8 Essential Tips for a Successful Business Plan
Drawing up a business plan is a strenuous exercise. Succeeding in your business plan means summarizing your entire commercial project in about thirty pages in a rigorous and structured way.
Succeeding in a business plan requires a lot of qualities. Be a good writer; be comfortable with numbers and you have to know how to present data in a clear and structured way.
Too many entrepreneurs cannot write a business plan correctly. Entrepreneurs cannot use the business plan as a support for a request for financing.. However, a poorly written business plan is the promise of a refused financing request.
However, with a little method, it is possible to succeed in your business plan even when it is the first time that you have done this exercise.
Our team has been writing business plans for over 10 years. Here are the 5 essential tips to remember for a successful business plan.
First, You Have to Know Where to Start
Making a business plan can be a disconcerting exercise when you’re not used to it. There are so many elements to synthesize that we don’t know where to start.
The first step is to make a plan. The plan will be the backbone of your business plan and will show you the direction to follow.
Succeeding in a Business Plan?
You Need a Specific Plan
If business plans exist, it is because banks and investors have had enough of seeing entrepreneurs presenting their business project in a disjointed way.
A business plan is nothing more than a standardized presentation of your business project.
However, for a presentation to be structured well and to be pleasant to read, it must be structured around a precise plan.
Be careful not to mix all the elements. For example, it would be inappropriate to start by talking about your competitors. Another example: the presentation of your project and its value proposition must come before the financial elements.
Business plans that are too long: this is one error most often found among entrepreneurs
It’s problematic. A business plan that is too long is a business plan that you don’t read. But the last thing you want is for your banker or investor not to read your business plan.
Why do entrepreneurs make business plans that are too long? Because they are afraid of forgetting elements and they don’t know how to synthesize them correctly. So, instead, they prefer to “swing” (pardon us for the term) all the information about their project, without even prioritizing or structuring it. Because of this, we find it useless.
Information, which doesn’t belong in a business plan and the important information doesn’t stand out from the rest.
Collect Relevant Information
A big part of the work of a business plan and its success is the collection of relevant information.
You must not only collect information on your industry, but also on your competitors, on your potential suppliers, on the desires of your consumers, etc.
Once you have collected this information, present it correctly. Don’t have time to collect data? Our templates already contain market and industry information.
Be Ambitious... But Realistic!
It’s very good to be ambitious and to show that you believe in your project.
But it’s also a good thing to show your investor or banker that you have your feet on the ground and that you are aware of the risks.
Make Sure You Understand the Financials
Succeeding in a business plan also means understanding it well and knowing how to explain it clearly.
The financial part of the plan is always a strenuous exercise that requires effort. Very often, as with a real estate business plan, the financial part is essential.
All of our financial forecasting models contain explanations of all financial elements. We have added these explanations because we know our clients are not always financial peers.
Get a full explanation of the financial elements and assumptions if you use an accountant or consultant for the financial forecast.
Review Your Business Plan
Have as many people review your business plan. Outside opinions are always valuable.
If you buy one of our models, you can ask us for a final proofreading. We will do it for you.
Take Care of the Presentation to Make Your Business Plan a Success
We particularly insist on this point: your business plan must be pleasant to read.
It is for this reason that we have chosen the PowerPoint format rather than the Word format (which is rather long and boring).
PowerPoint is a software that was designed for making presentations. This therefore makes it possible to build more visual, more aesthetic and more impactful business plans.