Business plans is the most important aspect of your business, because its a blue-print of your intentions and can be referred to it on a regular basis to make sure your on track and do not get way laid, so your business is meeting your aims and objectives in which you want it to achieve for you.

Which is why I have composed a list of 10 things which I think you must do before you write your business plan. 

Step 1. Know what the business plan entails 

Remember, you need to understand the sections that are required and the purpose of the various sections, as well as the objectives of the plan. There are many products on the market that can help you with this, however, if you chose to go it alone, websites like www.bplans.co.uk aid you in understanding the what is required to write a business plan without any of those obvious gaps!

Step 2. Decide your legal structure

The focus of most entrepreneurs is on their ‘idea,’ it is vitally important that the operational and logistical requirements are not neglected.

Step 3. Manage the Numbers. 

At the outset, it will be important to understand:

• Start-up Costs
• Break-even
• Funding needed
• Cash flow forecast

Step 4. Get hold of industry reports. 

Your usually not going to be the only business in your market. This means that, there will be similar companies elsewhere and undertaking some market research on these will help you understand your target market a little better.

Some of this information can be obtained for free or for a minimal cost so its worth getting hold of this.

Step 5. Research your market

I cant state this enough. Research, Research and Research.

Tools such as on www.overture.com can help you see which terms related to your business or service are most heavily searched. You can then adapt this information to your business via incorporating titles on your adverts with them, gaining the keyword url itself (i.e if your a salon….salon.com could be a nice domain etc.), or you could use it to SEO your site and rank for those terms in the search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

On a final note on this you can also identify competitors using overture as you can see who are ranking for the terms you want to rank for.

Step 6. Demand

Demand is important. Why? Well because, if you have no demand = no sales.

This is why you need to work out your demand for your product via focus groups, test marketing for example which will allow you to see the level of demand for you to produce your goods.

Step 7. Distribution

You need to figure out your distribution channels for the product, so the people who are demanding your product can actually receive it. Even if that means only one channel or multiple channels, you need to get your product to the market place.

 Step 8. Employ the right people

You can’t do everything on your own, so you need to employ the right people or your going to get no where with your business.

Remember, its not just about the resume a person has, its also about their people skills as you will have to work alongside them, as well as the other people you hire so if you have a disruptive worker I would go again hiring them since its not helping your efficiency levels.

Step 9. Clearly Define Customer Benefits

Remember to remain customer-focused and ensure you concentrate on describing the benefits.

Step 10. Get a Mentor

New to business and you need help? Getting a business mentor can really help you, as you can have them point you in the right direction to avoid mistakes and help your business become a success in which you want it to be.

Finally, this isn’t always the best decision, however, I have noticed alot of people do this so I’ll add it. As certain people consider more input = better, they enter every business plan competition they can. Why? Well they take the opinion they can gain independent feedback on their ideas. This means, that they aren’t really in the competition for the prize on offer but the feedback which is provided to them on their ideas to get their plan as perfect as they possibly can.

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