No matter how you coach a newbie, they would always need a business plan sample for the first time, before they would have the courage to create one.
Most times, different people may have different formats of presenting their business plans; despite this, there are still some important and major things that investors are always looking out to see in a business plan.
In this regard, we have decided to prepare in this article, a business plan sample that would guide you towards what is expected of an effective business plan.
What’s Business Plan
The first question one may ask at the first time of hearing about business plan, is “what’s business plan or can you show me a business plan sample?” This is because the name always sounds so complicating to a newbie.
Hence a business plan definition is really a very comprehensive one, as there may not really be a generally accepted form of a business plan definition; Anyone who has seen a business plan sample, would have one definition or the other to give a business plan.
But every right definition of a business plan would always point at the same angle.
Having said this, I would say that a business plan is a form of written document that summarizes all the important aspects of a business or company. These could include the overview of the business, the operational methods, the goals of the business, and the plans through which it hopes to achieve the goals.
Uses Of Business Plan
Having talked about a business plan definition, the next thing that would bother a newbie is about a business plan sample or the uses of this business plan.
Generally, business plan can be used in two major and most recognized ways:
- Executing A Business Idea
I would say that business plan is important mostly in executing a new business idea. A business idea means that the business is still on idea stage is not fully in operation.
The first stage of a business is the idea stage; before you start any business, you must have perceived it in your heart and must have thought about it. Whether you have capital for the business or not, you must have perceived the business before working towards it: this is regarded as the idea stage of the business.
most times entrepreneurs may develop a business idea without having the required capital to execute the business; but whether there is capital for the business idea or not, a business plan is highly needed for a new business.
When there is no capital to execute a business idea, then a business plan may be a great tool for sourcing the capital for the business. This could be in form of loans, grants, and so on.
• You May Also read: How To Raise Capital For Your Business
Even when there is capital for a business idea, a business plan would also be needed to guide the operational plan of the business towards achieving the intended goals.
- Business Expansion
Though it is always important that a business always has its business plan ready and updated at any time; the need for a business plan may be higher when such business wants to expand. Expansion could be acquiring more space, equipment, making more outputs, employing more workers, and so on.
In this, there may be need for a business plan to source for finance, especially if the business doesn’t have enough money to execute this goal.
Just like a new business, this financial support could be in form of loans, grants, and so on.
So, a business plan is basically needed especially for sourcing funds for business star-tup or expansion.
Importance Of Business Plan
Having talked about the uses of a business plan, it may now be very clear that business plan is very important in the field of business.
Though the uses of business plan may reflect to its importance, but there still some points I would love to also add.
- Helps To Judge The Success of Your Business
One importance of business plan that can never be undermined is that it helps the entrepreneur to see the future of the business, and determine if the business or business idea would really be a viable one or not.
In this, it would help the entrepreneur to know if to drop the business idea or to make some changes that would bring positive influence.
- Helps To Uncover New Opportunities
While drawing your market analysis in your business plan, you would surely be able to know the size of your market, your competitors, and as well discover any untapped opportunity in that area of your business.
- Helps You Make Decisions
At the end of all the elements of your business plan, you would really get to pick out some relevant discoveries that would always help you in making decisions for the success of your business.
- To Set Realistic Milestones
The business plan helps entrepreneurs set milestones in form of achievable targets and goals for the success of the business.
- Business Plan Attracts Investors
There may be no reasonable investor that would invest in a business or business idea without looking into the business plan.
There is really no much distance between investors and your business once you are able to develop an effective business plan. This is because a good business plan always helps the investors hold for certain, that their money would not sink if invested in the business.
5 Important Things You Must Not Skip In Your Business Plan
If you have ever seen a business plan sample, you must have noticed that business plan may not always be the same. A business plan sample for one business may be different from a business sample for another business.
Most times, how a business plan sample would look may depend on the intended audience, investors, requirements or even the nature of the business. A business plan format for a startup may not really be the same with the the business plan format for already established business.
Though a business plan format may not be the same in most occasions, but there are still some important things that always need to be included for it to be effective and serve the purpose of a business plan.
So, before we finally give out a business plan sample for guide, let’s first of all highlight some important information that should always be included in any form of business plan.
- Executive Summary
- Business Description
- Market Analysis
- Marketing Plan
- Financial plan
Executive Summary
Executive summary in business plan is usually the first part and one of the most important part of a business plan. It is a part that summarizes the most important parts of a business plan.
A business plan executive summary is meant to capture the interest of the investor/reader.
It would be important to know that most times investors would depend on the executive summary to judge whether to read the main business plan or to flip it away. This is why efforts should always be put in crafting out an effective business executive summary.
An effective executive summary should contain a summarized form of all the five essential parts of a business plan as discussed in this post, but should not be more than 3 to 4 pages.
You can read HERE to know how to write an effective business plan executive summary that would catch the interest of investors.
Business Description
Here, you are expected to describe the overview of your business or company; that is, everything that is expected to be known about your business.
This could include your business name, how you came up with the business idea, the problem your business solves, the products or services your business offer, and so on.
Market Analysis
In this part of the business plan, you need to describe the size of your market or your target audience.
Knowing that the size of the market would greatly influence the profitablity of a business, the investors would really need to be convinced that there is really adequate demand for your products or services.
While describing your market analysis, it may be nice to include things like: information about the target market’s demographics, geographical location, consumer behavior, and market needs.
Marketing Plan
Even if you have a very large market opportunity, if you don’t have a good strategy for engaging those customers with your products or services; it’s as good as not having a market size at all.
So, having described your market analysis, there is need you also describe the strategy and Channels you intend to use to reach out to your target customers.
Highlight the tactics you will use to grow your customer base, maintain relationships, and build customer loyalty. These could include both offline and online channels that you will use to create visibility for your business and as well, the distribution systems or partnerships you will utilize to get your business offering to the market.
Financial plan
Financial plan is usually one of the last sections of a business plan. It is usually a kind of overview of the historical financial status of your business; showing the past, present and the future projections.
In your financial plan section, you need to elaborate on the following:
- Business Expenses
- Financial Projections
- Financial Statements
- Break-even Point
- Exit Strategy
Business Expenses
Whether your business is still a startup or already established, you have business expenses that you really need to include in your financial plan. These could be star-tup cost (for new business), cost of purchasing new equipment, rent, advertising, utility, taxes, insurance, salary, and so on.
Financial Projections
Here, you would need to make an estimate of how much income you expect to be making in a month.
An already established business can easily make this judgment based of the income of the previous months. But as a startup, you can still use your market analysis interms of your industry, competitors, and your market size.
Financial Statement
The financial statement usually contains the details of your business finances; and would include:
- Income Statement
- Cash Flow Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Equity Change Document
Income Statement
The income statement depicts the summary of the income and expenses in your business over a specified period of time. It usually serves to determine if your business made a profit within that period of time, or it had loses.
There are three major calculations in income statement:
- Gross Profit: Revenue Minus (-) the cost of Production
- Operating Profit: Gross Profit Minus (-) Cost of running the business
- Net Profit: Operating Profit Minus (-) tax or loan interest
Cash Flow Statement
This is the summary of the incoming and outgoing money in your business. The document usually serves to determine if your business has enough money at hand to take care of arising expenses.
Balance Sheet
The balance sheet is the summary of the assets, liabilities, and equity of your business. This document usually helps in dept management and in making decisions for business growth.
Equity Change
Equity usually depicts the the total assets of your business Minus (-) the total liabilities. So, the equity change is the summary of change in your business/company’s equity within a specified period of time.
Break-even Point
Break-even Point depicts the period in your business when your sales would be equal to your expenses.
Funding Request
If you are seeking for financing or funding, you would need to clearly state how much you need for specified business goals. You need to clearly specify what you need this funding to do; it could be buying new equipment, increase production, and so on).
You must be specific, don’t just say I need the money to startup my business. State the things you want to use the fund for: like renting of shop, and so on.
Exit Strategy
Potential investors would always want to know what could be their fate if after investing in a business, and the business didn’t survive. How safe would their investment be; would they be able to recover their investment if the business didn’t later survive.
So, in this section, you really need to say what you would do if your business didn’t make; or if you want to close or sell your business.
Other Sections Of A Business Plan
Recall that the five sections we discussed above might not be the only sections of a business plan; what we said is that the five sections are the most important sections that are always needed in a business plan.
This does not mean that you cannot include other sections. There are still some other sections that people would always choose to include in their business plans; depending on instructions, the nature of the business, and so on.
So, some other sections that people usually include in their business plans are:
- Management and organization description:
This section talks about the leaders in your business; their roles in the business and their qualifications.
- Products and services description:
This section provides more and elaborate details about the products or services your business offers.
- Operating plan:
This section talks about how you run your business or company. This could include: how many employees you would have, and other information about your company’s operation.
- ppendices
This is usually the last section of a business plan. The section provides additional information to support all you have outlined in your business plan so far.
These could include: Relevant legal documentation, Pictures of your product, permits, invoice, and so on.
A Business Plan Sample
The guide we have discussed above may really be enough to help a newbie understand how to write a business plan, but we still see need to prepare a business plan sample that would help to provide more insights on what is really required.
How business plan template would look may really depend on whether it is an already established business, new business or still a business idea.
This means that a business plan sample for already established business may vary in some aspects from a new business or a business idea.
But in all, a nice business plan sample can still guide anybody in writing a very effective business plan. In other words, the business plan format that we prepared here would really guide you in writing any a productive business plan for any type of business it may be.
Having known that a business plan sample for already established business may be different from a business plan sample for a new business; we shall be focusing on a new business here to prepare the business plan format we need.
So, we shall be focusing on a business plan for Poultry to prepare a business plan sample that would guide you in preparing your own business plan.
Business Plan For Poultry
There may not really be a big deal in preparing a nice business plan on Poultry business. All you have to do is just to follow the guide we had already outlined earlier.
Let’s follow the guides and prepare our business plan on Poultry farming business. In this, we shall be looking at the Poultry farming business as a new business.
This means that our business plan sample would refer to Poultry as a new business.
Title Page (Cover Page)
The cover page is very important while writing your business plan for Poultry. Here, you should include some important information like: your business logo, document title, business name, business address, contact information, and the date you completed the business plan.
Executive Summary
While writing your business plan for Poultry, you should pay a good attention in this section, and keep it as shot as possible. Briefly provide information on the following:
*Business Description: say everything that needs to be known about your Poultry business.
*Market Analysis: reveal information about the size of your target market, your competitors, and your unique features. you can also think of SWOT and PESTEL analysis.
*Marketing Plan: Write about how you intend to make your Poultry products get to your customers; describe the channels and strategies you would use to maximize your sales.
*Financial plan: Describe the financial situation of your Poultry business. what is the estimated cost of starting up this business; what is your pricing; and what is the amount of profit you expect to make in a month.
The remaining sections of the business plan for Poultry include:
•Overview of Your Business
•Market Analysis
•Marketing Plan
•Financial Plan
•Operational Plan
•Appendixes
You can see that most of the sections listed above have already been briefed in the Executive Summary section.
The Executive Summary is just a summary form, so in the main section of the business plan; you are expected to provide the full details of what you had highlighted in the executive summary section.
With the business plan sample as provided, I believe anyone can easily pick their pen and write a very effective business plan for Poultry farming business.
But if you would love us to develop a very productive business plan for you, then we are always ready to do that.
Just drop a comment on the comment section or simply contact us on our Contact Page, and we would develop a business plan PDF for you within a few days.
