Are you looking for working capital or a business loan? Maybe you’re consider ways to win more contracts. Your business plan  — you do have one, I hope — is an essential element for these financial endeavors.

A business plan offers a road map that keeps you on track and lets potential lenders, investors, business partners and contract-awarding entities see you’re organized and know what you’re doing and where you’re taking your operation.

The business plan that worked a few years ago — before the COVID-19 pandemic — might not serve your business needs now. The challenging work environment means many business models have changed. You could be looking at different revenue or contract sources, downsizing the physical footprint or your business, investing in the latest technology or retraining staff.

A business plan helps you identify the changes you need or want and detail a logical process for implementing these new approaches.

Without a well-thought-out, up-to-date business plan, lenders and investors might not have confidence in your ability to manage the myriad functions of your business and ensure the cash flow needed to make payments and meet other financial obligations. Organizations with business opportunities in which you’re interested might want to see your business plan to make sure your goals and processes align with theirs. They don’t want partners that chase every opportunity that comes along.

While you can put in as much or as little detail as you want, the basic format of a business plan, per the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) follows:

Company description: Include information about the purpose of your business. Provide a description of the problem or challenge your products or services aim to solve and what types of individuals or organizations benefit. Don’t get too detailed, but include any professional or business set-aside descriptions you hold, the year your company was founded and such information as your Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) if you seek or hold federal government contracts.

Organization, management and key personnel: Offer details about the legal and tax structure of your business. Consider including a simple organizational chart. You might want to include information about each team member’s background and experience at a top level of detail —
one-page biographies, for example.

Market analysis: Identify your major competitors. Discuss what these competitors do well and identify areas for improvement. Indicate how you believe your company compares to these competitors.

Description of products or services: Detail the products or services offered by your business. Explain what they do, how they help customers and their expected life cycles. Include things like any expected research and development costs, such intellectual property concerns as patents, what the life cycles of your products look like and what’s needed to manufacture or assemble them if that’s applicable.

Marketing and sales strategy: Cover such relevant topics such as target audience, how you’ll attract customers, how and when sales will be made, what the sales process looks like, where you’ll market products or services, how your marketing strategy compares to other companies in the industry, marketing budget, expected return on investment in marketing and data showing the effects of marketing.

Financial data: Include all streams of revenue and expenses. Financial projections also should be included, along with a description of the methods you used to reach those conclusions. Have balance sheets, business and personal tax returns, profit and loss statements and other documents available.

If you seek financing, you’ll need additional sections, including a financing request.

After you’ve completed the business plan, and only then, write a succinct executive summary.

Here is a link to the SBA business plan template page:

https://fitsmallbusiness.com/sba-business-plan-template/. Much of the preceding information comes from this website.

Where can you go for assistance?

The SBA offers a wealth of information, templates, and general resources on its website at https://sba.gov.

The Small Business Development Center at the Business Incubator Center in Grand Junction assists startups and growing ventures with many aspects of business planning and development. For more information, call (970) 243-5242 or visit https://grandjunctionsbdc.org.

The Colorado APEX Accelerator Center offers assistance with finding government business opportunities and has counselors to help you identify options. For more information, visit https://www.coloradoapex.org.