7 steps to writing a compelling business plan

Every entrepreneur knows it: when it comes to raising funds or convincing your banker, writing a business plan is mandatory. This document will serve as a support to explain your business project, demonstrate its feasibility and certify its profitability to obtain the financing necessary for its completion.

Its writing must be impeccable, both in substance and form. To help you in your approach, here are 7 steps to write a convincing business plan!

Step 1: The executive summary

Before starting, it is important to specify that a good business plan is built step by step and that each step must be carefully studied before moving on to the next.

Your business plan writers will therefore begin with an “executive summary.” This summary of your business plan has the heavy task of having to capture the attention of your reader immediately while briefly outlining the main lines of your project:

• The problem your business will address;
• The solution provided;
• The study of competition;
• Your business model (what you will sell, to which targets, for what purpose, how and for what benefit);
• The presentation of your team and the explanation of your choices;
• The results envisaged;
• Your financing needs.

Step 2: Presentation of the actors of the company

In this part, you will introduce yourself and your management team, associates, partners and suppliers. The presentation of the actors of your company must fit on one to three pages.

In a way, you will write a CV detailing your motivations, experiences and skills to make you a good business leader.

Then, make a presentation of the other actors in the project by explaining why you work with them.

Step 3: Presentation of the products or services

To write a convincing business plan, hire a business plan consultant or you will have to prove the usefulness of your product or service:

• Who is he talking to?
• What solution does it bring to your future customers?
• What are its characteristics? His utility?
• How will it be designed?
• What are its strengths and weaknesses?
• What sets you apart from the competition?

In short: why does THIS product or service make a difference? What is its added value?

This is a crucial step in your business plan because you must convince your funders that your project is coherent and justified. This step consists of between two and five pages. 

Step 4: Market research

This is one of the biggest parts of your business plan: the market study extends over ten pages. It will allow you to analyze supply and demand around your sector of activity and will therefore draw up an assessment:

• Market trends;
• The positioning of your competitors and differentiating factors;
• Constraints related to your activity and its regulations;
• Demand, customer needs and their purchasing habits (qualitative and quantitative study);
• Suppliers and their offers;
• distribution channels.

Writing your market research is long. Therefore, do not hesitate to integrate diagrams and tables to ventilate your content a little so that it is more readable.

As for the content, at this stage, you will demonstrate that you have an in-depth knowledge of your market and that your offer is relevant and legitimate.

Step 5: Your marketing strategy

This step includes four points of your marketing plan (between two and six pages):

• Price: your pricing policy and how you justify it.
• Promotion: the communication to promote your offer and the advertising actions envisaged.
• Product: the actions planned on the offer and the evolution of your product or service over the years.
• Place: the activated distribution networks.

Carefully detail your commercial strategy by integrating the budget for marketing actions and a schedule for the various marketing operations. The more you can quantify your business plan, the more you will be taken seriously!

Step 6: The financial forecast

Your forecast will reassure your investor about your ability to manage your business and generate revenue.

On five to ten pages, give all the figures necessary to establish the following:

• The income statement;
• The cash flow table;
• The financing plan;
• Your fund requirements.

Set your objectives for the first three years so that the banker or your future investor can assess the profitability of your project.

Step 7: Risk identification

Knowing how to assess the risks and opportunities of your project will prove to your interlocutor that you know your field of activity perfectly and that you are aware of its flaws and strengths.

Demonstrate to investors that you know how to anticipate risks and what actions will be considered to counter them (or at least to limit them).