reports, but rather as stakeholders in one another’s success, with each executive representing additional groups of stakeholders (customers, suppliers, members of the community, etc.). 

Not everyone appreciated it — but the beauty of this was that they self-identified and, in a way, knew that they weren’t cut out for the jobs they were holding. 

The BPR made everyone accountable to both themselves and the group. This met their dual need for internal validation and belonging to something greater than themselves. 

With the BPR, Alan the engineer had built an impregnable fortress that was adaptable to any enterprise and goal. 

I adapted it and used it as part of a plan I would come up with that I could  apply to helping successful people achieve positive lasting change in their behavior. 

• Determination
• Revitalized
• Spearheaded
• What Got You Here Wont Get You There
• Communication
• Self-motivated
• The Earned Life
• Transformed

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My mission is simple. I want to help successful people achieve positive, lasting change and behavior; for themselves, their people, and their teams. I want to help you make your life a little better. With four decades of experience helping top CEOs and executives overcome limiting beliefs and behaviors to achieve greater success, I don’t do this for fame and accolades. I do this because I love helping people!

As an executive educator and coach, I help people understand how our beliefs and the environments we operate in can trigger negative behaviors. Through simple and practical advice, I help people achieve and sustain positive behavioral change.

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How to Conduct a Monthly Business Plan Review Meeting

Posted june 21, 2021 by noah parsons.

Most people think that meetings are a waste of time. They’re right.

The fact is, too many meetings are run poorly, have no real objective, and waste employees’ time — which kills productivity.

I absolutely encourage you to be ruthless in your pursuit of fewer and more efficient meetings. There’s tons of advice out there on how to run better meetings and cut down on useless touch bases that waste time and make your organization move slower.

For example, here at Palo Alto Software , we’ve found one meeting that is simply indispensable. It only takes an hour each month, keeps the management team up to speed on everything that’s going on in the company, and helps us plan and manage in a quick and effective way .

This meeting is our monthly plan review meeting. 

What is a plan review meeting?

A monthly review meeting is a time for you and your team to review current progress against your ideal performance. This one-to-two-hour meeting should be spent dissecting parts of your strategy, reviewing financials, and making adjustments based on overall performance. It has been a fixture of our management strategy for years and is simply one of the most effective ways for us to continue to grow the company and adjust our course as necessary.

For us, business planning isn’t just a one-time or annual event. Instead, it’s an ongoing process where we are constantly reviewing and adjusting course as necessary while ensuring that we’re staying on track toward our larger goals .

Why is it important to conduct a monthly plan review?

Every business of any size can benefit from a calculated time to stop, review and revise. When done correctly, this meeting can help you focus on what’s vital for your company, identify what data you need to accurately measure it and how to best present and review these results. Additionally, your monthly plan review process can help your business in the following ways.

Commits your business to learn and act

It can become very easy to let operations and processes become stagnant and standard. Without a regular performance review, any potential problems may remain to fester well beyond when they are first identified. You don’t want to waste company time and resources on things that are ineffective, but it’s difficult to change course without first processing it.

By setting aside this monthly time, it provides the opportunity to commit to learning and adjusting anything and everything. This isn’t based on off-hand information but on solid information and data that helps you identify and evaluate what’s most important for your business. 

Engages individuals across your entire business

Depending on how you present this meeting, it has the potential to pull in greater insight from across your business. Whether you’re sharing information company-wide or sticking with select leaders from each department, it immediately expands the scope of expertise. 

The more that every leader and employee knows what’s going on with everyone else, the better you can align and produce effective goals . It also provides the opportunity to identify potential solutions or issues from outside your core team’s responsibilities. Maybe your product team sees a potential gap in your marketing messaging. Or someone in HR sees a potential work/life balance misalignment in the sales team. None of this would come to life without a core review meeting like this.

Influences better business conversations

Engaging more people across your business and providing more detailed information typically leads to more fruitful conversations outside the core meeting. Yes, the meeting itself is vital for actively reviewing and adjusting your strategy at the moment. However, this information being top of mind means that potential issues or innovations will be dealt with outside of the planning meeting. This is due to your employees having a clear direction to reference in the day-to-day. They know the strategy and data are up-to-date and that it serves as a north star for their own projects and initiatives.

How to run an effective monthly plan review meeting

We treat planning not as a document, but as a management tool that helps guide decisions and strategy. It’s this mindset that helps our team run these monthly meetings successfully. We have a strategy in place, steps to walk through and key objectives we expect to find.

Here’s a quick overview of how we structure our monthly plan review meetings and what’s worked well for us over the years. 

1. Review your financial statements

We always start with the numbers first . How did we do last month compared to our forecast ? How did we do compared to the same month last year? What does our year-to-date performance look like?

What financial statements to review

Ideally, you’ll have the opportunity to review all relevant monthly financial statements. At a minimum, you should review your Profit and Loss Statement , Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement . These will provide a high-level overview of your financial position and help identify any obvious anomalies. If possible, it’s valuable to look at these all together through a business dashboard , that way you can immediately start making connections.

With that top-level exploration in mind, you can then start looking into your budget, financial forecast scenarios, and any specific elements that may seem relevant. This may include things like your expense categories, accounts receivable/payable payment schedules, etc. 

Look beyond top-line performance

We always spend time drilling into the numbers, beyond the top-line revenue and expenses to better understand what the drivers were behind our performance. Did all product lines perform well? Or did some underperform? Did we spend as planned or were there some areas that we overspent in?

Most importantly, we review our cash position and cash flow . Did we collect money as planned? What does our cash flow forecast look like for the next few months?

There are benefits to looking at financials together

While financial reports can be reviewed outside of a meeting, reviewing them together as a team encourages questions and discussion around our revenue and spending. It also helps you uncover specific issues or opportunities that you may miss on your own. And of course, gives everyone a voice to determine the next steps for the company as well as their specific teams.

Of course, we use LivePlan to review our numbers because it’s much easier than drilling through exported reports from QuickBooks . But if you’re not ready to make that jump, you can always start out with a simple cash flow template in Excel.

2. Reevaluate your milestones

Once we review our financial performance, we review our “ major milestones ”—the big tasks we had hoped to get done in the past month and our plans for the next month.

We discuss how various teams might be working with each other on different projects and talk about the specific milestones that we have planned. Are these still the tactics that we want to work on that will help achieve our goals? Do we need to shift priorities? Is there new learning and information that would have us change our schedule?

By reviewing major initiatives on a monthly basis, we can stay agile and make changes as needed. That’s also why we review them after parsing through our financials, to determine if our current milestones should still be a priority. As we learn more about our customers and our market , we might shift strategies and develop new milestones .

3. Review your long-term goals and strategy

Next, we review our long-term strategic goals. While this doesn’t change too often in our situation as an established company, new startups might shift their strategy frequently as they search for a business model that works.

For those early-stage startups, this step of the meeting may be the most important step and often takes the longest. For more established companies, this part of the meeting might typically only take a few minutes. This is where having a brief and functional business plan can really help speed up the process.

Instead of delving deep into a 40-page business plan document to review our strategy, we review our our one-page business plan (in LivePlan, it’s called the Pitch ). It covers our company identity, the core problem we solve for our customers, our solution, competition , and sales and marketing strategy . It’s all on one page so it’s easy to read, review, and change quickly .

4. Provide time to discuss any company issues

Finally, anyone on the team can bring forward any issues that they want to discuss. This could include new opportunities to consider, prioritization of product features, potential partnerships, or internal HR issues.

Everything is fair game and we try to come up with resolutions and next steps for any issue that’s brought up.

We’ve found that this type of open-ended discussion really helps generate new ideas and brings different perspectives from managers of different teams.

5. Set meeting guidelines

I believe that all companies would benefit from a monthly review of their business. These types of meetings keep everyone on the same page, help share information about progress, and turn planning into a tool that helps teams make informed decisions. 

But in order to run these monthly meetings successfully, you’ll need to do some preliminary work to keep you and your team on track. Here are three tips to successfully establish your monthly business plan review.

Put the meeting on the calendar

It’s important to make it a formal event that’s on the schedule. It can’t be optional and it has to be at a regular time so that everyone always knows when the meeting is.

For us, we started out with the meeting on the 3rd Thursday of every month. As our bookkeeping and accounting processes have become more efficient, we’ve been able to move our meeting to the 2nd Friday of the month.

Follow a repeatable agenda

While different topics will come up for discussion, it’s important that your plan review meeting has a repeatable agenda. Not only does it provide structure, but it gives your team specific action items to review beforehand.

That means making sure that you have your numbers ready for review and that your team has updates on their goals. Try to set time limits for each section if you can, and overestimate the length of the meeting with the full intention of finishing earlier than planned. This part will be a continuous work in progress and you and your team will gradually improve your efficiency with each subsequent meeting.

Be prepared to change the plan

These plan review meetings aren’t just about staying the course and blindly following the plan. Instead, they are about adjusting the plan. Perhaps you’ll discover that you should be investing more in marketing, or that you’re going to be able to expand and hire faster than you originally planned.

The plan review meeting is about making adjustments to your goals and strategies based on what you’ve discovered in the past month.

Use your monthly plan review to redefine how you do meetings

Keep in mind that running your meetings more successfully won’t just happen overnight. It takes time to develop a structure that works best for you and your team. As I outlined in this article, the best place to start your meeting restructure is with your monthly plan review meeting.

It’s a necessary review that can be consistently repeated, refined, and adjusted, which makes it the perfect testing ground for a new system. 

Editors’ Note: This article was originally written in 2018 and updated for 2021.

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Noah Parsons

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Business Plan Review-When and Why Should I Review My Business Plan?

Almost all entrepreneurs should keep in mind the importance of a business plan review and also consider updating the strategies and tactics section of their business plan to meet constantly changing market realities.

The high-level overview

The projects in progress, the financial forecast, the benchmarks, your business plan is a living document, challenge… are you living inside your business plan, why put your business plan into writing instead of just keeping it in your head.

Writing your business plan may have been a pain, but updating a plan is easier because you already have a framework. During your business launch, you probably had little experience, and many of your marketing and operational forecasts were just educated guesses. Now that you have some experience and a proven track record, you know what works and what doesn’t.

Recognizing the important events and changes that may require you to update your tactics is an important skill to acquire. Here are some pointers on how to recognize those times.

You are ready to take your business to the next level. Getting funds from a bank or investors requires a more sophisticated plan. Even if you don’t need additional funding, a business plan based on a certain size of business might not be adequate to support a much larger one, which may need additional employees, square footage, etc.

Uncle Sam throws you a curveball, in other words, regulatory changes impact your business. One potential change in many states is the imposition of a sales tax on all internet purchases. The result could be a leveling of the playing field that will make online and brick-and-mortar stores more competitive with each other.

The economy has changed inflation, recession, and unemployment rates, all impacting your customers’ ability to buy your product or service. This will impact your revenues in a bad way, and depending on your staffing, adjustments may be needed there as well.

Here are some stages that how often should a Business Plan be reviewed

How often : daily The high-level overview is the section I look at most often. It’s my big picture part of the plan. Here’s what it includes:

• What I’m doing – the problems I’m solving
• Why I’m doing it – my vision
• Who I’m doing it for – their problems, needs and wants
• My tagline – so I’m always focused on my business mission
• My sales and marketing strategy – the sales and marketing activities to focus on
• Finances – a summary of major income and costs

Your business plan review is just that – a surface-level overview.

How Often Should I Review My Business Plan: daily and weekly This part of my business plan gets looked at daily, especially when I’m creating things in my business or working on a specific task.

Sometimes I’ll leave it for a few days while I’m focused on client work and routine tasks. But whenever I’ve got projects on the go, which is pretty much always, I check in with this part of my business plan.

I find it really useful to refer to whenever I need to make a decision. For example, I might be thinking about registering a new domain name for my website (buying URLs is fun, right?). But I can look at my plan and ask myself, “Do I really need this?”.

Then I’ll use my template to write a paragraph about the item and how it fits into my business. If I can’t think of what to write, I don’t have a good enough reason for what it would mean to the business and how it fits into the bigger picture. Then I don’t buy it.

I’ve got the same rule for software programs and it stops me from spending all my money on Xero Add Ons ! Because there are few things I love more than looking at all the latest software and seeing what I can implement to make my business (and my clients’ businesses) more efficient. But I know that it’s not efficient to add too many tools to the mix, especially if I’m not really going to have the time or patience to use them.

How often: Monthly I work on my financials and forecast at least every week or once a month. This was an area of real struggle for me.

That was a big shock to me and I never would’ve picked up on that fact if I hadn’t reviewed my finances and thought about how I could do things differently. Once I started to implement some different processes, and actually reviewed the numbers every week, I brought my finances under control.

You’ve really got to practice and discipline yourself. That’s why it’s gotta happen regularly.

It’s a useful way to look at projections and add credibility to your plan, but it’s always important to remember that there’s no business out there exactly like yours.

So your benchmarks are only useful to a certain point. I only look at benchmarks when I do quarterly plans and reviews. It’s interesting to see how I’ve gone over the previous quarter and it’s a useful planning tool for the future. But it’s not something you need to get stuck into every day or even every month.

A business plan is a perfect foundation for your business. Think about the foundation of the home you live in. You wouldn’t just wake up one day and decide to take out that foundation! And you certainly wouldn’t engage a builder who didn’t believe in foundations.

It’s there, underpinning everything you do in your home, adding strength and security. It’s the same with your business plan. You put it in place, and then you build your business on top of it… and it’s there every single day, holding your business firmly together.

I want to know… do you look at your business plan every day like I do?

Maybe you’ve got a business plan (and it’s not working for you), and you’re halfway through one. Maybe you’ve never started one or you’re a bit skeptical and you don’t even know if you actually need one.

I want to challenge you to be your best in your business, step out and start achieving your goals. A lot of the time, the first step is writing out your business plan. The next step is making sure you review it regularly.

Pro Tip: For a perfect business plan you can visit our page on business plan writing services

Writing down your business plan will make it more powerful and real. But let’s get more specific. Here are 6 reasons why you should write a business pla n :

• Keep it real . Once you see things in black and white in writing, they’re much more tangible. Your written business plan can work as a reality check where things aren’t going as well as you thought they were.
• Spot gaps . When you write it down, you can see the gaps and holes that you hadn’t thought of.
• Be accountable and collaborate . Having it written down allows you to show it to others and be accountable.
• Create SMART goals . A written plan can be broken down into steps and scheduled into your calendar. This makes it far more likely that you’ll achieve it.
• Measure your progress. When your plans are written down, you can review them and see your progress. This is especially useful if you’re a type-A personality like me.
• Free up your brain cells . Having your plan written down actually (and literally) frees up your headspace so you can use your mental energy for other more important things.
• Preparing for the future . And let’s not forget the importance of preparing for the future. Keeping your business in your head is not a good business practice for so many reasons.

Related Article: 25 reasons why you need a business plan

It is recommended to review your business plan regularly, at least annually. Additionally, you should consider reviewing your plan during significant business milestones or changes, such as entering new markets, launching new products or services, or experiencing shifts in your industry or competitive landscape.

Reviewing your business plan helps ensure that it remains relevant and aligned with your current business objectives. It allows you to assess the progress made, identify any gaps or areas for improvement, and make necessary adjustments to your strategies, goals, or financial projections. Regular reviews also enable you to adapt to changing market conditions and seize new opportunities.

Reviewing your business plan offers several benefits, including:

• Assessing Performance: Determine how well your business is performing relative to your initial projections and goals.
• Strategy Alignment: Ensure that your strategies are still effective and aligned with your current market positioning and customer needs.
• Financial Analysis: Evaluate your financial projections and make any necessary adjustments based on actual performance and market conditions.
• Risk Assessment: Identify potential risks or challenges that may impact your business and develop contingency plans.
• Opportunity Identification: Recognize new opportunities, emerging trends, or untapped markets that you can leverage to drive growth.

During a business plan review, pay attention to the following key areas:

• Goals and Objectives: Assess whether your goals are still relevant and achievable, and adjust them if needed.
• Market Analysis: Evaluate changes in your target market, customer preferences, and competitive landscape.
• Strategies and Tactics: Review the effectiveness of your marketing, sales, and operational strategies and identify areas for improvement.
• Financial Performance: Analyze your financial statements and compare them to your projections, identifying any gaps or discrepancies.
• Risk Management: Identify new risks and evaluate the effectiveness of your risk mitigation strategies.

It is beneficial to involve key stakeholders in the business plan review process. This may include business owners, management team members, department heads, and external advisors or consultants. Their diverse perspectives and expertise can contribute to a comprehensive assessment of the business plan and generate valuable insights and recommendations for improvement.

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