YOUR BUSINESS PLAN IS YOUR MAP

The purpose of a business plan is simple to present your business to either an Investor to receive funding, or your partners and executive management. A plan is essential for the growth and understanding of the various stages of your business. It stands as a map for assessing the performance of your business even before it begins. Most entrepreneurs want to begin the procedure on the middle of the crisis of the venture but it is of significant importance to outline the purpose of your business from onset to stay on track. The business plan is critical for the investor as it is for the business owner. In support of the above statement, entrepreneurs lose sight of the reason they have started that business and what they hope to achieve and most great ideas and joint ventures have collapsed overtime because the owner did not have an accurate vision and strategy in mind. What happens when your business starts to become very profitable? What happens if your business needs new employees? As an executive team what measures have you put in place to ensure smooth flow of operations or how to navigate in a competitive market or industry or, what are you looking for in an employee? As a company do you have an estimate of financial resources required to sustain your business, moreover, the financial education to understand and analyze and draft a sensible, realistic budget. We are in an interesting era where almost anyone can be a business owner or manage a business but also the opposite is true. Some have not acquired the cardinal knowledge, or gained expertise of how to maintain a business, how to manage it in the long run, build a legacy that your business foundation can carry for generations to come. The prime concern is on profit gain. This is why it is important to educate most start up business owners to reevaluate why they have used their resources on a business that will not last for years. To sum up this assessment It should be noted that an idea starts in the mind, it’s almost tangible in our cognitive processing of information .The next step is to brainstorm and pen it down, by doing this you are gathering your creative juices and its more than an idea, you now have a framework, when you write down you see how realistic it is. In addition, you do not only become an idealist business owner but an analytical one, you begin to seek more tactics and strategies to implement as you construct your business plan, your map. The additional advantage is that you can revisit this plan over and over, adjust some ideas or revisit and mention the efforts you said you would establish be it in the marketing and promoting of your business or the financial aspect as well as to your investor. In the example below Pristine Freelancer has written tips in summary of a basic guideline for your start up .

>Introduce your Business. State the mission, values, the vision, what do you intend to offer as a service provider, what makes your service or product more unique and why you chose this field.
>Identify your competition, industry analysis, how your company intends to be strategic in promoting its brand, consolidating its position, evaluate your SWOT ANALYSIS to avoid risk.

>As a business owner, you are have to learn about your customer and their needs and how you are going to meet them through a marketing strategy that will include advertising , price as well.

>You establish a revenue model of the estimated profits and determine if you need additional capital in your venture towards the ending of your plan. Be realistic and knowledgeable about your financial projection, the additional funding and costs to be incurred

>Take your time, research, exhaust fully on the industry, what your product is mention your suppliers if there’s need and how you will build a strong brand to attract the target market and feel free to get a financial advisor to evaluate your plan before showing an investor.