How to Write a Business Plan for a Shipping Company. If you want to write a business plan for a shipping company, you probably already have a shipping company or have the expertise to start one. A professional business plan will help you look good to the bank managers, loan officers and investors. It's absolutely essential for securing the large amount of monies typically required to establish a shipping company in today's world.

Find a few of the many excellent books online and at your favorite bookstore about business plans. Most business plans have a generic structure with four major sections: finance, particulars about your industry, the market and competition.

Look on the Internet for state-of-the-art software programs that will help make the process streamlined and painless (See the Resources section below).

Use professional software that prompts you to add specific information about the shipping industry, and your business in particular. This will help you think about the important components of your business plan for a shipping company that only you can provide. Don't be too concerned about format, structure and design at this point. You'll also find finance tables, calculators and web resources there to assist you in the software program.

Think about your business and how big you want to be. Will you offer international air, ocean and truck shipping? Will you offer expedited shipping to overseas locations? What to you need to say about your customs brokers? Will you offer warehousing services?

Draft up a shipping business plan that looks to the future and discusses where you plan on being located, how big will you be, who will be your customers, what will be your customer service style, and so on. Plan for unknowns that could occur in air flight shipping, international and custom changes, cost increases and technology changes. Try to imagine any and all eventualities and plan for them.

Write your shipping business plan of 10 to 20 pages using specific sections such as executive summary, a business description, marketing plans, analysis of competition, business blueprint and implementation, management and operations and finances. Include a cover, title page and table of contents.

Remember the exit strategy. Plan for the future of your business; think about if you plan on having your business outlive your own career or if you will sell your business at a later date.