If you are serious about the success of your online business then you need to find ways to give yourself every advantage you can over your competition. Writing a business plan for your company can be a crucial step in getting your profits to where you want them to be.

I. It is one of the best ways to motivate yourself and plan how to drive your business to the next level.
2. In case your business is just an idea in your head for a long time, writing a plan will materialize it.

A business plan can serve a couple of main purpose

In terms of revenues if you have to reach to a bank for the money, the plans that has already sorted out the investment you will need? And what is your contribution to it? Can be figured a head of time.

Briefly you need to know the following:

1. Your entire business plan
2. Description of your business
3. Your Markets Strategies
4. Competitive analysis of your market
5. Development of your plan
6. Managing your business
7. Finances of your business

Your entire business plan:

Your entire business plan should include the key points of the product and its benefits to your market and you. How much you think is the start up cost and how much profits your are expecting. A brief description of financial aspect. How do you see your company will operate as a result of working with this plan, in other wards the progress and achievements that you will see in your business. What have you done to start your business so far.

Description of Your business

This will include details about your product and your market. A plan of operation day to day activities to run the business. How will you manage all aspects of business doing it by yourself? Or you are expecting some help. How do you feel about your product.

Your marketing strategies

This part of your business plan includes your thoughts about marketing your product. Your target audience how will you market them. How will you introduce your product to them and when. What economical methods you are going to use for this on line plan.

Competitive Analysis of Your Market:

Here you will write about your competitors that your product will compete with. What are their strengths and weaknesses. An honest analysis is very important, so you may not see a set back in your business once launched. Alexa is a great place to look for that. This website will tell you about the amount of traffic your competitors are getting.

Developmental plan or Operational strategy:

Depending on the rest of the business plan in this section you figure out how to profit with your business from the very first day. How much sale your planning and advertising can grab depending how deliberately you planned your launch and how will your market react to your plans. This can also include making your operational schedule, planning your advertising before your product comes in the market and your product awareness.

Managing your business

This is the plan that is important for two reasons. In case you need more people to manage your business, this is where you introduce the team and their special contribution to your business. In case you have a lawyer or a consultants mention them here.

Finances of your business:

This is a very important part of your business plan. As after all a business is all about making money with it. The more profits you make the better it is. Now since you are only writing a business plan, you have to be very realistic and figure out your expenses before starting. Create statement forms and balance sheets for the capital investors. In case you do not need this only monthly income and monthly expense sheet is enough for you to figure out all the details of the business.

Once you have written your business plan you will be amazed you will be able to refer to it whenever you felt too involved in one aspect of the business or when you felt lost where to go from here. Writing a business plan can be a great way to see things in action. A business plan brings you closer to reality.
Makes you feel your goal is a reality to be working with your business soon.

If you are preparing to raise capital from either an investor or a bank, you’re probably writing a business plan. Here are five of the most common mistakes that I have seen as a result of my experience as a corporate-finance consultant:

Submitting the Plan to the Wrong PeopleI have actually heard entrepreneurs say, “I don’t know why I can’t raise any money. I’ve sent my business plan to hundreds of people!” Don’t make this same mistake.

You should first determine that your prospective investor or lender has an interest in your industry and your business. Do this by making a call or sending an introductory letter or e-mail. If you can receive a referral from an accountant, attorney, or banker, that is all the better.

Never, under any circumstances, should you send an unsolicited business plan. These are put at the bottom of the pile, and they are seldom read or given serious consideration. If you determine that your prospect has an interest, send over only the executive summary for review, unless otherwise requested.

Incomplete Executive SummaryThe first thing that all prospective investors and lenders will want to read is your executive summary. This section should be no more than two pages, but three is the absolute maximum. When you write your business plan, the executive summary should be prepared last. (After all, how can you summarize something that has not yet been written?)

The summary should be broken down into five sections, each of which should be no more than one or two paragraphs long. These five sections are:

• The Opportunity: Describe the need that is currently unfilled in the marketplace; if the need is being filled, discuss how it is not being adequately met.
• The Solution: Describe your solution to the problem, and why it is better than what is currently available.
• Management: Describe why you and your team are qualified to deliver the solution that you have proposed.
• Market Size and Share Expectations: Describe how large the market is for your solution, and discuss how much of that market you intend to capture.
• Financing Need and Exit Strategy: Describe how much money you need and what it will be used for, but close with how you intend to provide the investor with an exit strategy.

Weak Management

Either agree to hire full-time executives or bring skilled directors onto the board. If you are searching for funding from angel investors, you might offer executive management positions to those investors who have significant experience in the industry. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, are not likely to invest until the management team is complete.

Unreasonable Financial ProjectionsAll lenders and investors are accustomed to seeing financial projections that go in only one direction — up!

While every business owner and entrepreneur has the best of intentions when preparing a forecast for the next five years, it is seldom realistic to assume that sales will grow by 50-100% each and every year.

It is also not likely that gross and operating profit margins will improve forever.

Your assumptions with respect to working capital turnover, earnings retention, debt/equity mix, and return on invested capital must all be reasonable. If you forecast that your business will return 100% or more on its invested capital during each of the next five years, you are going to have some explaining to do. That does not mean that it is not possible, just that it’s not probable. (See this article on developing solid financial projections [http://www.growthcurveservices.com/articles/persuasive-projections.html].)

Greed!Nothing will ruin a deal faster than greed. If your business is little more than an idea at this point, it is not feasible to value the company at millions of dollars. If your plan is to raise $2 million in exchange for 10% of the business (i.e., a $20 million valuation), you are going to have a tough time attracting the interest of venture capitalists and angel investors.

Spend less time worrying about the valuation today, and instead focus on structuring the transaction so that you can re-acquire a majority ownership interest in the future.

Moreover, don’t be too quick to equate majority ownership with control. You might be able to sell non-voting stock that does not give away control of the business.

Take steps to ensure that you’ve thought about these five points before you submit your business plan, and you’ll almost certainly be a step ahead of others who are competing for funding or financing.

One of the sections that all investors will read first is the discussion on management. If you do not have direct, significant experience in the industry in which you’re trying to start your business, add someone to the management team who makes up for your weakness.

Similar to any other business, a catering business also works on a business plan and having one ready before you begin a catering business will make sure that you start well and go in the right direction as planned. As with any business, a catering business will also have goals and tools to measure progress as a part of the catering plan. In short, having a solid plan will make sure that you remain focused on your objectives.

A business plan, not only to keep track of your business but also helps when you look for help from outside, especially financing. If you are looking for investors in your business, the first thing that an investor would like to see is a very solid plan – be it your future business partners or financial institutions (banks).

Writing a plan for your business is not as easy as it sounds, it does need a fair amount of research and a good bit of thinking. In fact, you can get a sample business plan from a well-run catering company and use it to write your own by inducting your own parameters. The business should consist of the following components:

a. Executive summary: This part of the business plan should explain your business and consist of a brief outline to the reader.

b. Objectives: this part of the business plan should describe the short to long term goals of your catering business (ideally for the next 4 to 5 years) in financial terms. These goals should outline the objectives to be achieved with a time-line.

c. Mission statement: This part of the business plan should define and explain the catering company’s values and ideals (in short, business ethics and ambitions).

d. Ownership: this section go the business catering plan deals with ownership structure of the catering company, whether it is a proprietorship, partnership or a limited company and the details thereof.

e. Start-up requirements: This section should contain information about the catering company’s start up needs. What is the cost of start-up? What is the working capital required? What is the equipment required? Etc.

f. Market Information: A catering business also has competition and it is necessary to include the information pertaining to the same in this section of the business plan. This would contain a brief summary of the competition along with analysis and the plans that would be followed to get ahead of the competition along with details of new markets to be explored and services to be offered.

g. Strategy: This part of the catering plan should contain the marketing strategy that is to be followed to achieve the objectives. This section would also include forecasted financials for sales.
h. Management: For your catering company to succeed, it would need a highly skilled management with hierarchical control. This strategy and working needs to be integrated into the business plan in this section.

i. People: Hiring would be a key factor in the catering business and therefore the plans for hiring and man power costs need to be estimated well in advance and put forth into the business plan in this section.

j. Finances: Last but the most important, the financials of your catering business needs to be put on as per in this section of the plan for your catering business. Projected profit and loss statements need to be prepared depending on estimated costs and revenues for the nest 4 to 5 years. Understood that the market is never consistent, however having some optimistic as well optimistic estimates would help plan your business better. Once this is done successfully, it is easier for you to understand and underline the break-even point for your catering business. Once you know this, the objectives are frozen and all you need to do here is to put your best foot forward.

A lot of generic business plans are available; you can always grab one and customize it to suit your catering business. Although this is easier, it is always good to begin from the scratch and make your own catering company business plan since it would help you to understand your business better and will surely put you on the right path to success.