How to Write a Business Plan

Win Backing and Support for Your Ideas and Ventures

Brian Finch

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780749486433
• eBook ISBN: 9780749486440
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Business Writing

Whether you are starting or selling your own business, business plans are an essential part of the process. How to Write a Business Plan gives you the expert guidance you need to make an impact with your plan, including advice on researching competitors, presenting your management skills and successfully communicating your strategic vision. Whether it is to raise finance, sell a business or develop a specific project, this is your one-stop guide to producing the most professional and convincing business plan for a new venture.Fully updated for 2019, this 6th edition now features even more practical exercises, useful templates, and top tips to help you write a comprehensive and compelling plan, as well as content on digital developments such as crowdfunding, online retailing and digital marketing. The Creating Success series of books...
Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.

Appendices

Appendix 1 The confidentiality letter

This letter is given as an illustration only. It may not meet the reader’s needs and may prove unenforceable. The author accepts no responsibility in relation to anyone using it. The reader who needs an actual confidentiality letter should take professional advice.

Dear Sir or Madam,

The information contained in the Information Memorandum (‘The Information’) to be sent to you is the property of John Smith and is commercially valuable. By signing this letter XXX acknowledges this and undertakes:

1. Not to use the information for its own commercial purposes. Not to establish or acquire a business in the same trade or approach or enter into commercial negotiations with any staff, customers or suppliers of John Smith for a period of 12 months following the date of this letter.
2. To keep the information confidential. To take all reasonable care to avoid disclosing The Information in whole or in part either directly or indirectly to anyone except its own staff and professional advisers in order for them to work on the proposed acquisition of John Smith. It undertakes only to disclose the whole or part of The Information after its staff or professional advisers have been bound to the undertakings to John Smith on the same terms as this letter.
3. Not to make any copies of the information without permission and on the request of John Smith to return the documents and to destroy any copies or extracts that may have been taken or made.

The signatory acknowledges that the appropriate recourse for any breaches of this undertaking comprises injunctive relief in a...

Table of contents

• How to Write a Business Plan
• Creating Success Series
• Taking Minutes of Meetings
• Contents
• Introduction
• Why this book?
• What is the plan for and who is the audience?
• You are telling a story
• Presentation
• Facts and evidence
• Gathering data
• Repetition
• Review your document
• 01 The structure of the plan
• Using appendices
• 02 Summary
• 03 The business background
• What your business is about and how you got here
• The business
• What is the product or service?
• The markets
• Supply
• How did you get here?
• 04 The market
• Overview
• Market structure
• Competitors
• Customers
• Distribution
• Trends
• Competitive advantage
• Market segmentation
• Differentiation
• Pricing
• Barriers to entry
• Big changes and new technologies
• Examples of market change
• Mixed strategies
• 05 Operations
• Differences
• Processes
• Control
• Experience
• Supply
• Systems
• Location and environment
• Regulatory control
• 07 Management
• The essential difference
• What skills are required?
• Organization structure
• Demonstrating control
• Management
• 07 The proposal
• Explain
• The proposition
• Why will you succeed?
• Ask for what you want!
• What have you invested?
• Second round finance
• Closing the deal
• The exit
• 09 The forecast
• The sales forecast
• Costs
• The five-year forecast
• Reviewing the plan
• Sensitivity
• Key assumptions
• Explain important points
• 09 Financial information
• Profit and loss account
• Cash forecast
• Sensitivity
• Break-even
• Funding
• Reconciling and checking
• Timing
• Balance sheet
• Trends
• Some important terms
• 10 Risks
• What did we get wrong?
• Long term versus short term
• Focus on the big stuff
• Don’t forget the everyday stuff
• 11 Legal issues and confidentiality
• Confidentiality
• 12 Selling your business
• Explain why you are selling
• Emphasize the great opportunities for the business
• Don’t waste time illustrating that sudden upturn in business expected imminently
• Do you include a forecast?
• Who is the buyer?
• Holding back information
• Due diligence
• Do you own what you are selling?
• 13 Improve performance with a business plan
• Planning is not budgeting
• Strategic vision and action
• Creating strategy
• Planning for people
• Practicalities
• 14 Using business plans for bidding
• Appendix
• Appendix 1 The confidentiality letter
• Appendix 2 Reconciling profit and cash flow
• Appendix 3 The cash forecast
• Copyright