6 Things every good business plan should contain

So the six things are, firstly, your business plan should state what your goal is. And it should have a timeframe for achieving that goal, and it needs to be specific. So if you think about SMART objectives, then you need to apply those. I’ll do a separate video on that, but essentially a specific goal is, “I want to achieve X number clients, or I want to achieve X amount of income or profit by this particular date.” So that’s really, really important.

The second thing is you have to be really clear in this business plan about exactly who it is you want to support with your business. We call this the customer avatar. So it’s not about saying, “I want to help people who have cats in general.” Once again, it’s about being specific. “I want to help people who have this one particular the type of cat to do this one particular type of thing.” So that’s why you need a customer avatar. That’s what it’s called.

Then what you have to do is then you have to talk about, so number three, talk about what the solution you are going to give those people is. So what is it that you are going to do differently from anyone else who helps that one different type of person? What collection of services are you going to provide as part of your solution? Why are they all important?

Number four, we have to have talk about what the team that is going to deliver all this will look like. So if your goal is to have a business that’s turning over 2 million pounds in three years time, you’re probably not going to be able to do that by yourself. So you’re going to have to talk about which team members you need. Not their exact names, but you’re going to need to talk about what their roles are going to be and have a think about what the costs involved are.

And number five, you’re going to need a marketing plan in this business plan, because the marketing plan is so essential in explaining exactly how you’re going to get those customers through the door. If you can’t get customers through the door, you’ve got no one to help so you don’t really have a business. So the marketing plan just is a really decisive, specific funnel, which says, “Okay. Well, I acknowledge I can’t just say to people, ‘Buy our stuff.’ So this is the journey that prospect is going to take before they become a client or customer.”

And then the final thing is, you need a cashflow plan. Once you worked everything else out, you need to work out that you can definitely afford it. The chances are, you might not be able to afford it just based on your savings or whatever other income you’ve got coming in. So you may have to go out and raise funding to actually make it happen. So that’s why you need a cashflow plan in there. That why it’s really, really important. It’s no good saying, “I’m going to do all this stuff and I’m going to have this team” if you can’t actually pay any of them. Just remember, marketing also costs money. If you want to grow your business by a hundred thousand pounds, you’ve got to have about 40,000 pounds in your marketing fund to really achieve that comfortably.

So those are the six things. So just a recap that you need a specific goal and date. You need your customer avatar, which explains exactly who you can help. You need your signature solution, which explains exactly what you’re going to do for them and why it’s important. You need a team overview, as in what kind of team you need in place and what roles they’ll have. You need your marketing plan, as in how you’re going to get cold prospects to become customers. And then you need your cashflow plan in place, as in how you’re going to fund it all.

Once you’ve got all that, you’ll then have an amazing business plan, which you can then start growing your business off the back of. If you don’t want to do all that yourself, then that’s the exact kind of thing we do for our clients. So why not get in touch and book yourself in for a free strategy session?