Business Plan – from PowerPoint Template

   A document indicating how you intend to operate or to continue operating.  This can be used for the following.

• Presentation to potential investors
• Organization of your existing company
• Organizing your thoughts do you can determine how well your business should be doing.

    The business plan contains the following:

• Your company name: Pick something that suits the company type AND the customer type.  If you are in a very professional business (like banking), you need a professional sounding name.  “Jim and Ray’s Bank” is not a good name for a business.  Use a tech-sounding name if you are a company that uses a new technology.  Some small companies use their owners’ names in the name, so that the customer knows that the ‘owner’ is doing the work for them: “Joe Scanlan and Sons Plumbing”.
• Mission Statement – A clear, concise statement that directs the medium-to-long-term growth of the company.  It provides focus.  Consult the mission statement to make sure that business decisions you make are consistent with the original intent of the company.  Revise this as needed every 5 years or so.  Use it to help decide:
  • What are the opportunities or needs that we exist to address? (the purpose of the organization)
  • What are we doing to address these needs? (the business of the organization)
  • What principles or beliefs guide our work? (the values of the organization)

Examples of Mission Statements:

• “To Make People Happy” – Disney
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• The Team – A list of members of your management team and their capabilities (strengths).   (Capabilities are often expressed as the number of years of experience they have in the field).  Include the CEO/President in this list.  This is a list that investors may use to determine the risk of lending your company money.
• Market Summary – The market is a description amount of product(s) you expect to sell based on the need for your product(s).  Many people look at the money that potential customers have vs. their need for the product.  To get an idea of how this works, look at the current flu shot situation.  Medicare only pays a certain, fixed amount for each vaccine.  But we know from the current need that if suppliers can make more vaccine before the end of the flu season, they are guaranteed to sell the product they make.  Make these decisions here:
  • Who are your customers?
    • Who has the money?
    • How many of them are there?
    • What can you exchange for their money?
  • How much money is there?
    • What can the clients afford
    • How many of the clients will can buy your product.
• Opportunities
• Business Concept
• Competition – Who else is competing for the big pile of money you could get from the market.
• Financial Plan – Make a model that defines the expected costs and sales for the next 3 years or so.  If you borrow money to start up your company, this should determine how long you will have to be in business in order to pay the loan off.
• Resource Requirements
  • Technology
  • Personnel
  • External Requirements
    • Products/services/technology you need to buy from other companies in order to provide your products.
• Risks – What can do wrong, but, more importantly, how will you manage the risk?  (e.g. “What will you do if something bad happens?”).
• Key Issues – Things that are still up-in-the-air and need resolution.

Proposals – Microsoft Word

Financial Analysis – Microsoft Excel

   Microsoft Excel can be used to create spreadsheets that can analyze data.  A spreadsheet is merely an organization of data in to a table-like form, with distinct rows and columns.  By using a computer (e.g. Microsoft Excel) to represent our spreadsheets, we gain the following advantages over using paper.

• Cells in the spreadsheet can be automatically calculated based on the contents of other cells using formulas.
• Built-in functions and reports can be used to automatically create charts and graphs.
• Data can be easily changed.
• When data is changed, the resulting formulas that use the data will recalculate, showing the new values, thus allowing us to play ‘What if …” easily.

   Things we can do with Excel.

• Create an inventory list, with part numbers, descriptions, quantities in house, costs, and other information.
• Use an inventory list to generate sales receipts and purchase orders.
• Use reference tables such as inventory lists, labor rates, service costs, etc. to generate estimates and invoices.

Information about how we use Microsoft Excel