How to Write a Business Plan [Powerful Step by Step Approach]
why do business owners turn into diamonds because
they're always under pressure how to write a business plan let's go ahead and talk about it
now of course creating a business plan is very important because well it can help you get funding
it can also help you establish a concrete timeline but most importantly it can actually help you be
successful in business and listen okay i get it i get it because when i first started my business
i probably had the same thoughts that you have right now like man i don't need a business plan i
got all my thoughts and all my ideas and my plan right here let's do it but honestly not having
a thorough business plan was probably one of my biggest mistakes when i started my first business
so in this video what i want to do is help you think through how to write a business plan
that is suited for you step by step stay tuned hey there and welcome back to our channel i'm
sean with life accounting the accounting company that saves people from high taxes and low profits
and today we're going to focus on the profit part because today is all about business planning okay
let's go ahead and get into it now i'm sure most of you already understand number one what is a
business plan but let me briefly very briefly touch on it so a business plan basically is
simply that right it is a plan for your business typically there are seven components of a business
plan first you have your executive summary which basically summarize the overall business
plan then you have your company description you have the market analysis you have your service
and product lines you have your sales and your marketing strategy you have your management plan
and lastly you typically have your financial projections now what most people do is they tell
you about these seven components of a business plan and heck they may even give you a tip to
write your executive summary last but i'm gonna do something a little bit different okay i'm gonna
get a little bit deeper and actually break down where you need to start step by step and exactly
why and along the way i'll also share additional tips from my experience when it comes to launching
a new business as well all right so let's go ahead and get started with step number zero that's
right step zero like before you even write a business plan you need to really think about okay
who you are because the truth is whether or not your business is going to be successful depends on
how passionate you are about the business so i'll tell you a quick story to help illustrate this
okay so i used to do marketing and one day i had back-to-back meetings with two of my clients my
first meeting was with a client who owned an i.t company and the bulk of the meeting was pretty
monotone with a few glimpses of frustration from my client like he would often make slight comments
like man we should be growing so much faster than this this is supposed to be a high growth
industry and so on okay so then right after that i had another meeting with one of my clients
who owned a dog walking business no joke okay and the majority of that meeting was high energy
with a lot of excitement and overall optimism about where the marketing campaign was going and
throughout my time of working with both companies the dog walking business went on to make millions
of dollars whereas the it company eventually gave up okay so so what exactly is my point well
i believe because my client with the dog walking business loved and i mean absolutely loved what
she did that helped accelerate her success and too many people get into business only to make
money and to try to get to financial freedom but they don't consider how much they need to
learn and how hard the journey will be so step zero is to learn yourself and find your passion
before you get into business all right now once you get that done let's get into some of
the juicy stuff okay so step number one for writing a business plan is to analyze the
market all right that's right analyze the market so once you have your idea don't rush into trying
to figure out your business name or trying to figure out a catchy slogan or none of that right
the first thing you need to do is start actually analyzing and seeing is if there is a need and
demand for your business idea meaning that people will actually want to buy what you have to offer
hey sean look everyone needs my youtube videos okay kind of like that so how do you know
that there is a demand for your business idea well the first obvious one is are there any
other companies that offer what you're offering right now and if so are they successful so for
example if you are thinking about creating a stylish swimwear company and you see that another
company is just completely selling out of this trendy style of swimwear then obviously there's
a demand for that product but that's like a very comparable situation but maybe your business
idea is completely unique right like maybe you want to create a swimwear that has pockets that
are completely water resistant for your devices like your phone okay well even though your product
is very unique and innovative it can still build off the premise that swimwear is in high demand on
the other hand if swimwear wasn't in high demand don't assume that your product will be able to
turn an entire market even if you have a great business idea okay the next thing you want
to ask yourself within your market analysis is how many other companies are offering this
and here you want to get a gauge on how saturated the market actually is because listen business
is like a race and you rather race against 10 other businesses or 10 other people than race
against a thousand other people because that will heighten your chances of winning and
lastly when it comes to analyzing the market ask yourself what is the competition's
level of quality and price because listen you never want to go into a business where you
are offering a lower quality product at a higher price that is a recipe for failure so of course
ask yourself realistically can i create a quality product or service that is just as good or
better than what is on the market today and if so can you offer it at just as good of a price or
a better price than what is on the market today okay going through these three questions will
help you quickly understand if you have a viable business or not especially before you get too
deep into writing your business plan because if you get too deep into writing your business
plan then you're going to start being committed to following a business i did that may not work
out at all now once you successfully analyze the market then you're ready to move on to step number
two but really quick before i move into that step if you are enjoying this video so far all i
ask you to do is to hit the like button for the youtube algorithm it really helps our channel in
this video reach more people like you who want to learn how to write a successful business plan did
you do it yeah okay thank you so so much now let's go ahead and get on with it with step number two
and that is to develop your sales and marketing strategy so again notice i'm not recommending
that you try coming up with your company name or your company description or even trying
to build out your products or your services yet okay the next step here is to figure
out how you're actually going to get people to see your products and your services and exactly
how you're going to sell it to them why okay two reasons number one because doing this forces
you to look at things from a different perspective it forces you to think about who your customers
and consumers are so at this point you can start to build a target audience like what gender are
they what's their age what's their educational background what are their interests what are
their financial prowess like their net worth etc and through this you start to learn more
about your business idea so let's go back to the previous example okay let's say for example
you're creating a high-end swimwear company with waterproof pockets for your devices okay but
then your your competency your skill set is in targeting college students with little money then
you probably need to rethink your business idea because those college students may not be able
to afford high-end swimwear right now the second reason i like starting with marketing and sales
is because you can actually start marketing before your business launches or even before your
business plan is complete for example right now our channel on youtube doesn't really offer or
sell anything but in the future we plan to have products that help people build well faster but
right now we are creating content and providing value to our target market and you can do the same
thing whether it's a youtube page starting a blog starting a social media page that is a themed
account and relevant to your future business and of course i realize those are all digital
marketing tactics but of course you can also do some traditional things like speaking at different
events or establishing partnerships with other companies and while you're actually doing the
marketing you will start getting more in tune with what your potential customers actually want
hey sean look our viewers want us to dance more okay maybe not but moving on to step number three
build your management or partner team now i put this as step number three because unless you are
starting a sole proprietorship or a single member llc then you're going to want your management team
to be on the same page with you when it comes to other aspects of writing your business plan in
fact you will likely find that your management team will have some other really great ideas and
energy to contribute to the overall business so of course you want to think very carefully
about who you want on your management team and why okay ideally your management team will
be able to bring something to the table that you as a business owner cannot whether it's their
time or their experience now quran has a really great video breaking down business partnerships
that i definitely recommend that you check out right after you watch this video in the link above
okay step number four build your products and services okay i know you've been waiting on it and
here it is okay now you can go about mapping out your products and your services but notice i still
have this step before selecting your business name okay why is that because when you're building
your products you need to aim to be a little bit unique right like you don't want to offer the
same exact thing as someone else if you want a successful sustainable business so while you
are building your unique value proposition you may find something is very unique that you can
incorporate into your brand name or your company description okay so we go back again to that
swimwear example with the waterproof pockets which by the way i don't know why i keep going back
to that i'm not quite sure if there's a company out there that actually has waterproof pockets
but that sounds like a really good idea to me but anyway if you're creating that swimwear
company and you find that the zippers look like mermaids or something special then maybe that ties
into your brand name right like maybe the name of the company could be mermaid swimwear also i want
to say this especially when it comes to writing your business plan don't worry about perfecting
your product or your service in the plan because trust me you're going to have multiple iterations
of your designs your features and your service the point of your business plan is just to make
it extremely clear what problem or need your product and service will solve because that is the
root of what will make up your business even if your product changes as you innovate or learn more
from your customer feedback the root value of your business will stay intact okay moving on to step
number five financial projections okay this is where things start to get a little bit interesting
right so i want you to focus on your financial costs your startup costs as they say because
you can reasonably project those costs you can run some google searches make some phone calls
talk to other business owners and get a rough estimate of what it's going to cost you to start
your business now that's the easy part the hard part of course is projecting the revenue and
i've had people come up to me and say sean i got a business plan and it's in a huge industry
and i'm projecting that i'm going to make one million dollars in my first year i just need some
capital now i'm always like whoa whoa whoa okay one million dollars in your first year of business
is definitely possible but does not happen often i mean even breaking six figures in the first
year is hard for a new business to do so when it comes to projecting revenue be as realistic
as possible especially especially especially if you want to attract investors because if
your projections are enormous you may think that impresses an investor but actually that investor
will think you're a little bit crazy because many investors have real experience and they know how
difficult it is for startups to drive profitable revenue in year one so here are some quick
tips when it comes to financial projections if you have a product just assume that in year
one you're going to spend majority of your time your money and your resources developing the
product and actually getting it to the market that means you'll likely lose money in your one
and maybe if you're good start breaking even in year two and you should project faster growth
going into year three and year four on the other hand if you have a service assume that in year one
you will be profitable but you will not be able to scale quickly because you need human capital which
takes time so that means you need to recruit you need to hire you need to train people which
takes time so you should project slow growth now of course these tips mainly apply to people
who are getting in business for the first time or have little business experience but if you
have successfully built a startup then you can be a little bit more aggressive with your
financial projections okay step number six you can finally create your business description your
business name your business mission your business values etc now of course you can name your
business whatever you want but if you want to heighten your levels of success then i do have
a few tips for you number one make your business name identifiable with what your business is
okay let me say that again make your business name identifiable with what your business actually
is have you ever heard a business name and off the top of your head you had no idea what it could be
well that's exactly what you don't want right like in the case of business you want it to be as clear
as possible if we just had to name life people would be like okay what is life but when you hear
the name life accounting people automatically understand that it's a group of accountants
right or if it was life cleaners that would be pretty obvious or life fitness that would be
pretty obvious so that's first when someone hears your business name they should immediately be able
to understand what you do tip number two make your business name searchable okay at some point you're
going to want to market your business online okay that means being on social media being
on youtube being on google having a blog etc and guess what people are already searching
for different businesses and brand names online like literally right now for example one day i
was looking for a property management company for a rental property so of course i went to
google and i searched for atlanta property management company and literally the first
company that i found was a website in a business that is actually named atlanta property management
group inc and it was smart that they named their business that because they knew that people would
be searching for it and lastly step number seven complete your executive summary so once you get
through all the first six steps completing your executive summary is pretty easy okay all you
need to do is just summarize everything else that you have come up with so far so let's take
a final look at the typical traditional structure of a business plan then let's take a look at my
process and steps on how to write a business plan okay and following my steps in my process will
give you a strong possibility of creating a business plan that will actually succeed
now if you're past the business plan step and you're ready to actually launch your
business then make sure you check out my video on how to start a business step by
step coming up next or you can check out one of our other popular videos coming up
next as well and i'll see you over there you
