If you are in the process of starting a business or considering expanding an existing business, most advisors, and books written on the subject, say you must have a Business Plan. You may be doubtful given that it means you need to take precious time out of your busy schedule to put your plans on paper.

But do you really need a Business Plan?

A survey carried out on 400 UK entrepreneurs by SimplyBusiness revealed that 54% of business owners don’t have a Business Plan. Shocked? I was. Based on my experience when dealing with both start ups and seasoned business owners I thought the figure was on the low side! Only 54%?? Come on. I can count on one hand the number of business owners who have a Business Plan.

So, is a Business Plan as essential as we’re led to believe? Can you build a business without one?

What’s the Answer?

The simple answer to these two questions is… yes.

Yes, a Business Plan is essential; and yes, you could still build a successful business without one, but the unknown aspect is, could you have been even more successful if you had written a Business Plan?

You’ll never know but perhaps now is the time to think again.

Perhaps you are not sold on the idea that all the effort required to prepare a plan is worthwhile. If this is you let’s consider 5 key benefits for you and your business.

Feasibility and Viability

Taking time out to write a Business Plan will assist you in assessing the feasibility and viability of your idea. You may assume that sitting back and planning your future empire in your head is going to cover all the aspects of your business. Maybe, but the process of writing your thoughts down on paper will bring to the fore all the risks and potential pitfalls you hadn’t thought of. A Business Plan forces you to put your ideas down in writing and in an orderly manner. The result of this could be you going in the opposite direction or even dropping your idea altogether. Not a pleasant thought, but which would you prefer? Losing your capital or the chance to re-consider your idea?

A Measuring Tool

A Business Plan is an ideal means of monitoring your progress against the objectives you set yourself. By checking the progress you are making against your Plan you’ll be able to quickly identify if you are drifting from your original vision; know this and you will be able to take corrective action.

Consider if you didn’t have this check in place; a slight change in direction, if not spotted or left uncorrected for too long, could be damaging to your business. On the other hand, it may be that a swing from your original vision would be a more profitable alternative, one which may not have come to mind before. At least with a Business Plan you have given yourself the choice.

Get the Numbers Right

Do you really know with 100% certainty how much money you’ll need? Have you covered all the possible financial eventualities? It’s difficult to answer yes to this question if you don’t have a Business Plan.

A Plan will challenge you to consider whether you have the correct amount of funding needed to make your idea work. You may have a rough estimate of the funding you require, but until you prepare your Financial Forecasts you may not realise that a few extra thousand is needed.

Helping to Get the Bank on Your Side

One of the key reasons why banks don’t support requests for finance is lack of information. If your manager doesn’t have a good enough ‘feel’ for your idea or business then you are giving the bank every reason to say no.

A Business Plan will make the bank feel much more comfortable about the risks they are being asked to take. Without information to balance out the pros and the cons it would be easier for the bank to say ‘no’ and move onto the next request. By investing time in preparing a plan you are improving your chances of success of getting support from your bank.

A Business Plan Can Say it Better Than You Can

Not everyone has a smooth way with words and sometimes even the best communicator’s need the back up of the written word. No matter how good a presenter you are, it’s unlikely you will be able to convey your vision as clearly as a Business Plan. Too often a business owner will try to sell their idea to their bank or a potential investor and at the end of the session the manager is none the wiser than he was at the start. A Business Plan leaves little or no room for misunderstandings.

You should now realise that it’s essential to have a Business Plan; it may be the difference between success and failure! It’s all about understanding the importance of planning ahead. Invest time putting your plans on paper because it will pay you dividends in securing the funding you need and the future success of your business

“Have Business Plan or Bust”

More than ever, it’s vital to have a plan for your business. And, I’m not speaking about having a marketing strategy just for when starting a new enterprise or making use of it for a business loan. Every business, new and established, must periodically re-evaluate their current plan to see if targets are being met or if they’ve changed and what the brand new strategies are.

Without planning and a strategy, an organization is simply “guessing” and has nothing solid with information on paper regarding the business’ successful attainment of goals.

Do You Know What a Business Plan Really Is and Does?

Many individuals have no idea what a business plan’s purpose actually is. That is the largest reason why people have so much difficulty writing them.

In a nutshell, such plan is about results. Your plan is a direct reflection of your purpose.

The long clarification of what a business plan is: any plan that works for a business to forecast what may be ahead, allocate resources, focus on key issues, and put together solutions to problems as well as opportunities.

Now, a ‘start-up’ plan these additions:

1. A summary about what the enterprise is and does.
2. A mission assertion that lets employees, clients, and lenders understand your ethics and goals.
3. An inventory of keys to success.
4. A market evaluation to determine who your opponents are as well as public demand for what you are promoting.
5. A break-even evaluation to seek out out when you might recoup your funding into the business.

A start-up plan for your small business will certainly settle any doubts as to whether or not to pursue beginning a business you take into consideration, but will also serve as your roadmap to take you to the next levels of growth.

Your plan will rely greatly on your specific business. The bottom line is to make your marketing strategy and business plan match your purpose.

Case Studies of Business Plans

With no plan, you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know methods to get there.

1. Case Study of a Massage Therapy Business: Take the case of a therapeutic massage instructor who had a group of 30 students. Of course, every student’s dream was to graduate and begin their own massage therapy business. But there was a big problem: they graduated and thought they’d simply get clients with business cards and people would flock to them. Only TWO out of the 30 students went on to start out their own businesses. You see, whereas the rest might have mastered therapeutic massage strategies, they weren’t educated in business, let alone create a plan.

Now let’s take a look at how three companies created their plans according to their purposes:

1. Case Research of a Bicycle Frame Manufacturer (manufacturing): A high-end bicycle frame producer that caters to bicycle racers would need to set themselves apart from mountain bike producers and cyclists. As a result of how aggressive racing has become more popular, their plan contains how they may add extra workstations and designer-builders to increase its capability for customized frames. Their plan would additionally go on to explain how they’d use current leased space to make more room for the workstations. Plans are also laid out as to how additional tools for the workstations will likely be obtained.

2. Case Study of a Computer Training Company (service): A certified pc trainer with intensive experience is seeking to increase his enterprise to supply on-web site corporate training and managing coaching and upkeep operations for a large laptop corporation. In an effort to accomplish these objectives, he plans to build on his experience by creating a group of courses designed specifically to help small companies successfully use the preferred business software program packages.

3. Case Study of a Vending Cart Enterprise (retail): A fast-food vending cart enterprise proprietor operates his business on an indoor/outdoor basis. The indoor food cart sales have increased in high-rise business buildings in his downtown area. Consequently, this owner would like to borrow $1 million so as to increase operations by way of the acquisition of extra vending carts. He has an excellent relationship with three banks so, therefore, he simply needs to add a supplement to his current plan because the banks have already got his financial information and know his intended buyer base.

Now that you understand more what a business plan is and does, it’s time to start out….

Writing the Plan for Your Business

So, what are the obligatory elements in a business plan and what order do they go in, right? The how-to’s on that topic are a lot better addressed by an eBook or business plan template where you can ‘fill in the blanks’.

Other locations you possibly can search for steering and run searches for online are (“b”=business):

1. Sample enterprise plans
2. B-plan outline
3. B-plan examples
4. Free b-plan template
5. B-plan software programs

You can additionally search for books on Amazon.com and videos on YouTube, as well as web-based plan information, one one of which being, How to Write a Business Plan.

Simply remember: a business plan reflects your purpose and gives you and others a map to follow to get your business to where you want it to go successfully.

Pick up almost any document on starting a business and you’ll be advised that you should promptly undertake the creation of a business plan. I am a big fan of business planning but here I’ll disagree. A better idea is to complete a feasibility study. A feasibility study and a business plan share a lot in common but the feasibility study is much shorter and can be completed in less time than a full business plan.

The whole point of the feasibility study is to determine if the business concept is feasible. There is no need to go to all of the detail required by a business plan if a general testing of market numbers indicates the idea will not work.

It is alright to use educated guesses for the numbers. You can increase accuracy and detail in the business plan to follow if your initial study indicates it is warranted. A good feasibility study should answer at least the following questions:

• What is the size of the market (units sold)?
• What market share can we expect to gain (% of market)?
• How many will we sell?
• At what price?
• What expenses will we incur?

Try to make a list of the resources you’ll need to operate the business (land, buildings, equipment, training, employees, licenses, permits & fees, inventory, interest, marketing etc.). Do your expenses resemble within reason your consumption of these resources?

Next, Test your plan on a variety of inputs. Generate a worst case, probable and best case number for each input. This will provide you with a minimum threshold below which your idea is not feasible. This will prove immensely valuable if you move on to the business plan stage. When (if) you begin additional research, you’ll focus on the most critical number in the plan. For instance, if you determine you need a market size of at least 30,000 customers meeting a specific demographic to make the plan work and you find out that there are only 20,000 then either find a plan to make it work with 20,000 or stop working the plan.

Now have a knowledgeable third party evaluate your study. Incorporate their suggestions to make your plan more realistic.

After revision, ask yourself if the anticipated profits are worth the risks you will take? Does it make sense to invest your time and money in this manner? If so, move on to the full business plan with a clear insight into where to focus your research.