Just write the business plan for Pete's sake! (Part 1 of 2)

By Brandon Marshall

Thank goodness for the Wyoming SBDC!  They’ve been bailing me out of making actual contributions to wyospace.com for months now.  So, here they are again, making me look functional and helping entrepreneurs at the same time.  Heck of a deal really. 

At both the Wyoming Business Council and the SBDC, we review literally hundreds of business plans every year.  It sometimes seems like an extraordinary task just to get businesses to realize that they need a very solid plan for the future of their company.   One of the biggest obstacles that people have to overcome in business plan writing is the idea that it needs to be a certain length, like it’s some kind of term paper for your 11th grade English Teacher/local Nazi Party leader.  (My 11th grade English teacher was actually very nice, it just seemed like it would be comedic to put the Nazi line in.)  Nonetheless, today I’m posting part one of “Just write the business plan for Pete's sake!,” with the much anticipated part two to come Monday.  Enjoy!

By Cindy Unger, Business Counselor, Wyoming Small Business Development Center, Region III

The business plan is a written summary of what you hope to accomplish with your business and how you intend to utilize your resources to meet those goals.  The plan is the “roadmap” for operating your business, measuring your progress, and determining when and how to expand.  Ultimately, your business plan must demonstrate that your business concept will generate enough sales to make a satisfactory profit, thus making the business worthwhile for you to start and of interest to potential financial backers. 

First and foremost, the business plan must sell YOU on the business. Researching and writing the plan will help you gain an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the business.  You will be forced to take an objective, critical, and unemotional look at your planned business in its entirety.  The result may be that this business is not going to earn the profits that you originally anticipated, or that the daily operation of the business is going to be more complex than you planned, or that the initial financial needs are beyond your means.  Making the decision not to go into a business at the planning stage is far better than being forced to make that decision after you have invested large amounts of time and money. 

For any business to achieve success, the management should have a clear understanding of its operating procedures, customers, strengths and weaknesses, and competitive environment.  The business should also have a plan for future expansion and evolution. The business plan should explain how all aspects of operation of the business will be integrated and operate together. Fortunes have been made and lost because one area of a business organization failed and dragged the successful pieces with it. 

Continued tomorrow......