Your business plan serves as the backbone of your project, it is the guideline that makes sure you are on course in terms of strategies outlined to achieve your business goal. Making sure you draft the best business plan will not only propel you to achieve great success in your project but you will also have a solid business foundation.
As part of ways to make your business successful and be among the best planners of an intended project, I will outline some easy steps that can help you draft a good business plan.
1. Research
Before you start and further nature any business idea, you need to do thorough research about the industry you are planning to enter into, gather all the needed information. Research and analyze your product, your market and your objective expertise as part of your preliminary efforts in drafting your business plan. The depth or your research affects how well you structure and organise your business plan.
2. Determine the purpose of your Business plan
You have to the purpose of your business plan whether it's for your personal use to give backing to your business or you want to attract investors or go for funding, depending on the purpose of your business plan, and where you will concise. If it is for attracting investors you will need to be concise and straight to the point. Before you start your business plan make sure you determine the purpose of the business plan to guide you in drafting the most appropriate business plan that will serve your business well.
Read also: How to write a business proposal
3. Create a company profile
Your company profile includes the history of your organization or company, the products or services you offer, the target market and audience, your resources, your uniqueness from other companies and how best you can solve problems effectively from other competing companies that need investment and will yield profits.
4. Document all aspects of your business plan
Most investors and banks who are open to working with businesses in Ghana are most likely to work with companies that have all aspects of their works well documented and proves to bring profit on the table after investment. Make sure your works are documented from your expenses, cash flow to industry projections. Also, document seemingly minor details like your location strategy and licensing agreements.
5. Strategic marketing plan
One of the key aspects of a business plan most industry players look at critically is the marketing plan for the project, the marketing plan must be strategic and aggressive in nature to win the business more, customers.
The marketing plan must delve on the following: Introducing new products, Extending or regaining a market for existing products, Entering new territories for the company, Boosting sales in a particular product, market or price range. Where will this business come from? Be specific. Cross-selling (or bundling) one product with another, Entering into long-term contracts with desirable clients, Raising prices without cutting into sales figures, Refining a product, Having a content marketing strategy, Enhancing manufacturing/product delivery.
6. Your target audience
Your business plan should be very specific based on the clients you are writing it for, your clients differ based on interest, therefore, you will need to write to suit the ones it intended for. For instance, bankers will be more interested in balance sheets and cash-flow statements, while venture capitalists will be looking at the basic business concept and your management team.
7. Explain why you care
To persuade and convince investors you will to explain how passionate you are about solving the identified and the plan of a profit-making venture to them, you can also discuss the mistakes that you've learned, list the problems that you’re hoping to solve, describe your values, and establish what makes you stand out from the competition.
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