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Write Your Own Business Plan: A Complete Guide

We’ll show you step by step how you should write your own business plan and what’s important when doing so. Wondering whether you even need a business plan? You should definitely write a business plan if you want to start your own business or plan to present your company to investors, for example. Writing a business plan increases your chances of success many times over.

What exactly is a business plan again?

A business plan is a written business concept that serves as a guide and helps you to concretize and achieve your goals. It is also a management tool that allows you to analyze results, make strategic decisions and show how your company will work and grow. Government agencies or banks in particular usually require a business plan before they will grant funding or loans

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated – it’s just tedious and time-consuming. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll show you how to write a business plan yourself that will get you the results you want. Don’t worry, you don’t have to have a degree in business administration or accounting to create a good business plan. This guide will show you step-by-step how to create your plan without complexity and frustration.

Have you already started your business plan and are still looking for the right tips to fine-tune it? Then we’ve got something for you: 6 tips for the perfect business plan.

Was ist ein Businessplan nochmal genau?

Why should you write a business plan?

“Can’t I just start setting up and running my business?” – we often hear this from our customers. But unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy to set up a successful company. If you start your company without planning, you will miss out on some important benefits that a business plan offers.

A business plan helps you to tackle the following entrepreneurial and strategic tasks in a targeted manner:

To build a company quickly and successfully

Writing a business plan is about creating a foundation for your business. You’re not predicting the future, but working out the core strategy of your business that will help you stay on course for growth. This initial document is not meant to be perfect, but to be reviewed and adjusted to guide you in identifying and achieving your goals.

Without a business plan as a foundation, it is much more difficult to track your progress, make adjustments and have appropriate information to refer back to when making difficult decisions. In addition, creating a business plan ensures that you have something like an entrepreneurial road map that not only shows where you want to go, but also where you’ve already been.

To obtain financing and grants

Investors and lenders need to know that you have a solid vision for the development of your business. You need to prove that there is an achievable and sustainable need for your solution, that you have a strong business strategy and that your company can be financially stable. This means you need to have the right balance sheets, forecasts and a clear explanation of your business model ready for potential investors.

Business plan writing helps you put all these pieces together and make connections between them to tell a cohesive story about your business.

To make safe and strategically correct decisions

The biggest decisions you have to make for your business often come during difficult phases of growth or even in times of crisis that you cannot influence. This requires you to make momentous decisions much faster than you might like. Without up-to-date planning and forecasting information, these decisions may not be as safe or strategic as they need to be.

Having a business plan that you review regularly will help you make informed decisions. You will have all the information you need to know when to hire new employees, launch a new product line, or make a major purchase. At the same time, you can also plan ahead in case a decision does not turn out as expected, thus minimizing your potential risk.

Are you still unsure whether a business plan is worthwhile or not? In addition to this compact guide, we have put together 21 reasons for a business plan that you should know before you write your business plan.

Key contents of a professional business plan

If you want to write your business plan yourself, this requires an intensive examination of all levels of your planned company. However, if they are drawn up correctly, self-written business plans are by no means less promising than plans drawn up by a professional. From marketing and transport logistics to financing, there is a lot to consider. To make sure you don’t forget any details when writing your own business plan, we have compiled a list of all business plan chapters and a subsequent description of the key content of each chapter.

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Key contents of a business plan

01

Executive Summary

02

Opportunities

03

Execution

04

Company and management at a glance

05

Financial plan

01

Executive Summary

The executive summary is an overview of your company and your plans. It comes first in your business plan and is one to two pages long. Ideally, the executive summary can act as a standalone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. In fact, it’s very common for investors to only ask for the executive summary when evaluating your company. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they will often request a full plan and more detailed financials.


This executive summary is the first and most important chapter of your business plan. That’s why it’s advisable to write it at the very end. Only when you have defined the details of your company in detail is it worth writing a concise summary. Make absolutely sure that the executive summary is short, concise and appealing to investors. The following aspects must be included in the summary:

02

Opportunities

When writing a business plan, this chapter is the real heart of your business plan. It contains information about the problem you want to solve, your proposed solution, who you want to sell to and how your product or service fits into the existing competitive landscape.

In this section of your business plan, you also show how your solution differs from your competitors’ solutions. In other words, you define your unique selling point and describe how you want to enrich the existing market.

The readers of your business plan will already have a rough idea of your business concept because they will have read your executive summary. Nevertheless, this chapter is extremely important as you expand on your initial overview, provide details and anticipate possible questions:

03

Execution

Now that you have completed the chapter on the opportunities for your company, it is time to focus on the concrete execution of your plans when writing your business plan. This section is about the operational business, your marketing and sales plans, how you will measure your success and which milestones you want to achieve.

04

Company and management at a glance

This chapter discusses the structure of your company and introduces the key team members. These details are particularly important for investors, as they want to know who is behind the company and will help turn the idea into a lucrative business. You should therefore not ignore this information when writing your business plan.

05

Financial plan

Present your financial plan at the end of your business plan. A typical financial plan includes monthly sales and revenue projections for the first 12 months and then annual projections for the remaining three to five years. Annual projections for three years are usually sufficient, but some investors also require a five-year period.

Entrepreneurs sometimes find this part intimidating because it deals with such a sensitive topic as money. But it doesn’t have to be. For most start-ups, financial planning is less complicated than you might think and you don’t need to have a degree in economics to do it.

If you still need help, please get in touch with us. We have the necessary experience to carry out a professional and confidential financial analysis of your company.

Erstellung eines Businessplans und kompetente Unterstützung.

Conclusion

A business plan is the perfect tool for validating your ideas, coordinating resources, setting goals and successfully presenting your company to the outside world. Its clear structure and clearly defined chapters make it a manageable and easy to create document. However, its content requires a certain amount of entrepreneurial knowledge, solid planning and realistic future forecasts. To really make sure you haven’t forgotten anything, take a look at our business plan tips for founders.
Probably the most convenient and fastest way to start a business is to have your business plan drawn up – ideally by a professional business consultant. We at Unternehmenswerk are happy to support you on your path to self-employment and help you develop a successful business concept.

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