This article will show you how you can ensure profitability while creating a business plan. It will list 6 things that every business plan must have to be profitable.

1. Make sure there’s a market for your business plan. This is the most important step. Make sure there’s a market that’s willing to spend money on your products / service.

2. Make sure there’s a marketing strategy in place. You have to get your customers somehow, make sure there’s a marketing strategy in place to get them. This is often overlooked by a lot of entrepreneurs.

3. What is your unique product? What is your unique solutions? What’s your USP? Make sure there is a market that’s willing to spend money on your product or service.

4. What is your relationship strategy? It’s not about getting the first sale, it’s about building a business, what is your strategy to keep, and develop relationships with your market?

5. What is your obvious factor? Your business plan has to be simple enough for the people reading it to understand it. If your business model is too complicated, than it won’t get understood.

6. What are the numbers? What does your numbers look like. You will need cashflow and profit/loss projections. What is your break even point? Although these numbers might not be accurate, some idea is better than no idea.

Remember that a simple business model is better than a complex one.

These are the 6 elements that makes a business plan profitable. Although there are more elements involved in creating business plan, these 6 are the most important ones. No business plan can be successful without it.

Writing a business plan is not a simple task … nor does it need to be a painful one either.

For starters, if this is your first attempt, you should look for Govt. and Non Govt. resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs ….. like your local chamber of commerce.

For online resources LinkedIn is a good start. Also try advisorgarage, gobignetwork, and similar networks to find a business consultant ready for pro-bono work.

The last thing you want to do though is to buy a software for business planning purposes unless you need this business plan simply for the sake of having a business plan on the shelf.

The better approach is: you should write a rough draft of your idea and everything what you think about it. Bounce these ideas at others and gather unique perspectives, feedback and more ideas, document that too. Lay out your monthly fixed costs ( rent, wages etc) along side your variable costs and then compare it with your prospective income sources. Run this schedule for at least 24 months. Use this schedule to see how much money you can go down for before the business works. Do you walk away 5 grand down after 6 months, or do you get lumbered with a hard to sell, expensive to keep, lease? Figure out, what happens if you reduce your income. Do a break even analysis – what is the lowest level at which you can make it work. Try to write something why …. and how sure are you that you will do better than anyone else who is doing the same. If you’re the only one doing or planning to do this the chances are either the idea is not profitable …. or even you don’t know where and who is doing it? So do more research about the business and try to figure the realistic bottom line for the business. All this analysis and work above was for your use. If you still want to do it –

Then draft a business plan using the free resources like Microsoft template and many more available in the market – this draft initially should include what you have done that makes you sure this will work. This may simply be – I have a contract, I know the business, there will be more, or it may be a thorough market research, traffic counts, industry statistics and the like. Put the schedule we did in the first place, into a spreadsheet,and lay out the rest in whichever format you like.

In my opinion, this is the most economic and realistic approach to write a business plan and not an off the shelf software which will give you a me-too business plan which to me is of no use as neither am I convinced nor can I convince any investors with that kind of auto-generated plan.

A business plan has many formats but shares a common group of elements. The one you write for yourself is different from one written to secure financing, or key employees. The place to start is not “which software to use” although that will be very helpful later.

You need to tell a story, or better yet, view it as a movie screenplay. If you can fill in the four elements below, you are well on your way to starting writing one.

The Title- The description of what your core idea is has to be compelling and not “just like all the others”. Why are you different?

The Star Studded Cast- Your Customers. Who is going to give you money? Why? Why Them?

The Thrilling Action-The plot details -Money In and Money Out- financiers love this part- but in simple terms, explain the money coming in and the money going out.

The Big Finish- Answer the question Why You Will Succeed? A good crisp answer here is the capstone.

I have seen plans go forward without these key elements explained simply and clearly, but the ones who do have a better shot at accomplishing their goals.

“Have Business Plan or Bust”

More than ever, it’s vital to have a plan for your business. And, I’m not speaking about having a marketing strategy just for when starting a new enterprise or making use of it for a business loan. Every business, new and established, must periodically re-evaluate their current plan to see if targets are being met or if they’ve changed and what the brand new strategies are.

Without planning and a strategy, an organization is simply “guessing” and has nothing solid with information on paper regarding the business’ successful attainment of goals.

Do You Know What a Business Plan Really Is and Does?

Many individuals have no idea what a business plan’s purpose actually is. That is the largest reason why people have so much difficulty writing them.

In a nutshell, such plan is about results. Your plan is a direct reflection of your purpose.

The long clarification of what a business plan is: any plan that works for a business to forecast what may be ahead, allocate resources, focus on key issues, and put together solutions to problems as well as opportunities.

Now, a ‘start-up’ plan these additions:

1. A summary about what the enterprise is and does.
2. A mission assertion that lets employees, clients, and lenders understand your ethics and goals.
3. An inventory of keys to success.
4. A market evaluation to determine who your opponents are as well as public demand for what you are promoting.
5. A break-even evaluation to seek out out when you might recoup your funding into the business.

A start-up plan for your small business will certainly settle any doubts as to whether or not to pursue beginning a business you take into consideration, but will also serve as your roadmap to take you to the next levels of growth.

Your plan will rely greatly on your specific business. The bottom line is to make your marketing strategy and business plan match your purpose.

Case Studies of Business Plans

With no plan, you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know methods to get there.

1. Case Study of a Massage Therapy Business: Take the case of a therapeutic massage instructor who had a group of 30 students. Of course, every student’s dream was to graduate and begin their own massage therapy business. But there was a big problem: they graduated and thought they’d simply get clients with business cards and people would flock to them. Only TWO out of the 30 students went on to start out their own businesses. You see, whereas the rest might have mastered therapeutic massage strategies, they weren’t educated in business, let alone create a plan.

Now let’s take a look at how three companies created their plans according to their purposes:

1. Case Research of a Bicycle Frame Manufacturer (manufacturing): A high-end bicycle frame producer that caters to bicycle racers would need to set themselves apart from mountain bike producers and cyclists. As a result of how aggressive racing has become more popular, their plan contains how they may add extra workstations and designer-builders to increase its capability for customized frames. Their plan would additionally go on to explain how they’d use current leased space to make more room for the workstations. Plans are also laid out as to how additional tools for the workstations will likely be obtained.

2. Case Study of a Computer Training Company (service): A certified pc trainer with intensive experience is seeking to increase his enterprise to supply on-web site corporate training and managing coaching and upkeep operations for a large laptop corporation. In an effort to accomplish these objectives, he plans to build on his experience by creating a group of courses designed specifically to help small companies successfully use the preferred business software program packages.

3. Case Study of a Vending Cart Enterprise (retail): A fast-food vending cart enterprise proprietor operates his business on an indoor/outdoor basis. The indoor food cart sales have increased in high-rise business buildings in his downtown area. Consequently, this owner would like to borrow $1 million so as to increase operations by way of the acquisition of extra vending carts. He has an excellent relationship with three banks so, therefore, he simply needs to add a supplement to his current plan because the banks have already got his financial information and know his intended buyer base.

Now that you understand more what a business plan is and does, it’s time to start out….

Writing the Plan for Your Business

So, what are the obligatory elements in a business plan and what order do they go in, right? The how-to’s on that topic are a lot better addressed by an eBook or business plan template where you can ‘fill in the blanks’.

Other locations you possibly can search for steering and run searches for online are (“b”=business):

1. Sample enterprise plans
2. B-plan outline
3. B-plan examples
4. Free b-plan template
5. B-plan software programs

You can additionally search for books on Amazon.com and videos on YouTube, as well as web-based plan information, one one of which being, How to Write a Business Plan.

Simply remember: a business plan reflects your purpose and gives you and others a map to follow to get your business to where you want it to go successfully.