There are many templates for a small business plan that you can use to get started. However, many templates are cookie cutter and you must adapt it to your industry and circumstances. A typical small business plan covers several key aspects such as Sales and Marketing, Production/Manufacturing, Competitive Analysis, Organization Structure, Financial Forecast, etc. However, in my experience, the following concepts are probably just as important, and in some cases, critical for the business owner to understand and include in the business plan.
Customer experience is as much of a competitive strategy as pricing or product specifications. Companies must design, test, and implement the expertise that they want to provide. More often than not, this is a competitive advantage as probably only a few (if any) competitors consider this aspect.
Financial statements represent the result or grade that the organization obtains during a period. However, companies don’t necessarily manage revenues or expenses; these are just numbers at the end of the month. Managers manage the drivers that make or break these revenues or costs. Every single industry has Key Drivers (the drivers that move 80% of the results). Identifying these drivers and developing key actions around them should be part of the business plan. Here are some examples of Key Drivers for some industries:
The direct revenue and cost of a company expressed on a per-unit basis are Unit Economics. Managing unit economics are imperative to understand and manage Contribution Margin (CM), when a company has a negative CM, the more they sell, the more they lose. For example, in a restaurant, the average price per meal divided by the average cost per meal represents the CM. If the cost per meal is higher than the price, the CM is negative. Understanding why the food cost is too high is the next step, and it could be because of waste, breakage, purchasing practices, etc.
Managing cash during various steps of the business cycle is probably the most crucial aspect of a business. Primarily during the first five years of operation, it is widely known that most start-ups fail during the first five years. One of the top reasons is not being able to manage cash properly; either the company didn’t have sufficient resources to begin with, or they were not able to get enough revenues to survive. Read our Success Factors for Small Business for more information.