I was trying to reconstruct my business plan on Power Point about 4 years ago, and I pulled up a template that they had created already with all the necessary things in it. Honestly I didn't understand half of those terms and I had to research them anyway. When it became too difficult to understand I looked up simple ways to construct a business plan, and stumbled across a blog post on Entrepreneur Magazine about how to make a 1 page business plan and you can read about that here:
There were 2 methods listed and I used the one that was easier for me to comprehend. If you can't understand your own plan then how is it easy to tell others or even carry out the plan? Remember my objective was to simplify it so I can understand. I knew that I was just starting out so I didn't need to make it complicated or "too cooperate" as I'd said, because I wasn't at that level yet.
Anyway I went onto take their advice and I created my own template on Microsoft Word. As I said in my previous post, I am very good with Microsoft Word, and Power Point so constructing a template wasn't hard for me to do at all. This way I designed it to my liking instead of pulling up different templates that I just didn't like. I also downloaded a copy of my plan into google docs so that I could edit it on the go. If you don't have google docs go download it now in the google play store because it is a life saver. I don't know how many homework assignments I edited on the go while I was in college and had no access to a computer.
I will leave an attached document of my template at the bottom of this post for anyone trying to do their own. It is an outline for someone trying to figure out what to write, so feel free to delete all of the stuff I put in there and insert your own plan.Your business plan should consist of your company name, it's vision, the mission, objectives, strategies, and an action plan.
Your Company Name should go at the top of the template of course and you can include the year if you'd like. I don't include a year on my business plan because I've come to realize that accomplishing certain goals are sometimes meant for later, or that you may take longer than expected to do something in your plan. There are even some plans I've scratched all together because I just changed my mind. If you feel like you're getting something out of putting a time frame on it then that's up to you.
The First part of your Plan would be your Vision. I honestly don't have any qualms about keeping the vision statement short or long, but what I don't advocate are vague or broad statements. Your vision is what you see for the business in the future after you've completed the year, or whatever time you chose to create a new plan. If your vision is to be the best online retailer on the face of the earth then that should be written as your vision. As I said, it can be short or long but the basic concept is that it can be understood when it's read.
The Mission is the part of your business plan that tells what your business is for. Everything is here for a purpose, and you most certainly had an intention in starting the business. Somewhere you saw a need for change and you felt like you could provide that change, so in this part of your plan your statement should include what problem you are solving by introducing your product to the client. How will they benefit from doing business with you? That's what your mission is.
The third part of your plan are your Objectives. What are some things you must do for your business to grow and see success? Do you have to grow clientele? Do you have to get an LLC? What are your goals. You can list as many of your goals as you would like. Don't worry about being too simplified here because this is where you would start your alphabetized list. I recommend at least 3 so that you won't get swamped in a ton of objectives and make yourself confused. Here is how your business plan should be looking so far.
Company Name/Year:
A) Write your objective here.
B) Write your objective here.
C) Write your objective here.
The fourth part of your plan is the Strategy. Your strategy explains the how of your objectives. How will you accomplish each objective? What will you do to make sure that it gets done? If your first objective is to grow clientele your strategy should show your method of how you will do that. Are you going to advertise? Will you have a contest to draw attention to your product? How are you going to accomplish each goal? Usually for my strategy I use a Numbered list under each objective.
Company Name/Year:
A. This is your objective
1. This is your first strategy
2. This is your second strategy
The Action Plan is the part where we really get to the nitty gritty of things. This is not only your how but several different ideas you have for how you will go about your strategy. Using the example objective listed above to build clientele, and your first strategy being advertising, then your bullet underneath this should include every method you know on advertising such as online marketing, in person marketing, etc. Some people recommend putting a date on it but things are always subject to change. As long as you know for sure that you will do it, and it can be done in real time that's all that really matters. By the time that you are done with each bullet then your business plan should look like this:
Company Name/Year:
A. This is your objective
1. This is your first strategy
- this is the first step of your action plan.
- this is the second step of your action plan
I don't consider myself to be any type of expert, but I do hope that the information that I've provided can somehow help someone who is just starting out like I did. Editing your business plan on the go with Google Docs will actually benefit you because you just never know when that wave of inspiration will hit you. I generally like to update my business plan every year, but I say to pay your business plan a monthly visit. It will keep you aware of your progress, and help you to stay focused.
This year I reviewed my old business plan from 2017 and I noticed that I had actually done everything I'd planned except some of those things I just changed my mind about. I hadn't done my routine visit in several months and I had actually become really discouraged about my business. I was being so hard on myself until I noticed that my objectives didn't even state anything that I was upset about. All the things I was feeling discouraged about were things that I needed to add to my updated business plan for 2018 and that's exactly what I did.
Here is the link for my version of the One Page Business plan. It includes a breakdown of everything so you can create one of your own, and design it to your liking. I hope it helps!!! Thanks for reading.
One Page Business Plan Outline:
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