Creating a Business Plan for a Company/Practice that is just starting out, or has been around for years.

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Does your company or practice have a business plan?  A business plan is typically required when starting a company or practice. It is also important when trying to procure a line of credit to help grow your business.  This plan should clearly identify your goals. 

A good business plan includes a balance sheet, an income statement, and a cash flow analysis. Having such a plan will help you make sound decisions and can help your company or practice to correctly allocate resources. It can also help prevent your business from failing.

Below are some key points to remember when putting together a business plan taken from the Ultimate Practice Business Plan Power Point:

“FAIL TO PLAN, AND YOU PLAN TO FAIL!”

• Before you put a pen to paper, find out how to assess your business’s goals and objectives.
• You may be held accountable for the projections and proposals in your plan.
• Thinking about important decisions now is an important way to minimize the time you spend planning your business later and maximizes the time you spend generating income now.
• Throughout the writing of your business plan you want to keep in mind your intended audience and why you are writing the plan.
• If you are trying to attract investors you will want to emphasize the big upside profit potential.

In the first half of your plan, look at:

• The market
• The industry
• Customers
• Services

Evaluate:

• Strengths
• Weaknesses

The second half of your plan is largely to execute your selected business strategy:

• Products and Services
• Marketing
• Operations

Things to remember:

• Think competitively throughout your business plan.
• A lot of business plans sound good on paper, but don’t work in the real world. 
• If you need help from someone, hire a consultant.
• Have you gotten referrals and asked enough questions?
• Have you researched other businesses in your field that have been successful to find out what they are doing right?

Take the first steps:

• The hardest part of creating a business plan is getting enough energy together to get started.
• Don’t worry about making the perfect first draft.  Once you get things down on paper you can polish it up later.
• If you get hung up on a particular part of the plan, skip it for now and come back to it later. 
• Once you are done with your plan have people you trust read it and give you their honest assessment. 
• Don’t be afraid to make changes, or update your plan.

It is very important to remember that a business plan is a living document, and what you put into your plan is not etched in stone! Your business plan is a road map that needs constant updating.  Reviewing your plan at least twice a year will help you to stay on track. 

Reviewing the milestones and comparing them with those you have not achieved will help to set more realistic and precise timelines for future objectives. The goal of your business planis to help you operate successfully and prevent failure.  Use your business plan as a tool to monitor, analyze, and evaluate your company or practice. It is the solid foundation of starting a business and a very useful tool to ensure continued progress and growth.