Why You Need A Business Plan And Which one suits you best

Business Plans vary in types and sizes. The business plan you write or compile should be according to your target audience. Who are you writing to and what purpose is that business plan going to serve? Companies write business plans for different reasons and these are mainly:

1) To raise capital - Micro and Standard Business Plan

This type of business plan is written with investors in mind. It’s a money affair so your business numbers do matter the most as investors look for opportunities to get good returns on their money. The business plan must clearly state how much is needed and how it is going to be used.
Cash Flow, Business Ratios, Income statements are a very big must and no unrealistic figures would be an added advantage to you. Well it has been often said by potential investors and experienced venture capitalists that the numbers are always wrong... huh... Yes your estimated business numbers are always going to be wrong to say the least.
This is because no one really knows how much a business will possibly make at any given time in the future. It is how you arrive at those estimates based on solid market research that gives credibility to your business numbers. View our Micro or Standard Plan package by clicking here

2) To be used as an internal company strategic plan document - Strategic Business Plan

Most successful companies use business plans to measure their success. It is in the business plan where they write their strategies, time bound milestones or goals and their business concept in blue print. It’s much easier to achieve your goals if you write them down.
Serious entrepreneurs will put all their abilities, projections and ideas in a business plan that they will update from time to time. Say they see in their business plan, they estimated X sales that year but only achieve Y sales (assuming Y is less than X), they will go back to their plan and see why and how they didn’t achieve their target. They will go back to the drawing board and re-strategize to achieve their goals.
On the other hand, unsuccessful entrepreneurs are always firefighting. They only see a problem when it arises and make rational decisions based on what they think or feel that certain day. They don’t develop strategies to combat problems when they arise before hand and that makes the difference between average entrepreneurs and super successful ones. View our Strategic Plan package by clicking here

3) To form partnerships with other companies- Standard Business Plan

Some business plans are written with partnerships in mind. Here an entrepreneur must clearly state what type of partnership they would like to enter into. It could be a company merger or cross marketing platform or anything related to partnerships.
The business concept and strategies similitude are a good starting and base point for a good partnership to exist. Suppose a company that manufactures powdered washing soap A wants to partner with another company that manufactures liquid soap/detergent B... partnership can be formed if the businesses do not directly compete with each other. So a washing soap company might just be in line to release its first liquid soap or detergent to the public.
Partnering with a liquid soap manufacturing company would make it much easier for company A to succeed. This is because of market forces that include barriers to entry already created by other detergent manufacturing companies making it harder for a new company to enter the market and receive a sizable share of the market. View our Standard Business Plan package by clicking here

4) To serve as a marketing plan for a business - Marketing Plan

Business plans do narrow down to marketing plans that can be produced as a standalone document. A stand alone marketing plan is critical to an existing business as it serves as a marketing blueprint to achieve greater results.
Now an entrepreneur will obviously meet a lot of different ideas on what and what not to do to market their business. Now you don’t have to take any and everything that people throw on you. You just have to have a blue print marketing plan that will help you establish solid ways to market your business. This plan includes both offline and online ways to market. It will also help you to track your marketing efforts and bring you the results you want in your business.

Go to www.brilliantfoundations.co.za for expert business plan advice