A business plan is your company’s calling card to the world, potential investors, and even future employees. The time spent developing your business plan is valuable and helps you see your business through the eyes of an investor. The business plan is your sales, marketing, and communication tool, which will help you identify your daily operational tasks and those steps that will grow your business for the long term.

The focus of your business plan is to target what you expect your business to achieve, where you want it to be financially, and the steps you will take to get there. When compiling your business plan, it is important to include projections for sales and expenses. The information in your business plan will help influence business decisions including where to locate the business, when to expand, when to hire employees, what kind of projects to take on, what kind of projects to pass on, and much more. The business plan also includes objectives and metrics to identify whether the business is achieving those objectives.

Think of the business plan as a foundational building block for your business’s success. The business plan is like a roadmap to help chart success. This plan will help build your successful future and offer course corrections if objectives are not met.

A well-developed business plan will:

• Target your focus
• Clarify your mission and vision
• Target business development prospects
• Serves as a calling card when you are meeting with potential business partners or investors
• Provides a foundation on which to develop the business
• Provide strategies that will propel growth both in the start-up phase and throughout the life of the endeavor
• Serves as a metric to measure actual performance with projected objectives

When putting together your business plan, it is important to have answers to these questions:

• Who is your target audience/ideal client?
• What type of structure will the business have? (LLC, sole proprietor, etc.)
• The length of your business plan – i.e., what point will you choose as your break-even or success point and what steps you need to have in place for the future?
• What issues/situations your business plan will address?

Consider your business plan the foundation from which you operate, but make certain it is a living, breathing document, which provides the flexibility to make changes and readjust your business’s course. Just as a specific tool cannot guarantee business success, not having a business plan might cause your business to flounder and fail. The time and thought that goes into the preparation of your business plan helps you focus on key competencies, which will help determine your ideal client and how to reach out to them.