By Omar Barraza
I suggest you consider a business plan to be a road map and score-keeping guide for your business. Include whatever information might be needed to allow someone else to know if your business is heading towards success or not. For example, could you show the business plan to a stranger (perhaps an investor) and would they have the guidance to keep the business moving forward towards success and away from failure?
It would be very useful to understand the things that could go wrong and how you would react to them -- new competition, bad debt, etc. Knowing what could hurt or kill your business in advance would allow preparation of rapid responses for each risk.
In any event, the business plan should be considered a continuous draft and be reviewed and updated as often as needed to incorporate lessons learned during the start and operation of the business.
I suggest you consider a business plan to be a road map and score-keeping guide for your business. Include whatever information might be needed to allow someone else to know if your business is heading towards success or not. For example, could you show the business plan to a stranger (perhaps an investor) and would they have the guidance to keep the business moving forward towards success and away from failure?
It would be very useful to understand the things that could go wrong and how you would react to them -- new competition, bad debt, etc. Knowing what could hurt or kill your business in advance would allow preparation of rapid responses for each risk.
In any event, the business plan should be considered a continuous draft and be reviewed and updated as often as needed to incorporate lessons learned during the start and operation of the business.