Entrepreneurs need to have a business plan. This phrase may strike fear into your heart, but a business plan doesn’t have to be frightening. In fact, business plans made simple should be the focus of any business coach with whom you work.
If you are spending days, weeks or months preparing your business plan you’re procrastinating growing the business and isn’t that the reason you became an entrepreneur? To run a business?
We want to work with our clients and get their businesses up and running and here are some ways to do just that.
Business Plans Made Simple
- Keep it short. There is no law that says your business plan has to be hundreds of pages, or even fifty or twenty pages long! It can be short. It can be ten pages if you can fit all the relevant information in it.
- Make it look good. Don’t scratch out your business plan on a bar napkin. Make it look and feel professional. Insert your business name and logo. Insert page numbers and sub heads and bullet points. Make it readable and something you’d be proud to show an investor.
- Keep the language simple. You don’t have to insert $100 words when a $.10 word will do the same. Write your business plan the way you speak. Make it easy for your audience to read and comprehend.
- Don’t use cliches or acronyms. Just because you understand the meaning of a cliche or an industry phrase or buzzword or acronym, don’t assume your audience knows what you’re talking about.
- Don’t use too many graphs, charts or colors. If you need a diagram to illustrate a point, use it wisely. Don’t overwhelm the plan with images.
- Use whitespace. Leave room for the reader’s eye to get a rest and a break from the text.
- Have your business plan proofread and edited. Remember your eye and brain will fill in words and pass over misspellings if you’ve spelled that same word incorrectly for years. Don’t rely on spell check to catch all errors.
- Insert a table of contents. Don’t make the reader have to flip through every page if he is only searching for a specific bit of information. Many word processing programs will insert a table of contents or you can design one once the plan is complete.
Business plans, whether you’re looking for investors or not, will help keep you focused and moving foward with your business. It is an entrepreneurs’ friend. If you don’t have a business plan and are afraid of making one, let us know, we can help!