Business Tips: You need a business plan before commencing operations

Whether you are starting small or big, going to solicit money or funding that business yourself, you still need that business plan. A business plan may not necessarily mean a document with complicated terms drafted by a legal practitioner but rather, the detailed description of your business as a good idea and the numbers that spell out a profit-particularly in answering one question. Is this business making profit? Most importantly, ensure that your strategies especially in marketing and financial projections to indicate your start up capital and costs and how best the business is clearly spelt out as these will show how your business is set to make a profit. Try to describe your business expansively. This should be indicated in the first paragraphs of your plan, mainly showing the reason for your business, a simple feasibility study of your market, location of your business, a brief background of your competitors . This should be aimed at describing the uniqueness of your business idea, and how it will work. You need to clearly indicate whether your business is retail, wholesale, service, manufacturing etc. Understanding where your business category helps you to reduce over planning in areas that areirrelevant to your business and also assists you to be acquainted with your business partners. Secondly, look at your financial projections. These will probably deal with numbers and calculations on how much money you need to spend on your business and bring out those guesses on how you will make profits. There is no way your business will make profits when the numbers don’t match. Never mind about higher projections as these will help you in your planning. Try by all means to indicate how you will mitigate risks such as losses, by either indicating the price increase or cost cutting. Failure to put up strict financial measures in your projections will cost you money when you actually start business. Never forget to show your income and expenditures in a proper simple balance sheet. In addition, ensure in your plan that you have indicated the problem you are trying to solve. Remember that however much you are into making money from that business idea, there must be a reason why such a business should be started. There should be a problem you are trying to solve. For example; there maybe many restaurants in your area but, customers complain of being solely served with fried foods. Hence, this would be a reason for you to start a restaurant serving boiled foods. What drives most businesses is the clientele base; you need to first of all understand who your customers will be and what will be attracting them towards your business. Describing your clientele will help you understand whether you will have potential customers. The next step would be to explain how your business will operate. Most people fail to appreciate how their businesses would to operate. You must thus be able to show what you will give to your customers and how you will deliver your services including hours of operation. Lastly, try to show how tasks will be distributed. Do you need more people to help you, and what will they be doing? dias.nyesiga@newtimes.co.rw