Writing a Convincing Business Plan

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com, and I'm going to talk a little bit about writing a convincing business plan. The most important beginning to your business plan is an executive summary, and partly because the people who'll be reading your business plan really want concise information. You need to focus this executive summary and make it a really concise description -- something that will let them know what they're going to be reading about, and also shows that you have a good command of your idea and the language. Your next section's going to be the need, and the need is where you explain both the opportunity and focus on who your customers are going to be, what's the need you're filling, what the market is going to be. Next, you want to talk about the market -- what's the competition going to be. Really include some research here that shows that you've got a grasp of what the plan is and how you're going to fit into the big picture with your business. You also want to talk about strategy. Your next section would be your strategy section -- how are you going to get this done, what approach are you going to take to compete with the other players in this field. You want to have a production plan if you're creating a product. You also want to talk about marketing. That's a very important part of your business plan. There's a lot of other nuts and bolts kinds of information you need to include such as operations. Your key personnel in your business plan are very important because people are going to look to these people and look for some experience that will give them confidence that this plan will be successful. You want to have some financial projections where you discuss what the numbers will be, what you foresee for the first year, five years, ten years, and the more information you can include in this section, the stronger your proposal will be. You want to give some thought to the risk that's involved in this plan. You don't want to ignore any possible problems. This shows your possible investors that you've thought it through carefully. And you want to give sort of a reassuring...give some reassurance that this will be addressed. And then, lastly, you want to include the offering -- what will be the return on investment for someone who invests in your plan? So those are some ideas about writing a convincing business plan."