Continuing our four part series on business planning, we finally find ourselves at the actual business plan document. In the previous episode, I shared my unpopular opinion about this document, but despite opinion, the truth is that there is a place & need for it in the development of a business idea.

With ATvantage, there was much struggle in formulating the business plan, which was shared in full on the podcast. Do the best you can to work through as many of the details of this plan as possible, then just jump in and get business started.

One of the greatest resources you can utilize early on in your entrepreneurial career is the small business association or sba.gov. Not only do they have legitimate information because it comes from the federal government, but almost everything they offer is free and very user friendly. Additionally, most major cities have a local SCORE chapter, which is a nonprofit organization made up of volunteers that provide mentorship, put on free workshops, and have a library of information for small businesses.

According to the SBA, “a business plan is an essential roadmap for business success. This living document generally projects 3-5 years ahead and outlines the route a company intends to take to grow revenues.”

A business plan is not meant to be developed and then put away and not looked at for years, it really should grow with the company. It truly is a living document that should not written in stone, but rather a working template of how to  conduct business.

Here is a quick summary of the main components of the business plan, for more formal information, visit the sba.gov site.

Executive Summary:

• One of the first pages seen in a business plan, but one of the last written. Hold this until the end.

General Company Description:

• This area includes your core company values, the vision & mission statement, business philosophy, and company goals & objectives.
• This section is where you will detail the industry you will be working in; including  growth that industry is expected to see, changes that industry is expected to foresee, and how your idea is poised to take advantage of those changes.
• This is an opportunity to show your personal strengths as the business owner and also to highlight the company’s strengths.

Marketing Plan:

• You will need to present some market research that you have conducted. This includes who you intend your target market to be as well as both primary & secondary research.
• According to SBA.gov, “secondary research means using published information such as industry profiles, trade journals, newspapers, magazines, census data, and demographic profiles.” For athletic training, this would include NATA, professional publications, colleagues, and other data.
• Primary research, then, is “gathering your own data.” This could include ideas given in previous podcasts, including floating your idea out on social media, conducting focus groups, and identifying competitors.
• Refer back to the 4 P’s we discussed in the marketing podcast –  Product, Price, Place, and Promotional Strategy are going to major components of this piece.

Operations Plan:

• This focuses on the daily operations of the company, including location, equipment, processes, people, and environment.
• Discuss how and where your product or service will be produced.
• The location in which you will be producing the product or service, which will require you to think about things like OSHA standards, workplace environment, insurance, and zoning.
• Personnel will include the types of people you will need (skilled or unskilled), how many of those people you will need, what you will pay them, how you will schedule them, and other details.
• This also includes management, what will the organizational chart look like? Who oversees who and what are the role delineations? Develop position descriptions for key employees.

Lastly, there is the money portion:

• What kind of inventory will you need to carry, how much will that cost you to acquire?
• Who are the suppliers and how will you acquire the inventory. What kind of credit will those suppliers give you, how quickly will you have to pay them?
• What will your credit policy be, when will customers need to pay you, how will you verify credit?
• How will you manage your accounts receivable, who will be responsible for collecting on past due monies, what will your policy be for slow paying customers?
• Same with accounts payable, who will be responsible for paying invoices or payroll?
• How do you anticipate coming up with the money to fund this idea? What will be the other startup expenses expected?
• If you anticipate having to borrow money, you may be expected to create a projection of profit & loss for 12 months, or up to four years.

You can imagine how daunting that is to not only think about, but to actually research and write out thoughtful responses for. This is why Business Plans are a stopping point for many would-be entrepreneurs. You could spend months writing this plan, only to find that half the information doesn’t actually apply, or you become discouraged by the task and never move forward.

This is why doing some planning is so helpful, even looking over the business plan so you can be thoughtful in your approach, but to not let the writing of it be the step between idea and implementation. As already stated, this will be a living document, always susceptible to change.

Our original business plan was written in 2012, with an update done about every 18 months since. This has been a good timeframe for us, as it is usually about the amount of time the company sees enough growth to mandate reviewing our policies and procedure.

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