When you are starting a business one of the most important things that you will need is a business plan. Strictly speaking you don’t absolutely need one; there are people who have successfully started a business without one. You will however find that things are a lot easier if you take the time to create a business plan before you start your company.

A business plan is an outline of your business that explains what it is that your company does and how you plan to do it. There are a lot of reasons that you would want to have one, the most important is to help you get funding. Any investor or banker is going to want to see your business plan before they give you money.

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A business plan is also useful since it can help you to make sure that you keep your business on track. It is not all that complicated to create a business plan and it is definitely worth doing.

1. The First is the Business Concept.

The first part of a business plan will be general outline of what it is your company does and how. The main thing that you want to focus on here is what makes your company different from the other companies that are doing the same thing.

You should be able to explain who your competitors are and what you can offer that they can’t. In this part of the business plan you are going to want to include things like who the management of the company is and what their qualifications are.

2. The Second is the Marketplace Section.

The next part of the business plan should focus on market research; this is an important aspect that should not be overlooked. You not only want to know if there are customers for what you are selling but also who those customers are. It is important that you make sure that you don’t waste your time starting a business that there are no customers for.

In this part of the plan you are also going to want to discuss your marketing plan. It is not enough to know who your customers are; you also have to know how you are going to reach them.

3. Finally, the Financial Section.

The last part of your business plan is also the most difficult, that would be the financial aspects of your business. You need to look at things like how much it is going to cost to get the business up and running. You are also going to have to look at things like how much revenue you expect and how much of a profit there is likely to be.

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A lot of this will be guess work but you should have a fairly good idea of how much you expect to make. It is usually best to have an accountant help you with this part of the business plan.

Divide these three major sections down even further, a business plan consists of seven important components:

Executive summary Business description Market strategies Competitive analysis Design and development plan Operations and management plan Financial factors

In combination to these sections, a business plan also should have a cover, title page and table of contents.