Well as all of the readers so far know, I've recently came out with a 5-part instruction of the business plan. It was broken up into 5 parts and was also amongst other posts I've made for marketing and traffic.

So I decided to make a post that will link each step of the business plan that I've provided in ORDER!

Hopefully this will help some of you find all the parts easier.
Here they are in order:
Starting a business plan (Part 1)

Starting a business plan (Part 2)

Starting a business plan (Part 3)

Starting a business plan (Part 4)

Starting a business plan (Part 5)

I hope you've enjoyed this 5-post segment of how to begin writing a business plan.

The Business Plan Series

What can there be left to a business plan you might be wondering. Well this will be the end of the road for my short 5-part post of the business plan.

However, let us do a small recap:
By now, you should have an idea of what your business is going to serve/promote, the name of your business, finding the key amount of roles and positions to offer in your firm/business, and making a sound financial plan for your business to follow.

Now there's a little more left over. This is the time when you're going to have to find a location for your business and build a manufacturing plan depending on the type of business you're opening.

Ever heard the saying, "Location!, Location!, Location!"? Well it's the truth. The location of your business can dramatically change the way your business works and functions. So how can you find out where to locate your business?

I would advise doing a demographic analysis of consumers in the area of where you feel your business should be placed. Once you have done this, you can better decide if that spot will actually make or break your business. You can follow traffic trends and also even take vehicle and pedestrian accounts around the area. It's a lot of work, but if you get the perfect location for your business, it will pay off huge!

Now what about creating a manufacturing plan for your business? Chances are, you'll only have to go this route if you're business has to do with retailing. Of course, as shown in the picture to the right, there are a lot of levels in the manufacturing process. When creating a manufacturing plan you need to keep in mind of a few different things.

1. You'll most likely need a plant. You'll need to decide if you want it close to your business, further away, and even the size of it.

2. You'll need to obtain/purchase the machinery required for the specific business you own. This can be very costly.

3. Also you'll need to be keeping track of a few other things as well. These include quality control of your products, the production capacity, and of course inventory control methods.

These are all things you need to consider if you're going the route of being the boss of a manufacturing business.

Starting a Business: The Business Plan (Pt.5)

Now we're on to the next part of the financing aspect. Where to get the capital to fund your business in the start-up. There's several sources of capital that an entrepreneur has.

These include:

1. Personal Savings
2. Relatives
3. Former Employees
4. Banks
5. Finance Companies
6. Venture Capitalists
7. Government Agencies

As you can see, there are quite a few sources you can go after. Above 85% of people who start up businesses received their beginning money to start from their family and friends.
Another way you could receive some capital is by venture capitalists. These are people that will invest money to help start up a business for part ownership. Some can even ask for a big chunk of your profits, so be careful to evaluate the situation fully.
One government agency that helps small businesses start up is the Small Business Administration (SBA). These are small loans that the government give out to help new businesses. Of course you can always get loans from the banks as well.

But better yet! Have you ever thought about trying to get some start-up money from one of your suppliers? It could be in their best interest as well to help you start-up and pay back.

Starting a Business: The Business Plan (Pt.4)

Well this week I've been bombarded by finals at my college so I haven't been able to do as much posting as I would of liked. I'm going to begin to explain the first steps in the financial department of setting up a business plan.

A financial plan consists of many things. In this you're going to want to consider projections for income, expenses, and much more. This is the part where I would advise you to hire a professional accountant or financial analyst. However, if you're wanting to do it on your own here's a few tips.


You're going to need to produce projections for what you think your company can reach. I would advise to use a five-year projection plan but a three-year projection plan would most likely work fine. You need these projections for the income you feel you can have coming in, the expenses going out, and even funding sources that you might have got loans from. Now don't just go pulling some random number out of a hat like you're a magician. This takes research, and research is what you'll have to do. Find out historical and industry trends and follow their sales to try and get your projections.

Keep in mind, a financial plan for a business is almost never matched. It could be better, or it could be worse, depending on how much work and effort you put into the plan and follow accordingly. Once you make a financial plan, you need to do your best to stick to it and the keep the budget from drawing into debt.

I would tell most my readers here to, if anything, just expect the expected. If you want to take it further, expect the worst. This way, if the worst does happen, which we all hope it doesn't, then you were at least expecting it. This does happen, but just because it does doesn't mean you should give up! Reconstruct another one that you feel will work better for you. After all, by the time you find out if your first business plan was a success, you'll have experience to build your next one better either way!

I'm going to post the other part of my financial planning for the business plan tomorrow. It will be focusing more on loans and where new businesses can find loans.

Starting a Business: The Business Plan (Pt.3)

Now, once you feel like you established a good product/service along with a name for it, then it's time to move to the next step of the business plan.

This is the part of the plan where you figure out how many people are going to be in your business. Do you want to start off big? Will your funds for starting the business allow this? These are some questions you need to consider.

The fact of the matter is, most small businesses obviously start off small. Usually, the beginning of businesses don't have enough money to hire a ton of employees. I know I don't.

So what do you then? You need to find out the exact roles that you need in your company to get it started off. Personally, I advise as always, to get a lawyer, financial planner, and a marketing professional to begin with.

You're obviously going to need to hire new employees regardless of what your employee roles or count is. You need to let people know what you're about. Doing this through local advertisements is a great way unless you're trying to stay strictly on the web. After people start applying you'll NEED to do face-to-face interviews with them. This is so you can get a personal vibe through them and also review the resumes with the potential employees. Then, you'll have to do a background check and most likely a drug test depending on how you see fit. In my opinion however, it's your business, and I wouldn't let someone I can't trust to work for me.

The biggest thing you can learn from business is that it's all just a huge compiled process of elimination. If something doesn't work, just don't give up; try something else out. This goes the same for hiring employees.

Once you have your employee roles set, then it's start to begin the financing part of the business plan.

Fun, Fun!

Starting a Business: The Business Plan (Pt. 2)

Not every business that is successful started with a business plan. Does that mean it should be the same for you? The "business plan" in the picture is a good beginning step to creating a true business plan.

Have an idea? Can you exploit that idea and possibly make revenue from it? If not, try to think of another idea that a market is more of need for.

This is a great beginning, but business plans consist of a lot more than just knowing your idea and finding out if it's marketable. So what's a business plan really consist of?

First thing you need to do is find the product/service you think will sell and you will enjoy promoting. The last thing you want to do is start a business of something you hate. You want to make sure that this is something you're genuinely interested in and want to do.

Once you have this part done you can now decide on a name for your product/service. Think of something intelligent, witty, and unique. The name has a lot to do with how people view your business and what they view it for.

Tomorrow I'll post more on this topic. But for all you future small business owners out there reading this, I want to let this saturate in your head before I continue.

Starting a Business: The Business Plan (Pt. 1)