In order to begin outlining my own business plan, I had to adjust a business plan according to the type of business I plan on doing, photography.
I followed the score.org business plan template and created an outline, which I plan to follow and tailor to my needs.
Photography Business Plan
1) Executive Summary
a) Do this last
b) Less than or equal to two pages
c) What you do, who your costumers will be, who are the owners, future for business
2) General Company Description
a) What type of business, what do you do?
b) Mission Statement
c) Company Goals and Objectives
d) Business Philosophy
e) Who to market products/services?
f) Describe your industry
g) Company Strengths and Core Competencies
h) What type of legal ownership
3) Products and Services
a) What are your products/services?
b) Competitive advantage/disadvantage
c) Pricing/fee
4) Marketing Plan
a) Market Research
i) Statistics, numbers, sources
b) Economics
i) Size of market
ii) Current demand
iii) Trends
iv) Growth potential and opportunity
v) Barriers
(1) Capital, production, marketing cost
(2) Consumer acceptance and brand recognition
(3) Training and skills
(4) Tax and quotas
vi) How to overcome the barriers
vii) How will the following affect you
(1) Technology
(2) Government regulations
(3) Economy
(4) Industry
c) Product/Services
i) Describe what you do
(1) From customers point of view
ii) Features and benefits
(1) Major products
(2) Important features
(3) Benefits
(4) Benefits afterwards
d) Customers
i) Type of customers, characteristics, demographics
ii) Demographic profile
(1) Age
(2) Gender
(3) Location
(4) Income Level
(5) Social Class and Occupation
(6) Education
(7) Other
e) Competition
i) Other competitors?
ii) Major competitors?
iii) How will your products/services compare?
f) Niche
i) Uniqueness
g) Strategy
i) Outline strategy that is consistent with your niche
h) Promotion
i) Advertising
ii) Business image
(1) How you want customers to see you
iii) Graphic Image support
(1) Logo designs, cards, brochures, letterhead, signage, interior design
i) Promotional budget
i) How much will you spend to promote business?
ii) Before startup
iii) Ongoing
j) Pricing
i) Explain your methods of pricing
ii) Compare your prices with others business’
iii) Importance of pricing
iv) Customer service and credit policies
k) Location
i) Where will you provide your services?
ii) Location important?
iii) Location convenient for customers?
iv) Consistent with image?
l) Distribution Channels
i) How do you sell product/services?
m) Sales Forecast
i) Month-by-month projection
ii) Make 2 kinds
(1) An estimated guest
(2) A worst case scenario
5) Operational Plan
a) Production
i) How and where are your products/services?
b) Location
i) Type of location?
c) Legal Environment
i) Licensing/bonding requirements
ii) Permits
iii) Insurance Coverage
iv) Trademarks, copyrights, patents
d) Personnel
i) Employees
ii) Type of labor
iii) Where and how will you find employees?
iv) Quality of staff
v) Training methods/requirements
vi) Tasks
vii) Schedules and written procedures
viii) Job descriptions for employees
ix) Will you have contract workers?
e) Inventory
i) Type of inventory
ii) Value
iii) Rate
iv) Seasonal Buildups
v) Lead time for ordering
f) Suppliers
i) Main suppliers
ii) Other suppliers?
iii) Shortage/short-term delivery problems?
iv) Steady/fluctuating
6) Management and Organization
a) Manager
7) Personal Financial Statement
a) Each owner should have individual personal financial statement
8) Startup Expenses and Capitalization
a) Estimate expenses
b) Plan where to get capital
c) Contingencies – account for the unforeseeable
9) Financial Plan
a) 12 month Profit and Loss Projection
i) Idea of what it will take to make a profit and be successful
b) 3 year profit projection (optional)
i) For those who want to carry their forecasts beyond their years
c) Projected Cash Flow
i) Plan how much you need, preliminary expenses, operating expenses, and reserves
d) Opening Day Balance Sheet
i) Assets & Liabilities
e) Breakeven Analysis
i) Operating at a loss VS Operating at a profit
10) Appendices
a) Details studies used for business plan
11) Refining the plan towards type of business
a) Service Business
i) Sell intangible products
ii) Flexible
iii) High labor costs
iv) Key competitive factors?
v) Your prices
vi) Methods used to set prices
vii) System of production management
viii) Quality control procedures
ix) Measure labor productivity
x) Percent of work subcontracted to other firms? Will you profit?
xi) Credit, payment, collection policies and procedures
xii) Strategy for keeping client base
Toni Lovergood
June 5, 2012
Aw, this was a really nice post. In concept I wish to put in writing like this moreover – taking time and actual effort to make a very good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and by no means appear to get one thing done.
meetme.sexy-teengirls.com
May 10, 2014
Howdy I am so happy I found your website, I really found you by error, while
I was searching on Bing for something else, Anyways I am here now and
would just like to say thank you for a incredible post and a all round exciting blog
(I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to look over it all
at the moment but I have book-marked it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the superb job.
Karl
September 12, 2016
I contracted a company to do the SEO and after a few weeks our site had lost a lot of the rankings, did I pick a bad SEO’er?
Shared this on my wall, very good
Darci
May 13, 2017
My old company once contracted a freelancer to
manage the search engine optimisation and after a few weeks the blog had lost a lot of the rankings,
is that going to come back?
You are now part of my reading list, keep up the good posts