Resources for Young Entrepreneurs
Business plan outline
This business plan outline has proved successful in helping countless young entrepreneurs raise finance and start trading.
It has been developed by Wandsworth Youth Enterprise Centre over many years of helping young people realise their dreams, set up and establish their business. Most entrepreneurs need to put together a “package of funding” to start their business. These packages usually consist of a mix of funding ranging from Bank loans to Government grants. This outline will provide you with the topic headings for your plan that will satisfy the information requirement for all funding agencies.
A Guide to writing your Business Plan
The following information is meant to help you put together a first draft business plan. The plan then needs to be shown to a Business Advisor or Counsellor for their comments and guidance towards completing a final professional plan that does justice to your business idea and will help secure any necessary start-up finance.
With this in mind, the following pages set out the contents that all professional business plans should contain. Some plans will need to put more emphasis on certain areas, while some plans may contain headings/information on operational areas specific to the busines concept. Each plan will be different. The following pages give you a starting point from which you can build and shape your own individual plan.
The presentation of the plan is naturally very important, particularly if you are in a design-led field, as a plan is anyone’s first sales tool. Whatever the idea, the plan must be yours and as such is an expression of you and your idea, therefore you have creative freedom with the way you set it out and present it. Also important is the reader being able to find their way aroud the various sections and sub-sections easily and quickly, so a well bound, word-processed, indexed and page numbered plan is essential.
A suggested way of starting is to open a word-processing file and put up on screen all four main sections and each sub-section, in other words re-create the following pages on your WP. Then under each sub-section write down what information is already known to youthereby identifying what has still to be found out/researched. As new information/ideas come, put them up on the screen under their heading and slowly and methodically your plan will take shape. It is useful to create a section at the bottom of the file for information or ideas you are unsure of where they fit in, then as the plan takes shape cut and paste them into their sections. If you do not have access to a Word-Processor write each sub-heading at the top of a separate sheet of A4 paper and fill it in as outlined below.
Business plan guideline
Section 1:
Business and personal profile
1.a. Business description
Five simple statements outlining your:
- Product or service
- Target customer
- Method of trading
- Chosen trading status
- Start-up costs
1.b. Education, training and skills
- Executive summary or Curriculum Vitae
- Relevant work experience
- Existing business skills
- Business training
- Personnel development programmes (if appropriate)
1.c. Personal information
- Why self-employment (motivation)
- Key strengths (what you are good at – do not be shy, it does not pay in business)
- Key contacts (family, friends and professionals who are willing to help and support you)
- Ambition (where you would like to see yourself and your business in two, five and ten years time)
Section 2:
Market research
2.a. Market background – Desk Research
- Statistics of economic and employment growth and development of market sector
- Identify driving forces, trends and constraints
- Identify market structures, key associations and governing bodies
- All the above help demonstrate a basic knowledge of how your market sector works
2.b. Target market – Field Research
- Customer profile – Who are they? – What is their socio-economic grouping? – What do they spend their money on? – What method will you use to promote your business to them? – What matters to them (Green issues, etc.)? – In other words, what makes them tick and why will they want to buy your product or service?
- Product/service research presentation of results from survey/questionnaire – analysis of at least 50 – 100 sample responses from target customers to your product or service – its price, availability, quality, desirability, likelihood of purchase etc.
- If possible secure ‘letters of intent’ from potential customers.
2.c. Competition
- Acknowledge and identify indirect and direct competitors
- Evaluate strengths and weaknesses of direct competition sample
- Objectively compare their product/service with yours and state plans for effectively competing
2.d. Market research conclusion
- Draw together all key information from above categories
- Present resultant determinants for a successful business in analysed market area, i.e. tell us what you are going to do to make your idea work based on your researched findings
This section is a very important and influential part of your plan and is likely to determine whether or not people/agencies will invest in the venture.
Section three:
Marketing strategy
3.a. U.S.P.
- Describe your unique selling point
- Outline benefits to the customer – illustrating your understanding of the customers’ need and how your product/service’s features meet them
3.b. Product of service
- Provide a complete description of your product or service – quality, materials, technical specifications etc.
- Describe the production process or delivery of service in sequence order
- Outline a production or delivery timetable over the appropriate time span (day – week – month – season)
- Discuss productivity limits/targets and their effects on projected sales income
- If appropriate discuss stock levels/holding/methods of control
- List guarantees, warranties, after sales service/back-up etc.
- Name key and back-up suppliers and write about current relationship (if any)
- Acknowledge and state plans for meeting any legal requirements (Insurance’s, Licences to trade etc.)
- Prepare your terms and conditions of trade
3.c. Price
- State and justify your pricing policy in terms of competition, costs and customer (M.R.)
- Discuss your terms of payment for both customer and suppliers, i.e. 30 days credit
