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How to Write The Industry Section of a Business Plan

Writing a Business Plan: Section 2

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

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When writing a business plan, the Industry section is best organized as two parts: an overview of the industry and a summary of your business's position within the overall industry.

Before writing this section of the business plan, use these questions to focus your research:

• What is the size of your industry?
• What sectors does this industry include?
• Who are the major players in this industry?
• What are the markets and customers for this industry?
• What are the industry's estimated sales this year? Last year? The year before?
• What national and economic trends have affected this industry and how?
• What national and economic trends might affect it in the future and how?
• What is the long-term outlook for this industry?
• What products or services will your business be selling?
• What is your Unique Selling Proposition? (What is it about your business that makes it unique and sets it apart from competitors?)
• What are the barriers to entry in your industry?
• How will you overcome these barriers?
• Who are your competitors?
• What is the market share of your competitors?
• What is your business's competitive advantage (i.e., your market niche or estimated market share)?
• What is your target market?
• How are you protecting your product or process (i.e., patents, copyrights, trademarks, franchise rights that you either hold or plan to acquire)?

Once you have all this information, you'll write this section of the business plan in the form of several short paragraphs. (Remember, each of these paragraphs is a summary, not a detailed point-by-point explanation.) Use appropriate headings for each paragraph. 

Finding Information on Your Industry

But where do you find the information that you need for writing the Industry Overview section of your business plan?

United States Research

In the United States, you may want to start your research by reviewing information from the U.S. Census Bureau, Industry Statistics Portal. This site provides data for selected industries separated into categories using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The Bureau of Labor Statistics also offers a large selection of information grouped by NAICS industry.

There are also other sources of information—some free and some paid sources—including IBIS World, Select USA, and the U.S. the Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Canadian Research

When you're writing a business plan and looking for information on Canadian industries, Industry Canada is your logical first stop. Their Find Statistics by Industry  page lets you see key economic indicators for different sectors of the Canadian economy, access industry profiles, and analysis and research small businesses in Canada generally.

Another primary source for industry and economic information that you can easily access online when you're writing a business plan is Statistics Canada. From this homepage you can find a wealth of free statistical information; use this page, to search for Statistics Canada publications back to 1980.

There are also provincial statistics websites where you'll be able to find more economic, social, and demographic statistics relating to your industry and the business environment.

The Canada Business Service Centres located in each province also offer excellent collections of resources online, and telephone and email information services. You'll find a list of links to the Canada Business Service Centre in each province in my Provincial Programs and Services Resources.

The business sections of national newspapers and business magazines will also be helpful; these often carry features on the past and future business trends.

And don't forget your local sources of business information when you're researching your business plans, such as your Economic Development Centre, Chamber of Commerce, or Women's Enterprise Centre, or the business section of the local library.

Doing Business Plan Research

If your business is related to manufacturing when you're writing a business plan begin by determining the NAICS of your particular industry, and the sector and sub-sector if applicable. It will make it easier for you to find statistical information relating to your industry. If your business is a service, begin with Industry Canada's service industry profiles.

Refer to the list of questions earlier in this article on how to write a business plan as a research guide. Whenever you find a piece of information that you want:

• Check its date and determine whether or not the information is current enough to be valid;
• Write down the date and source of the information, as you'll need to cite your information sources in the business plan.

When you're writing a business plan, you want your research information to be as up-to-date as possible. After all, there's no point in starting a business if you don't want it to succeed.

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How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

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A lot of preparation goes into starting a business before you can open your doors to the public or launch your online store. One of your first steps should be to write a business plan . A business plan will serve as your roadmap when building your business.

Within your business plan, there’s an important section you should pay careful attention to: your market analysis. Your market analysis helps you understand your target market and how you can thrive within it.

Simply put, your market analysis shows that you’ve done your research. It also contributes to your marketing strategy by defining your target customer and researching their buying habits. Overall, a market analysis will yield invaluable data if you have limited knowledge about your market, the market has fierce competition, and if you require a business loan. In this guide, we'll explore how to conduct your own market analysis.

How to conduct a market analysis: A step-by-step guide

In your market analysis, you can expect to cover the following:

Industry outlook

Target market

Market value

Competition

Barriers to entry

Let’s dive into an in-depth look into each section:

Step 1: Define your objective

Before you begin your market analysis, it’s important to define your objective for writing a market analysis. Are you writing it for internal purposes or for external purposes?

If you were doing a market analysis for internal purposes, you might be brainstorming new products to launch or adjusting your marketing tactics. An example of an external purpose might be that you need a market analysis to get approved for a business loan .

The comprehensiveness of your market analysis will depend on your objective. If you’re preparing for a new product launch, you might focus more heavily on researching the competition. A market analysis for a loan approval would require heavy data and research into market size and growth, share potential, and pricing.

Step 2: Provide an industry outlook

An industry outlook is a general direction of where your industry is heading. Lenders want to know whether you’re targeting a growing industry or declining industry. For example, if you’re looking to sell VCRs in 2020, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.

Starting your market analysis with an industry outlook offers a preliminary view of the market and what to expect in your market analysis. When writing this section, you'll want to include:

Market size

Are you chasing big markets or are you targeting very niche markets? If you’re targeting a niche market, are there enough customers to support your business and buy your product?

Product life cycle

If you develop a product, what will its life cycle look like? Lenders want an overview of how your product will come into fruition after it’s developed and launched. In this section, you can discuss your product’s:

Research and development

Projected growth

How do you see your company performing over time? Calculating your year-over-year growth will help you and lenders see how your business has grown thus far. Calculating your projected growth shows how your business will fare in future projected market conditions.

Step 3: Determine your target market

This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential customer. Who is your ideal target customer? How can you cater your product to serve them specifically?

Don’t make the mistake of wanting to sell your product to everybody. Your target customer should be specific. For example, if you’re selling mittens, you wouldn’t want to market to warmer climates like Hawaii. You should target customers who live in colder regions. The more nuanced your target market is, the more information you’ll have to inform your business and marketing strategy.

With that in mind, your target market section should include the following points:

Demographics

This is where you leave nothing to mystery about your ideal customer. You want to know every aspect of your customer so you can best serve them. Dedicate time to researching the following demographics:

Income level

Create a customer persona

Creating a customer persona can help you better understand your customer. It can be easier to market to a person than data on paper. You can give this persona a name, background, and job. Mold this persona into your target customer.

What are your customer’s pain points? How do these pain points influence how they buy products? What matters most to them? Why do they choose one brand over another?

Research and supporting material

Information without data are just claims. To add credibility to your market analysis, you need to include data. Some methods for collecting data include:

Target group surveys

Focus groups

Reading reviews

Feedback surveys

You can also consult resources online. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau can help you find demographics in calculating your market share. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration also offer general data that can help you research your target industry.

Step 4: Calculate market value

You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value.

A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the two. It requires for you to calculate the entire market and then estimate how much of a share you expect your business to get. For example, let’s assume your target market consists of 100,000 people. If you’re optimistic and manage to get 1% of that market, you can expect to make 1,000 sales.

A bottom-up analysis is more data-driven and requires more research. You calculate the individual factors of your business and then estimate how high you can scale them to arrive at a projected market share. Some factors to consider when doing a bottom-up analysis include:

Where products are sold

Who your competition is

The price per unit

How many consumers you expect to reach

The average amount a customer would buy over time

While a bottom-up analysis requires more data than a top-down analysis, you can usually arrive at a more accurate calculation.

Step 5: Get to know your competition

Before you start a business, you need to research the level of competition within your market. Are there certain companies getting the lion’s share of the market? How can you position yourself to stand out from the competition?

There are two types of competitors that you should be aware of: direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are other businesses who sell the same product as you. If you and the company across town both sell apples, you are direct competitors.

An indirect competitor sells a different but similar product to yours. If that company across town sells oranges instead, they are an indirect competitor. Apples and oranges are different but they still target a similar market: people who eat fruits.

Also, here are some questions you want to answer when writing this section of your market analysis:

What are your competitor’s strengths?

What are your competitor’s weaknesses?

How can you cover your competitor’s weaknesses in your own business?

How can you solve the same problems better or differently than your competitors?

How can you leverage technology to better serve your customers?

How big of a threat are your competitors if you open your business?

Step 6: Identify your barriers

Writing a market analysis can help you identify some glaring barriers to starting your business. Researching these barriers will help you avoid any costly legal or business mistakes down the line. Some entry barriers to address in your marketing analysis include:

Technology: How rapid is technology advancing and can it render your product obsolete within the next five years?

Branding: You need to establish your brand identity to stand out in a saturated market.

Cost of entry: Startup costs, like renting a space and hiring employees, are expensive. Also, specialty equipment often comes with hefty price tags. (Consider researching equipment financing to help finance these purchases.)

Location: You need to secure a prime location if you’re opening a physical store.

Competition: A market with fierce competition can be a steep uphill battle (like attempting to go toe-to-toe with Apple or Amazon).

Step 7: Know the regulations

When starting a business, it’s your responsibility to research governmental and state business regulations within your market. Some regulations to keep in mind include (but aren’t limited to):

Employment and labor laws

Advertising

Environmental regulations

If you’re a newer entrepreneur and this is your first business, this part can be daunting so you might want to consult with a business attorney. A legal professional will help you identify the legal requirements specific to your business. You can also check online legal help sites like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.

Tips when writing your market analysis

We wouldn’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information needed in a market analysis. Keep in mind, though, this research is key to launching a successful business. You don’t want to cut corners, but here are a few tips to help you out when writing your market analysis:

Use visual aids

Nobody likes 30 pages of nothing but text. Using visual aids can break up those text blocks, making your market analysis more visually appealing. When discussing statistics and metrics, charts and graphs will help you better communicate your data.

Include a summary

If you’ve ever read an article from an academic journal, you’ll notice that writers include an abstract that offers the reader a preview.

Use this same tactic when writing your market analysis. It will prime the reader of your market highlights before they dive into the hard data.

Get to the point

It’s better to keep your market analysis concise than to stuff it with fluff and repetition. You’ll want to present your data, analyze it, and then tie it back into how your business can thrive within your target market.

Revisit your market analysis regularly

Markets are always changing and it's important that your business changes with your target market. Revisiting your market analysis ensures that your business operations align with changing market conditions. The best businesses are the ones that can adapt.

Why should you write a market analysis?

Your market analysis helps you look at factors within your market to determine if it’s a good fit for your business model. A market analysis will help you:

1. Learn how to analyze the market need

Markets are always shifting and it’s a good idea to identify current and projected market conditions. These trends will help you understand the size of your market and whether there are paying customers waiting for you. Doing a market analysis helps you confirm that your target market is a lucrative market.

2. Learn about your customers

The best way to serve your customer is to understand them. A market analysis will examine your customer’s buying habits, pain points, and desires. This information will aid you in developing a business that addresses those points.

3. Get approved for a business loan

Starting a business, especially if it’s your first one, requires startup funding. A good first step is to apply for a business loan with your bank or other financial institution.

A thorough market analysis shows that you’re professional, prepared, and worth the investment from lenders. This preparation inspires confidence within the lender that you can build a business and repay the loan.

4. Beat the competition

Your research will offer valuable insight and certain advantages that the competition might not have. For example, thoroughly understanding your customer’s pain points and desires will help you develop a superior product or service than your competitors. If your business is already up and running, an updated market analysis can upgrade your marketing strategy or help you launch a new product.

Final thoughts

There is a saying that the first step to cutting down a tree is to sharpen an axe. In other words, preparation is the key to success. In business, preparation increases the chances that your business will succeed, even in a competitive market.

The market analysis section of your business plan separates the entrepreneurs who have done their homework from those who haven’t. Now that you’ve learned how to write a market analysis, it’s time for you to sharpen your axe and grow a successful business. And keep in mind, if you need help crafting your business plan, you can always turn to business plan software or a free template to help you stay organized.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

On a similar note...

How to Write a Business Plan in 2023 [Examples Included]

Table of contents

So you have come up with a business idea that will turn your company into a Forbes 500 enterprise? Sounds great!

However, you are going to need much more than an idea. You will need to do some comprehensive research, create operational standpoints, describe your product, define your goals, and pave out a road map for future growth.

In other words, you are going to need a business plan.

A business plan is a document that precisely explains how you are going to make your startup a success. Without it, your chances of attracting funding and investments significantly decrease.

Do you want to learn how to create a winning business plan that will take your company to the next level? We created a guide that will help you do just that.

Let’s dive in.

What Is a Business Plan?

Why and when do you need a business plan, types of business plans (what to include in each).

• How Do You Write a Business Plan?

Best Practices for Writing a Winning Business Plan

Business plan examples.

• Monitor the Performance of Your Business with Databox

A business plan is a comprehensive document that defines how a business will achieve its goals. It is essentially a road map for growth that includes operational standpoints from all the key departments such as marketing, financial, HR, and others.

Startups use business plans to describe who they are, what they plan to do, and how they plan to achieve it. This is an extremely valuable document for attracting investors.

However, they are valuable for the company members as well. A good business plan keeps executive teams on the same page regarding the strategies they should implement to achieve their set objectives.

Related : Reporting to Investors: 6 Best Practices to Help Increase Funding

While business plans are especially useful for startups, each business should include them. In the best-case scenario, this plan will be updated from time to time and reviewed whether the goals of the company have been met.

The main things that investors want to check out in the business plan are:

• Product-market fit – Have you researched the market demand for your products and services?
• Team efficiency – Does your startup have devoted professionals that will work on achieving your goals?
• Scalability – How probable is growth in sales volumes without proportional growth or fixed costs?

An organized business plan is essentially a blueprint of your goals and it showcases your abilities as an entrepreneur.

Related : Business Report: What is it & How to Write a Great One? (With Examples)

If you want to persuade venture capitalists and banking institutions to invest in your startup, you won’t be able to do it without a solid business plan. Following a clear business plan format is crucial, as it structures your plan in a way that is easily understandable and demonstrates your business’s potential. 

A business plan is helpful in two ways – it allows you to focus on the specific goals you set for the future and it provides external parties with evidence that you have done your research in advance.

But don’t just take our word for it – here are some of the things that researchers from Bplans found out when they were analyzing the benefits of business plans with the University of Oregon.

• Companies that use business plans have recorded a 30% faster growth compared to those that didn’t use them.
• Getting investments and loans is twice as likely to happen with the help of business plans.
• There is a 129% increased chance for entrepreneurs to go past the ‘startup’ phase through business plans.

You should create a business plan before you decide to quit your regular job. It can help you realize whether you are ready or not.

Also, creating a business plan is helpful when:

• You want to attract investments or funding from external parties
• You want to find a new partner or co-founder
• You want to attract talented professionals to join your startup
• You need to change things up due to the slow growth

While creating a business plan is an important step, you first have to know how to differentiate all the different types. This will help you choose the one that is most suitable for your business.

Here are the most common types of business plans and what you should include in each.

One-Pager Business Plan

Startup business plan, internal business plan, strategic business plan, feasibility business plan.

The one-pager is a business plan that only includes the most important aspects of your business. It is essentially a simplified version of a traditional business plan.

When creating the one-pager business plan, your primary focus should be on making it easily understandable.

Since this business plan is rather short, you should avoid using lengthy paragraphs. Each section should be around 1-2 sentences long.

The things you should include in a one-pager business plan are:

• The problem – Describe a certain problem your customers have and support the claim with relevant data.
• The solution – How your products/services can solve the issue.
• Business model – Your plan on how to make money. Include production costs, selling costs, and the price of the product.
• Target market – Describe your ideal customer persona. Start with a broad audience and narrow it down by using TAM, SAM, and SOM models. This lets investors in on your thought process. To understand these models better, check out, for example, the importance of proper TAM evaluation for B2B startups .
• Competitive advantage – How are you different from your competitors?
• Management team – Include your business’s management structure.
• Financial summary – This part should revolve around the most significant financial metrics (profit, loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast).
• Required funding – Define how much money you need to make your project a success.

PRO TIP: How Well Are Your Marketing KPIs Performing?

Like most marketers and marketing managers, you want to know how well your efforts are translating into results each month. How much traffic and new contact conversions do you get? How many new contacts do you get from organic sessions? How are your email campaigns performing? How well are your landing pages converting? You might have to scramble to put all of this together in a single report, but now you can have it all at your fingertips in a single Databox dashboard.

Our Marketing Overview Dashboard includes data from Google Analytics 4 and HubSpot Marketing with key performance metrics like:

• Sessions . The number of sessions can tell you how many times people are returning to your website. Obviously, the higher the better.
• New Contacts from Sessions . How well is your campaign driving new contacts and customers?
• Marketing Performance KPIs . Tracking the number of MQLs, SQLs, New Contacts and similar will help you identify how your marketing efforts contribute to sales.
• Email Performance . Measure the success of your email campaigns from HubSpot. Keep an eye on your most important email marketing metrics such as number of sent emails, number of opened emails, open rate, email click-through rate, and more.
• Blog Posts and Landing Pages . How many people have viewed your blog recently? How well are your landing pages performing?

Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics and HubSpot Marketing experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template that contains all the essential metrics for monitoring your leads. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

Step 2: Connect your HubSpot and Google Analytics 4 accounts with Databox. 

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Related : Check out our comprehensive guide on writing a marketing plan report .

New businesses use startup business plans to outline their launching ideas and strategies to attract funding and investment opportunities. When creating startup business plans, you should primarily focus on the financial aspect and provide evidence that supports it (e.g. market research).

These are some of the main things that should be included:

• Vision statement – Explain your vision for the company and include the overall business goals you will try to achieve.
• Executive summary – A quick overview of what your company is about and what will make it successful. Make sure to include your products/services, basic leadership information, employees, and location.
• Company description – A detailed overview of your company. Talk about the problems you will solve and be specific about customers, organizations, and growth plans. This is the place where you should state your business’s main advantages.
• Market Analysis – Show investors that you have a good understanding of your industry and target market by providing a detailed market analysis. Try to point out certain trends, themes, or patterns that support your objective.
• Organization and management – This section explains the structure and the management hierarchy. Also, describe the legal structure of your business.
• Service or product line – Go into detail about the products and services you are going to sell. Explain the benefits they bring and share your intellectual property plans.
• Marketing and sales – Talk about your marketing strategy and describe how you plan to attract new customers.
• Financial projections – This section should be about convincing your readers why the business will be a financial success. Create a prospective financial outlook for the next few years and it includes forecasts.

An internal business plan is a document that specifically focuses on the activities within your company. While external business plans focus on attracting investors, internal business plans keep your team aligned on achieving goals.

Related : Internal vs. External Reporting: What Are the Differences?

This business plan can differentiate based on how specific you want it to be. For example, you can focus on a specific part of the business (e.g. financial department) or on the overall goals of the whole company.

Nonetheless, here are some things that should universally be included in all internal business plans:

• Mission statement – Focus on the practical, day-to-day activities that your employees can undertake to achieve overall objectives.
• Objectives – Provide specific goals that you want your company to achieve. Make the objectives clear and explain in which way they can be reached. Focus more on short-term objectives and set reasonable deadlines.
• Strategies – Talk about the general activities that will help your team reach the set objectives. Provide research that will describe how these strategies will be useful in the long term.
• Action plans – These plans revolve around particular activities from your strategy. For example, you could include a new product that you want to create or a more efficient marketing plan.
• Sustainability – This refers to the general probability of achieving the goals you set in the internal report. Sometimes, plans may seem overly ambitious and you are going to have to make amends with certain things.

A strategic business plan is the best way to gain a comprehensive outlook of your business. In this document, forecasts are examined even further and growth goals tend to be higher.

By creating a strategic business plan, you will have an easier time aligning your key stakeholders around the company’s priorities.

Here is a quick overview of what a strategic business plan should include:

• Executive summary – Since strategic business plans are generally lengthy, not all executives will have time to go through it. This is why you should include a quick overview of the plan through an executive summary, you can also create an executive summary template to make the step easily repeatable.
• Vision statement – Describe what you wish to achieve in the long term.
• Company overview – This refers to past achievements, current products/services, recent sales performances, and important KPIs.
• Core values – This section should provide an explanation of what drives the business to do what it does.
• Strategic analysis of internal and external environments – Talk about the current organizational structure, mission statements, and department challenges.
• Strategic objectives – Go into detail about the short-term objectives your team should reach in a specific period. Make sure the objectives are clear and understandable.
• Overall goals – This section should include operational goals, marketing goals, and financial goals.

A feasibility business plan is also known as a feasibility study. It essentially provides a foundation for what would be a full and comprehensive business plan. The primary focus of a feasibility plan is research.

The things you should include in a feasibility plan are:

• Product demand – Is there a high demand for your product? Would customers be interested in buying it?
• Market conditions – Determine the customer persona that would be interested in buying your products. Include demographic factors.
• Pricing – Compare your desired price with the current pricing of similar products. Which price would make your service profitable?
• Risks – Determine the risks of launching this new business.
• Success profitability – Is there a good way to overcome the risks and make your company profitable?

How Do You Write a Business Plan Report?

As we explained in the previous heading, there are a few different types of business plan. Depending on the audience you are referring to, the language you use in the plan should be adjusted accordingly.

Nonetheless, there are certain key elements that should be included in all business plans, the only thing that will vary is how detailed the sections will be.

Include these elements in your business plan.

Executive summary

Company description, market opportunity and analysis, competitive landscape, target audience, describe your product or service, develop a marketing and sales strategy, develop a logistics and operations plan, financial projections, explain your funding request, compile an appendix for official documents.

An executive summary is a quick overview of the document as a whole that allows investors and key stakeholders to quickly understand all the pain points from the report.

It is the best way to layout all the vital information about your business to bank officials and key stakeholders who don’t have the time to go through the whole business plan.

If you summarize the sections well, the potential investors will jump into the sections they are most interested in to acquire more details.

You should write the executive summary last since you will then have a better idea of what should be included.

A good executive summary answers these questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you sell?
• How profitable is it?
• How much money do you need?

This section of the business plan aims to introduce your company as a whole. The things you include in the company description can vary depending on if you are only starting a business or you already have a developed company.

The elements included in this section are:

• Structure and ownership – Talk about who the key shareholders in your company are and provide a full list of names. Also, mention details such as where the company is registered and what the legal structure looks like. In most countries, this is a legal requirement for AML regulations.
• History – This segment is if you already have an existing company. Use this section to show your credibility. Include company milestones, past difficulties, and a precise date for how long your company has been operating.
• Objectives – Describe the overall objectives of your company and how you plan to reach them.

Market analysis refers to creating your ideal customer persona and explaining why they would be interested in buying your products.

Market opportunities are the gaps that you found in the current industries and creating a way for your product to fill those gaps.

The most important step in this section is to create a target market (persona) through demographic factors such as location, income, gender, education, age, profession, and hobbies.

Make sure that your target market isn’t too broad since it can put off potential investors.

A good idea is to also include a detailed analysis of your competitors – talk about their products, strengths, and weaknesses.

Related : 12 Best Tools Marketers Use for Market Research

Although you may include a competitive analysis in the market analysis section, this segment should provide a more detailed overview.

Identify other companies that sell similar products to yours and create a list of their advantages and disadvantages. Learning about your competitors may seem overwhelming, but it’s an indispensable part of a good business plan.

Include a comparison landscape as well that defines the things that set you apart from the competitors. Describe the strengths of your product and show which problems it could solve.

Related : How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Use the target audience section to fully describe the details of your ideal customer persona. Include both demographic and psychographic factors.

Ask yourself:

• What are the demographic characteristics of the people who will buy my product?
• What are their desires?
• What makes my product valuable to them?

Make sure to answer all of these questions to get in the mindset of your customers.

If you need more details on how to identify your target audience , check our full expert guide.

When talking about your products and services, be as precise as possible. Mention your target audience and the marketing channels you use for targeting this audience.

This section should reveal the benefits, life cycle, and production process of your products/services. Also, it is a good idea to include some pictures of your products if possible.

When describing your products, you should highlight:

• Unique features
• Intellectual property rights
• What makes the product beneficial

Marketing is the blood flow to your business’s body. Without a good marketing and sales strategy, the chances of your product succeeding are very slim.

It’s always best to already have a marketing plan in place before launching your business. By identifying the best marketing channels, you will show your investors that you researched this topic in detail.

Some of the things you should include are:

• Reach – Explain why a specific channel will be able to reach your target market
• Cost – Is the marketing strategy going to be cost-effective? How much money do you plan on spending on the strategy?
• Competition – Are your competitors already using this channel? If so, what will make your product stand out?
• Implementation – Who will be taking care of the implementation process? Is it a marketing expert? Which suppliers did you reach out to?

Related : 14 Reasons Sales And Marketing Alignment Is Crucial for Skyrocketing Company Growth

This section should explain the details of how exactly your company is going to operate.

These are the things you should include:

• Personnel plan – Define how many people you plan to employ and their roles. Also, if you plan on increasing your staff, you should explain what would be the cause of that.
• Key assets – This refers to assets that will be crucial for your company’s operation.
• Suppliers – Mention who your suppliers will be and what kind of relationship you have with them. Your investors will be interested in this part of the section since they want to be reassured that you are cooperating with respectable counterparties.

The financial projections section is one of the most important parts of your business plan. It includes a detailed overview of expected sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and all the other important financial metrics .

You should show your investors that your business will be profitable, stable, and that it has huge potential for cash generation.

Monthly numbers for the first year are crucial since this will be the most critical year of your company.

At the very least, you should provide:

• Funding needs
• Profit-and-loss statement forecast
• Balance sheet forecast
• Cash-flow statement forecast

Related : How to Write a Great Financial Report? Tips and Best Practices

When providing the funding request, be realistic. Explain why you need that exact amount of money and where it will be allocated.

Also, create both a best-case and worst-case scenario. New companies don’t have a history of generating profits which is why you will probably have to sell equity in the early years to raise enough capital.

This will be the final section of your business plan. Include any material or piece of information that investors can use to analyze the data in your report. 

Things that could be helpful are:

• Local permits
• Legal documents
• Certifications that boost credibility
• Intellectual properties or patents
• Purchase orders and customer contracts

After reading the previous heading, you should have a clear idea of how to write a compelling business plan.

But, just to be sure, we prepared some additional information that can be very helpful.

Here are some of the best practices you should implement in your business plan according to the most successful companies.

Keep it brief

Make it understandable, be meticulous about money, design is important.

Generally, business plans will be around 10-20 pages long. Your main focus should be to cover the essentials that we talked about, but you don’t want to overdo it by including unnecessary and overwhelming information.

In business plan, less is more.

Create a good organizational outline of your sections. This will allow investors to easily navigate to the parts they are most interested in reading.

Avoid using jargon – everyone should be able to easily understand your business plan without having to Google certain terms. 

Make a list of all the expenses your business incurs. Financial information should be maximally precise since it will directly impact the investor’s decision to fund your business idea.

After you wrap up your business plan, take a day off and read it again. Fix any typos or grammatical errors that you overlooked the first time.

Make sure to use a professional layout, printing, and branding of your business plan. This is an important first impression for the readers of the document.

Now you know what a business plan is, how you can write it, and some of the best practices you can use to make it even better.

But, if you are still having certain difficulties coming up with a great business plan, here are a few examples that may be helpful.

HubSpot’s One-Page Business Plan

Bplan’s free business plan template, small business administration free business plan template.

This One-Page Business Plan was created by HubSpot and it can be a great way to start off your business plan journey on the right foot.

You already have fields such as Implementation Timeline, Required Funding, and Company Description created so you will just need to provide your specific information.

This free business plan template highlights the financial points of the startup. If your primary focus will be your business’ financial plan and financial statements, you can use this template to save up some time.

It can also be useful for making sure everyone in your company understands the current financial health and what they can do to improve it.

If you need additional inspiration to kick start your own business plan, you can check out this free template by small business administration .

You just have to decide which type of plan you want to create and then review the format of how it should look like.

Monitor and Report on the Performance of Your Business with Databox

Tracking your company’s performance is an indispensable part of quality decision-making. It is crucial that you know how your business strategy is performing and whether it needs to be optimized in certain areas.

However, doing this manually will undoubtedly take a hefty amount of your valuable time. You will have to log into all of the different tools, copy-paste the data into your reports, and then analyze it. And this isn’t a one-time thing – you have to do it at least once a month.

Luckily, Databox can lend a helping hand.

By using customizable dashboards from Databox, you will be able to connect data from all your different tools into one comprehensive report. Not only that, but you can also visualize the most important metrics to make your presentation to shareholders immensely more impactful.

Did you spend a lot of time cutting and pasting? Say ‘no more’ to that. You will be able to use that time to better analyze your business performances and monitor any significant changes that occur.

Leave the grueling business reporting process in the past and sign up for a free trial with Databox.

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What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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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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You're all set!

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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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Service Business Plan Template

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 10,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their service businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a service business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Before we get into how to write a service business plan, here are links to several service business plan templates:

• Beauty Salon Business Plan
• Car Detailing Business Plan
• Car Wash Business Plan
• Catering Business Plan
• Cell Phone Repair Business Plan
• Child Care Business Plan
• Cleaning Services Business Plan
• Computer Repair Business Plan Template
• Construction Business Plan
• Consulting Business Plan
• Day Care Business Plan
• Dog Daycare Business Plan
• Dog Grooming Business Plan
• Financial Advisor Business Plan
• Hair Salon Business Plan
• Indoor Playground Business Plan
• Insurance Business Plan
• Janitorial Business Plan
• Landscaping Business Plan
• Massage Therapy Business Plan
• Nail Salon Business Plan
• Photography Business Plan
• Plumbing Business Plan
• Salon Business Plan
• Spa Business Plan
• Staffing Agency Business Plan
• Tutor Business Plan

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What Is a Service Business Plan?

A service business plan provides a snapshot of your service company as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your goals and your business strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your company plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan

If you’re looking to start a service business or grow your existing business you need a good business plan. A business plan helps you attract investors to satisfy your funding requirements, and plan out the growth of your entire business in order to improve your chances of success. Your service business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

How to Secure Funding for a Services Business

With regards to funding, the main source of funding for a services business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. 

With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your service business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will want to see a professionally written plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for a service business.

The traditional service business plan format includes these 10 key elements:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan in 1 – 2 pages, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of services business you are operating and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a services business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of services businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the service industry trends. Discuss the type of service business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors and your competitive advantage. Give an overview of your ideal customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team, and offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Overview

In your company description, you will detail the type of service business you are operating.

In addition to explaining the type of service business you operate, the company analysis section of your service business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the service business.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching your specific niche of the service market educates you. It helps you gain insights and understand the market in which you are operating. 

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards more eco-friendly services, your company might want to emphasize its environmentally friendly initiatives.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your service business plan:

• How big is the service business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market? What is your market share?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your service business. You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your service business plan must detail the target market you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments in the service industry:

• Businesses in need of a specific service, such as computer repair or consulting
• People who have a need for a service that is not currently being met
• People who are price conscious and are looking for the best deal on a service
• People who want to support businesses with social responsibility values

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will greatly depend on the type of service business you operate. Some of your clients may want different pricing and product options and would respond to different marketing promotions compared to other target customer segments.

Try to break out your target market in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most service businesses primarily serve customers living in the same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your existing clients.

Finish Your Service Business Plan in 1 Day!

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With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other businesses that provide similar services.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes businesses that provide an alternative solution to the services that you provide, but not the exact service. Think do-it-yourself and public options for similar services. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who needs the specific services will engage your service business.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other service businesses with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be service businesses located very close to your location. 

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products and services do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to stand outside your competitors’ locations and ask customers as they leave what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your competitive advantages. For example:

• Will you provide superior services?
• Will you provide services that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you make it easier or faster for customers to book your services?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a service business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : in the product section, you should reiterate the type of service business that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific services you will be offering. For example, in addition to a lawn care business, you may offer to trim trees, bushes, and hedges.

Price : Document your business’s pricing strategy including the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your service business. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. Discuss how your location might provide a steady stream of customers. 

Promotions : the final part of your service business marketing strategy is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive new customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods and marketing materials you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites 
• Social media advertising
• Local radio advertising
• Pay per click advertising
• Banner ads at local venues

Client Retention

Your service business plan should discuss not just how you will find clients, but how you’ll hold on to them and discourage them from switching to one of your competitors. After all, it should be much less expensive to keep a client than to market and sell services to a new one. Some methods of retaining customers involve creating the perception of switching costs; that is, that they will lose money and time when switching to a new service company. Others involve fine-tuning your customer service skills into a system designed around retention.

Loyalty Program

Creating a loyalty program is a positive way to retain customers. This could involve a punch card system where customers receive a free service after a certain number of visits, or it could involve a points system where customers accumulate points that can be redeemed for discounts or free services. Other loyalty programs offer exclusive deals and privileges to members, such as special access to new services before they are made available to the general public.

Premium Customer Levels

Another related retention strategy is to reward the frequency and/or the amount of money that customers spend with your service business. This is often done by creating different customer levels and providing perks to customers who reach a certain level. The higher the customer level, the more exclusive the perks. Common perks include discounts on services, express service, access to unique services or products, and early notice of promotional deals.

Referral Program

A referral program is a great way to keep customers happy and encourage them to refer their friends and family members. This could involve rewarding customers with a discount or free service for every new customer they refer, or it could involve giving customers a set amount of credit for each referral. Either way, the referral program should be designed to be as simple as possible for customers to participate in.

Customer Testimonials

Finally, customer testimonials can be a powerful retention tool. As potential customers research your service business, they will likely come across your website and online profiles. Seeing positive customer testimonials on your website and across the internet will help convince them that you provide outstanding customer service. You can create a separate page on your website that is dedicated to client testimonials, or you could set up a separate social media profile that features client testimonials and allows customers to provide feedback through a special email address.

Tracking Retention

Simply tracking the numbers and percentages involved in your customer retention can yield valuable information about what you’re doing right or wrong and how successful new initiatives are over time. Statistics to track may include client complaints, the average speed of complaint resolution, the percentage of customers in a given month who were using your services last month, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, a year ago, etc, and so on. When your staff is aware of these statistics and is given targets to work towards, the message that customer service and retention is a priority is heard loud and clear.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your service business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your service business such as serving customers, procuring supplies, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 100th client, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch in a new city.

Management Team

To demonstrate your service business’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company. 

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in the service business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise, but also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in a service business and/or successfully running small businesses.

Financial Plan

Your plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 20 customers per week or 50? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your service business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say a company approached you with a massive $100,000 damage restoration contract that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now for supplies, equipment rentals, employee salaries, etc. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During that 180 day period, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a service business:

• Cost of equipment to perform the service
• Cost of maintaining an adequate amount of supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include any insurance company affiliations or remediation licenses.

Service Business Plan Summary

Writing a business plan for your service business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the service business, your competition, and your potential customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful cleaning services business.  

Service Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my service business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Service Business Plan.

What is the Goal of a Business Plan's Executive Summary?

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of service you are providing and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a service that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of service locations?

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Service business plan?

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.   Click here to see how our professional business plan consultants can create your business plan for you.

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CCT Opinion | Maryland horse racing industry needs new…

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Cct opinion | key bridge collapse updates: cranes await plans to salvage wreckage; photos show catastrophic damage, carroll county times, cct opinion, cct opinion | maryland horse racing industry needs new business plan; looking forward to hearing from new paper owner | reader commentary.

Horse racing is not a dying sport; new proposal could help

I’m writing this as an open letter to our elected state officials as they try to justify keeping horse racing viable in Maryland.

The first point I would like them to consider is urban sprawl. Looking at the map of my own county, Carroll, the distance between Eldersburg and Sykesville has vanished.

Woodbine is rapidly connecting to that mass, reaching toward Mount Airy, which itself has sprawled well into Frederick County and north toward  Taylorsville. Westminster is working on connecting Taneytown, Silver Run, New Windsor, Hamstead, Manchester and Finksburg.

Each time one of the farms goes to housing, the existing citizens protest to protect their water supply and services. Most times they lose, and the developers’ promise to provide adequate protection to resources comes up short.

On the national level we have seen land once used by the Garden State, Hollywood Park, Arlington Park, Calder race tracks, and several others, go to development.

Here in Maryland, we used to have tracks in Havre de Grace, Bel Air, Marlboro and Hagerstown that have all been developed. Talk of developing the Timonium Fairgrounds has persisted for years even as that area has already sprawled into an ugly mess.

I keep hearing arguments that racing is a dying sport, which I contest. The best way to depict this argument is the international growth that can best be seen by the Breeders’ Cup Races and the world interests that cover that event.

In the states we cover other international events such as Royal Ascot and the Dubai races. Not as much as other events of interest that occur at awkward times. Racing is not like the Olympics as its fans expect to be paid off immediately and not when it is most profitable to air.

Racing’s business plan was broken when internet gambling was approved. No longer could they charge to park. No more admission fees. No program sales. No premium seating or dining room overlooking the track. No more concession stands.

I might inject here that when racing first came to this legislature with hat in hand we envisioned slots at the track making up for a lot of that revenue. The legislature royally messed up in the way it approved where the slots went as it created competing forces within the same gambling market.

No longer can we use attendance numbers to gauge interest. No more turnstiles. Handle indicates interest is still viable.

As I contemplate a new business plan that will work, I can see the one you are considering as very possible. With the internet, only a few tracks are needed as broadcast stations to the rest of the world. I can make a strong case for Pimlico and its history being one of those facilities. I have some excellent ideas, but my word limit has expired.

— Steven Davidson, New Windsor

Hoping new newspaper owners care about longtime supporters

I spent my formative years in Baltimore and I am proud to say that. My immigrant grandparents settled there and sacrificed so much to give their three sons a better life than they ever would have realized in midcentury Greece.

Growing up, besides family and food, I can remember three things that were sacred in our home: the Colts, the Orioles and The Baltimore Sun. I cut my social, sports and political teeth reading The Sun.

Years later when I moved to Carroll County, I subscribed to The Sun and Carroll County Times. After my parents retired to Florida, they visited a couple times a year. My most vivid memories are of awakening to the sound of Dad stirring his coffee as he settled in to read The Sunpaper he missed so much the rest of the year. These quiet mornings were our chance to reconnect on the many issues we had discussed for decades. We had both come a long way.

When in 2014, The Sun purchased the Times, I was not worried at first. I anticipated more repetition, and I was not wrong. Unfortunately, over the next few years, the Times became valuable only for occasional local news pieces and sadly, at my age, obituaries. I eventually took the inevitable step of switching to a joint online subscription to both papers.

Based on this long history, I am moved to write today to express my total disappointment at the newest ownership of these papers. Co-owner Armstrong Williams prints his personal beliefs under the banner of “Owner’s Box.” Primary owner David Smith is supporting a convicted criminal for mayor of Baltimore. He wants to make our papers “more like FOX News,” i.e. abridged and inflammatory. I could go on.

I often contemplate abandoning The Sun. Several weeks ago, I did receive a call from our County Commissioners office saying Smith wanted to meet with some community influencers to hear our thoughts on the direction our paper should take.

I pledged my participation. I anxiously await this conversation. Mr. Smith, please listen to us and let us know that you care about longtime supporters of your new asset.

— Corynne B. Courpas, Westminster

Questioning a term used in Roemer column

Chris Roemer in the March 17 edition of the newspaper wrote about “abortion advocates.” This term is inaccurate. There are Americans who are pro-choice, pro-freedom and in favor of women and their doctors being able to determine the best medical care for women without interference from the government.

None of these people can be described as “abortion advocates.” I’ve never seen any pro-choice advocates chase women down a street screaming at them to get an abortion. On the other hand, I have seen anti-choice advocates harassing women in public. One side is pro-choice, not pro-abortion.

— Steven Hirsch, Westminster

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CCT Opinion | Chris Roemer: It was only a matter of time before Biden turned his back on Israel | COMMENTARY

CCT Opinion | Tom Zirpoli: Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP is now complete | COMMENTARY

CCT Opinion | Chris Roemer: Programs that result in becoming dependent on the government do far more harm than good | COMMENTARY

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and bring your compatible smartphone and number. New line w/month-to-month agmt & Business Unlimited Plus 5G or Unlimited Pro 5G plan req’d. Cust must transfer smartphone & number to VZ; new line activation & number transfer must be completed in one transaction. Smartphone must be compatible w/VZ network. $600 credit applied to acct. over 24 mos; promo credit ends when eligibility requirements are no longer met. Credits begin in 1-2 bills, will include appropriate credit amounts from order date & do not appear in Biz Unlimited 5G plan fee section of your bill. Biz Unlimited 5G plan fee increases in month 25. Cust must retain smartphone & remain on selected plan in order to receive credit(s). Cannot be combined with other device offers. Business Unlimited 5G plan terms apply. Limited time offer.

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Device protection.

Don’t let a lost, stolen or damaged device destroy productivity. Because your business can’t wait. Verizon device protection options are available for eligible Verizon business wireless lines and devices. You must enroll within 30 days of device activation or during another qualifying event. Certain benefits are available with select plans. Claims limitations, line limits, deductibles, taxes, fees and terms apply.

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Offer available to new Verizon Business customers on initial new smartphone purchase only. Account creation and initial purchase must be completed in one transaction. Taxes and fees apply. New line with device payment purchase agreement and Business Unlimited Pro plan required. iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 15, Google Pixel 8, Samsung Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24 offers also available with Business Unlimited Plus plan. 0% APR. Up to $1,000 (iPhone 15 Pro 128 GB or 256 GB, iPhone 15 Pro Max 256 GB, Pixel 8 Pro 128 GB or 256 GB, Galaxy S24+ or Galaxy Z Flip5 256 GB), $930 (iPhone 15 Plus 128 GB or 256 GB), $830 (iPhone 15 128 GB or 256 GB), $800 (Pixel 8 or Galaxy S24), $730 (iPhone 14 128 GB or 256 GB or iPhone 14 Plus 128 GB or 256 GB) or $700 (Galaxy S23) credit, varying by smartphone trade-in, applied to account over the term of your agreement (up to 36 mos); promo credit ends when eligibility requirements are no longer met. Credit will not exceed device price. Monthly credits begin 2-3 bills after trade-in device is received by Verizon. Smartphone trade-in must be received by Verizon within 90 days and meet program requirements. Most trade-in device conditions accepted; exclusions apply. 10-line trade-in limit per order. Cannot be combined with other device offers. Additional $200 new customer credit applied to account after 2-3 bills. Verizon reserves the right to charge back to your account all or a portion of the value of the $200 promotional credit you received as part of this offer in the event you no longer meet the eligibility requirements. Any such charge-back may be subject to the terms of your Verizon agreement. Offer available online only for a limited time.

Switch and get $200 off each new smartphone.

Offer available to new Verizon business customers on initial new smartphone purchase only. Acct. creation & initial purchase must be completed in one transaction. New line w/device payment agmt & $34.99 or higher price plan req’d. 0% APR. $200 credit applied to acct after 2-3 bills. Can be combined with select offers. Verizon reserves the right to charge back to your acct all or a portion of the value of any promotional credit you received as part of this offer in the event you no longer meet the eligibility requirements. Any such charge back may be subject to the terms of your Verizon agmt. Offer available online only for a limited time.

Switch with your phone and number. Save $600.

New line with month-to-month agreement and Business Unlimited Plus 5G or Unlimited Pro 5G plan req’d. Customer must transfer smartphone and number to Verizon; new line activation and number transfer must be completed in one transaction. Smartphone must be compatible with Verizon network. $600 credit applied to account over 24 months; promo credit ends when eligibility requirements are no longer met. Credits begin in 1-2 bills and will include appropriate credit amounts from order date. Customer must retain smartphone and remain on selected plan in order to receive credit(s). Cannot be combined with other device offers. Business Unlimited 5G plan terms apply. Limited-time offer.

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China's industrial push risks destabilizing the global economy and watering down green-energy exports, Janet Yellen warns

• US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns that China's big industrial-production push could destabilize the global economy.
• China's growing clean energy industry has oversupplied markets with cheap solar panels and EVs, she said in prepared comments that will be delivered on Wednesday.
• "It is important to the president and me that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field," Yellen said in speech text released by the Treasury.

China is flooding markets with a lot of cheap green energy products, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is concerned about what it means for the global economy.

Yellen is set to speak at the Suniva solar cell factory in Norcross, Georgia on Wednesday, where she is expected to address concerns about China's export strategy.

"China's overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world," a copy of Yellen's remarks reviewed by the New York Times said. "Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience."

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After suffering a sweeping property crisis, China is jump-starting its trying to jumpstart its economy with a strong industrial push, incentivizing investment in the manufacturing sector. And that policy shift includes a focus on clean energy. A recent report from the New York Federal Reserve shows the country is seeing a notable redistribution of credit, with a swift rise in new "green loans."

Last year, China's ballooning clean energy industry contributed to 40% of the country's economic growth.

But that comes with consequences. Yellen's remarks warn that this is history repeating itself, like when China overinvested in steel and aluminum, which promoted economic growth in the country but forced the industry in the rest of the world to contract.

This trend has already been manifesting in markets like that for solar panels. Solar panel prices have plunged 50% because of a substantial oversupply. In Europe, a glut of Chinese imports have pushed one of their largest solar module production sites to close. According to the IEA, China is set to account for 85% of the expansion of solar-module manufacturing capacity by 2028. 

"It is important to the president and me that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field," the excerpts reportedly said. "We have raised overcapacity in previous discussions with China, and I plan to make it a key issue in discussions during my next trip there."

Watch: Why China launched military drills during Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan

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Nine states plan to ban gas-powered car sales by 2035

Advanced clean cars ii rules look to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars in next decade.

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Nine states are planning to ban new gasoline-powered vehicle sales by 2035 as part of an initiative to cut climate-warming emissions.

The Advanced Clean Cars II rules originated in California with the state Air Resources Board. The regulations in California look to phase out the sale of new gas vehicles beginning with the 2026 model year, scaling back over time until 2035 – when a total ban on the sales will go into effect.

Since the rules were first adopted in California in 2022, eight other states have followed suit, with several others considering the plan.

So far, the other states that have implemented the plan to hit the goal of selling zero new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 include Washington, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware and Maryland.

BIDEN ADMIN SET TO FINALIZE MAJOR GAS CAR CRACKDOWN OVER WARNINGS FROM AUTOMAKERS, ENERGY INDUSTRY

Nine states have undertaken a plan to scale back the sales of new gas-powered vehicles over the next decade, with the goal of completely eliminating the sales by 2035. (Fox News / Fox News)

The rules do not stop residents in these states from owning or using gas-powered cars, nor do they force consumers to buy electric vehicles (EVs). Dealerships can still sell used cars powered by gas, and consumers in these states can purchase the gas-powered vehicles in other states – as long as they meet certain emissions standards. 

Not everyone, however, supports this effort.

The New Jersey Business and Industry Association (NJBIA) led a campaign last year to try and stop New Jersey's adoption of the Advanced Clean Cars II rule.

Ray Cantor, the chief deputy government affairs officer at the NJBIA, told Fox News Digital in a statement that the plan ignores the cost to consumers and lack of current infrastructure.

"The ban on new gas-powered cars in such an expedited time does not take costs or feasibility into account," Cantor said. "It does not take the lack of local and highway infrastructure into account. It does not take grid capacity into account. It ignores consumer choice. It doesn’t take New Jersey residents into account, especially low- and moderate-income families. And it doesn’t take the lack of actual environmental benefit into account."

Under the action, residents can still own and drive gas-powered vehicles and purchase new gas-powered cars in other states. (iStock / iStock)

Cantor urged New Jersey to "apply the brakes" to what he called an obvious "bureaucratic overreach" before the mandate starts to affect consumers.

"There's nothing wrong with working to reduce carbon emissions," Cantor said. "And the marketplace would have likely seen a natural increase of EV users with an organic time frame to build appropriate capacities. But the near-term, targeted mandates will increase the prices of both new and used gas-powered cars."

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS UPHOLD STATE'S EV MANDATE DESPITE GROWING OPPOSITION: 'DEFY COMMON SENSE'

In support of the action, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Director Terry Gray has called the rules a "major step" in the fight against climate change in the transportation sector.

"In terms of economic impact, states joining together to send a clear signal to the market will result in greater economies of scale, driving down the prices of ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles), and ensuring that Rhode Island dealers and customers have full access to electric vehicles," Gray said.

The rules come as the Biden administration has sought to push the transportation sector from gas-powered vehicles to EVs as part of its climate agenda.

Last year, the  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  unveiled its own plan to increase vehicle pollution standards that will impact car model years 2027 through 2032. 

If the EPA’s regulations are finalized, a staggering 67% of new sedan, crossover, SUV and light truck purchases could be electric by 2032, the White House projected. In addition, up to 50% of bus and garbage truck, 35% of short-haul freight tractor and 25% of long-haul freight tractor purchases could be electric by then.

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However, the push toward EVs has faced multiple setbacks in the industry.

Earlier this month, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr resigned after the car rental company's big bet on EVs went bust due to its struggles to keep up with the higher repair cost and lower demand for EV rentals.

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Ford's EV division, Ford Model e, posted a net loss of $4.7 billion last year — with $1.6 billion of that in the last quarter — and Ford's chief financial officer John Lawler explained during the company’s earnings call last month that both "the quarter and year were impacted by challenging market dynamics and investments in next-generation vehicles."

Fox News' Thomas Catenacci and Eric Revell contributed to this report.

Germany drops plans for domestic solar industry subsidies

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Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Editing by Miranda Murray and Ros Russell

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Riham Alkousaa is the energy and climate change correspondent for Reuters in Germany, covering Europe’s biggest economy's green transition and Europe’s energy crisis. Alkousaa is a Columbia University Journalism School graduate and has 10 years of experience as a journalist covering Europe’s refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war for publications such Der Spiegel Magazine, USA Today and the Washington Times. Alkousaa was on two teams that won Reuters Journalist of the year awards in 2022 for her coverage of Europe’s energy crisis and the Ukraine war. She has also won the Foreign Press Association Award in 2017 in New York and the White House Correspondent Association Scholarship that year.

China developer Wanda sells 60% of mall unit in $8.3 bln deal

A group of investors led by private equity firm PAG on Saturday announced an investment of $8.3 billion for a 60% stake in Chinese property giant Dalian Wanda's mall unit.

Biden administration to cap rent increases for some affordable housing units

The move was hailed by tenant advocates and criticized by others in the housing industry.

The Biden administration is set to announce a new cap on how much rents can go up in certain affordable housing units that are subsidized by the federal government.

The move, hailed by tenant advocates and criticized by other housing experts, limits the amount property owners can raise rents if they are part of a tax-credit program for low-income housing. Under new regulations to be announced Monday, yearly rent increases will be capped at 10 percent, according to senior administration officials.

Some economists estimate the measure could apply to more than a million homes.

Yet experts suggest the impact could be limited because, already, very few units are eligible for double-digit rent increases. To receive funding from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which is the largest federal affordable housing production program, developers have to commit to certain affordability rules. And they must abide by terms that make it difficult for rents to climb 10 percent in a year. The new cap, however, ensures that in those rare situations, there’s still a ceiling.

Initial reactions were mixed. Some housing experts raised concerns that the cap, even at a high level, will discourage developers from building more affordable housing units, especially when costs are already steep.

“You’re discouraging the creation of supply,” said David Dworkin, president and chief executive of the National Housing Conference. “At a time when insurance costs are skyrocketing, and the fixed cost of building is already high … how many different ways are we going to make it harder to build an affordable unit?”

Yet tenant advocates, including those who have criticized the White House for not being more aggressive on rent costs in the past, applauded the decision. Tara Raghuveer, director of the National Tenant Union Federation, said her focus wasn’t on the specific 10 percent cap. Her takeaway is the administration sending a broader signal that federal funding and tenant protections can go hand-in-hand.

“This is a historic win that will protect millions of tenants against rent gouging and stabilize them in their homes,” Raghuveer said. “The Biden administration should expand such protections to federal financing — the biggest subsidy for multifamily housing in this country.”

The announcement comes weeks after Biden proposed several housing initiatives ahead of his State of the Union address, and as housing persists as one of the most fraught parts of the U.S. economy. Decades of underinvestment has lead to a shortage of millions of homes. And while many new houses and apartments are slated to finish construction this year, economists worry that those offerings skew toward the higher end of the market and won’t immediately solve affordability challenges.

The Biden administration has targeted different slices of America’s housing market. Some of those initiatives target supply, like a commitment to build and preserve 2 million homes. Other proposals try to help middle-class first-time buyers.

Then there are rents, which surged during the pandemic and are still a main driver of inflation . Real-time data shows rent dropping in major cities nationwide. But that hasn’t stopped monthly costs from taking up a large share of Americans’ budgets, especially for lower-income tenants.

Basically, most people agree more housing is key to a solution. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, in addition to senior administration officials, said supply won’t take a further hit because of the new cap. Plus, HUD routinely looks at income and housing data to determine how rents should be priced.

“We’ve seen no evidence that this limitation — even those much lower than 10 percent — have limited the supply of new affordable housing nationally,” HUD spokesman Zachary Nosanchuk said in a statement.

But Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, said just because it has been rare for rents to climb 10 percent in the past, that may not always be the case. Upheaval in the housing sector, high inflation and changes in the labor market make it hard to apply previous trends to this new economy.

“The shortage of housing in this country is acute, and it has finally all caught up with us,” Wilson Géno said. “While there may be some history there, you can’t necessarily rely on that history moving forward.”

Food and Beverage Business Plans

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Food and beverage industry overview

The food and beverage industry includes all businesses involved in the production, distribution, and sale of food and drinks.

The global food and drink market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 11.9%, reaching a market volume of $3.8 billion by 2027. This increase sharply contrasts the declining industry performance over the last three years.

Contributing factors to this performance are:

• Expected ease of inflation over the next year.
• Continued innovation in beverage and grab-and-go options.
• Increased interest in health-conscious options.
• Lifestyle changes as consumers increase travel and return to the office.

Additionally, the increased adoption of app-based and eCommerce purchasing options will continue to fuel discretionary spending in this category. Portable eating, tech-based purchasing, and alternative health and wellness products or services all show great promise for new entrants.

How to start a food and beverage business

To start a food and beverage business, you need to focus on the following:

1. Identify an idea that meets current demand

Identify your target market and potential competitors. Then, develop a unique product or service that serves a specific need—such as a particular cuisine, dietary need, or a unique dining experience.

2. Write a business plan

Create a business plan that thoroughly explains your business model, operations, pricing strategy, and financial projections.

3. Handle health, safety, hygiene and legal compliance

Food and beverage is a highly regulated industry with additional legal, health, and safety requirements. You must develop strict health and safety standards, prepare a staff training plan, and apply for permits or licenses relevant to your food or beverage offering.

4. Operations and relationships with suppliers

Establish relationships with reliable suppliers to acquire consistent quality ingredients. Focus on implementing an effective inventory management system that helps minimize waste and unnecessary expenses.

5. Location, layout, and staffing

Purchasing behavior and workflows are rooted in your business location and how your business is presented. Carefully choose a location and layout that fits your customers’ expectations and provides a healthy working environment for your employees.

Then, focus on training to ensure quality service, adherence to safety protocols, and the representation of your brand values.

6. Startup costs and financial management

Hefty upfront investments can be needed to start a food and beverage business. Kitchen equipment, menus, signage, POS systems, and mobile ordering technology scratches the surface.

You’ll likely be operating on thin margins, making effective financial planning necessary early on. Take direct inventory of what it will cost to start and run your business for the first year. Consider if you need funding and put a system in place to forecast and review your performance regularly.

7. Marketing and branding

You will have plenty of competition as a food and beverage business. Every restaurant, big brand, delivery service, grocery store, and mini-mart is a potential alternative.

So, don’t sleep on your branding and marketing efforts. Remember your target market, choose the proper channels, and develop a memorable visual identity that fits your mission.

For more on starting a business, check out our full selection of startup resources.

How to write a business plan for a food and beverage business

Here are some specific sections and information to focus on when writing a business plan for a food, beverage, or restaurant business.

Market analysis

The food and beverage industry is a highly competitive market with established competition and a steady influx of new entrants. Thoroughly document who you will be competing with, how you are different, and your ideal customers. This information will influence everything else about your business.

Business model

You’ll notice a trend through the rest of these, but you need a detailed description of how you will make money. As mentioned before, food and beverage businesses often operate on incredibly thin margins.

You need to be sure that your revenue streams make sense for the market, can consistently bring in cash, and will be sustainable long-term.

Menu and product offerings

Specific to this industry, you must cover what you offer and provide a sample menu or product list. It should directly relate to the interest of your clientele and showcase what you offer.

Describe your location, including a layout of your store or restaurant and details for how your business will operate—how you will work with suppliers, specific workflows, equipment needs, and staffing.

Focus on demonstrating quality and efficiency when outlining your operations, and don’t forget to revisit it as you run your business.

Financial projections

Provide detailed financial projections to map out your revenue and expenses. At a minimum, cover startup costs, break-even analysis, profit and loss forecasts, and cash flow statements.

Include any assumptions behind your projections and map out funding needs if you intend to pursue a loan or other investment.

You can use any of our food, beverage, or restaurant sample plans to ensure you cover the right information in your plan. For a detailed overview, check out our complete business plan outline.

What is an example of a food and beverage business?

Food, beverage, and restaurant businesses include:

• Agriculture and food production
• Food processing and packaging
• Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage production
• Restaurants
• Food transportation services

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Yellen Warns China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports

The Treasury secretary, who plans to make her second trip to China soon, argued that the country’s excess industrial production warped supply chains.

By Alan Rappeport

The Biden administration is growing increasingly concerned that a glut of heavily subsidized green technology exports from China is distorting global markets and plans to confront Chinese officials about the problem during an upcoming round of economic talks in Beijing.

The tension over industrial policy is flaring as the United States invests heavily in production of solar technology and electric vehicle batteries with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, while China pumps money into its factory sector to help stimulate its sluggish economy. President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have sought to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two largest economies, but differences over trade policy, investment restrictions and cyberespionage continue to strain ties.

In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen laid out her plans to raise the issue of overcapacity with her Chinese counterparts. At the Suniva solar cell factory in Norcross, Ga., she warned that China’s export strategy threatened to destabilize global supply chains that were developing around industries such as solar, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries.

“China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world,” Ms. Yellen said. “Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience.”

The Treasury secretary is expected to make her second trip to China in the coming weeks. The South China Morning Post reported that she will visit Guangzhou and Beijing in early April. The Treasury Department declined to comment on her travel plans.

In her speech in Georgia, Ms. Yellen compared China’s investments in green energy technology production to what she described as its previous overinvestment in steel and aluminum, saying it created “global spillovers.”

“It is important to the president and me that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field,” Ms. Yellen said. “We have raised overcapacity in previous discussions with China, and I plan to make it a key issue in discussions during my next trip there.”

She added: “I will press my Chinese counterparts to take necessary steps to address this issue.”

Ms. Yellen visited Suniva because it is a prime example of how the Biden administration’s industrial investments are reviving struggling companies. The solar panel company closed its Norcross plant in 2017 in part because cheap imports were flooding the U.S. market; it plans to reopen the factory this spring thanks to the Biden administration’s green energy investments.

The Treasury Department estimates that the private sector has announced more than $200 billion of clean power investments since the Inflation Reduction Act, which included nearly $400 billion in tax credits and subsidies for low-emission forms of energy production, was passed.

China, which invested more than $130 billion in its solar sector last year, has voiced its own frustration about America’s manufacturing investments. Buyers of electric vehicles that contain components made in China, Russia, North Korea or Iran are not eligible for generous U.S. tax credits.

China filed a complaint Tuesday with the World Trade Organization arguing that the Biden administration’s electric vehicle subsidy policies are discriminatory.

On Wednesday, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, struck a rosy tone in a meeting with American business leaders and academics in Beijing. He told the executives that China was “building a first-class business environment that is market oriented.” He added that in traditional areas like trade and new ones such as climate change and artificial intelligence, “China and the United States should become boosters for each other’s development, not obstructions on each other.”

Among the executives with Mr. Xi were Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chairman of Blackstone; Craig Allen , the president of the U.S.-China Business Council; and Cristiano Amon, the president of Qualcomm.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting.

Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters. More about Alan Rappeport