1. Determine Your Audience
- It's easy to think your idea is great enough that everyone will love it.
- Don’t fall for this thought.
- The first step to launching a successful business is identifying your target customers.
- Every decision you make is driven by your target customers.
- Your business revolves around them.
- Before diving into your business plan, identify your target market.
- Identifying your target audience can help you tailor your marketing and sales strategies to the right people.
- This is where you’ll need to conduct market research.
- It’s simple. Without customers, your business will fail.
- Many businesses have failed for not conduct proper research.
- So no matter how great your idea is, make sure you conduct thorough market research.
Segmenting your audience into the following categories can help you start your market research:
- Demographic;
- Behavioural;
- Geographic;
- Psychographic;
You should then narrow down your research to:
- Age;
- Gender;
- Location;
- Income level;
At the end of your market research, you could have narrowed down your target market to:
- Males;
- Females;
- Ages 30 to 45;
- Living in Boston area;
Remember that you’ll use the target market in other sections of your business plan.
2. Establish your Business Planning Goals
Planning and strategizing is more important than ever in today's ever-changing economy. Identify the "why" of your business plan. What is the purpose of your business plan? Is it to clarify your idea and determine its viability? Are you creating a business plan to seek funding? Planning provides a roadmap for business success if you formulate well-written and well-thought-out business goals. So, determine your business goal and focus on it.
3. Start Your Plan with a Pitch
A business plan pitch is a single-page overview (or brief) of your business that summarizes the nitty-gritty details of your business plan. Your pitch should be straightforward enough to help investors or potential business partners understand your idea.
4. Your Business Plan Shouldn’t Consume a lot of Your Time
The business plan is an important document for your company, but you shouldn't spend too much time on it unless you're actively seeking funding. You should spend most of your time building and selling your products or services.
5. Do a Competitor Research
You do not want to start your business without knowing who your competitor(s) are, their products, marketing strategies, etc. You need to study your competitors' mistakes, know their customer base, and more. Once you know your competitors, it will be easier to evaluate and adjust your business plan accordingly.
6. Don’t Focus on Perfection
As a first-time founder, it’s easy to get stuck in the perfection cycle while looking to make the perfect business plan. Don’t fall for this temptation. Don’t focus on perfecting your business plan but focus on revenue-generating activities, product-market fit, and sales while keeping your business plan simple.
7. Get Inspired on the Internet
Today, the internet is full of business plan examples. No matter what type, size, or type of business you want to start, you can find inspiration online. You should look at as many business plan examples as possible to get an idea of what details to include. Make sure you get inspiration from reliable sources such as Udemy and many others.
8. Keep Your Executive Summary Concise
Investors or business partners may not read your business plan beyond the executive summary. Therefore, you must be concise while clearly stating the problem your business intends to solve, how it intends to solve it, and how it sets itself apart from the competition. In a nutshell, demonstrate your value proposition succinctly.
9. Get Your Business Plan Read by Someone Else
When you write your business plan, you will make silly mistakes that can damage the usefulness of the document, no matter how careful you are.
