Part II: Planning for Growth

Chapter 3
The NxLeveL® BUSINESS PLAN

IN This Chapter
The benefits of planning
Getting prepared
Your NxLeveL® business plan
Is your plan feasible?
A polished presentation

Introduction
Whether you’re starting a new business or expanding an existing one, your NxLeveL® Business Plan is an indispensable tool. It outlines the basics of your business concept: your business’s mission, objectives, products, management, marketing and financial plan.
By preparing a business plan, you will learn whether your business idea is truly viable. You will also provide essential information to anyone who is seriously considering getting involved in your venture, such as prospective employees, mentors and partners.
Also, lenders and investors use business plans to judge the soundness of the business concept, the abilities of the business owner, and the potential profitability of the business.
This chapter details the contents of your business plan and highlights the concepts you must understand to create a plan that will prepare your business for successful growth.
The Benefits of Planning
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of the planning process.
A look at the big picture. Daily management often entails solving a series of problems that initially may not seem to be connected. Planning helps you discover and eliminate the root causes of recurring problems.
Better guidance for employees. Entrepreneurs are often frustrated when their employees don’t make the right decisions. A good business plan can guide each employee’s daily actions. (Of course, this assumes that your employees are involved in the planning process or receive training about the parts of the plan that affect them.)
Accurate communication. The business plan puts necessary information in writing, which can then be communicated to employees, investors, creditors and other interested parties.
Increased opportunities. Change always presents opportunities to the prepared business owner. Planning is a systematic way to identify these opportunities.
Continuous improvement. The ongoing comparison of planned to actual results provides an opportunity to improve business operations.
Action, not reaction. Entrepreneurs often talk about the burnout that results from handling a never-ending string of problems. A good business plan is like a good fire prevention plan. Fires may still occur, but they’re not as likely, and the best method of response has been determined in advance.
Isolating root problems. The planning process helps you sort through hundreds of concerns about your business, and focus on the handful that are causing the majority of your problems.
The Planning Cycle
Planning is a five-step process:
Plan a course of action for your business.
Take action by making decisions that support the plan.
Measure the results of the actions taken in Step 2, and note any differences between the results you expected and the results you got.
Explain results that varied from planned results, whether the variance is positive or negative.
Make improvements to the plan as a result of what you learned in Step 4.
In a well-managed business, these steps take place every day. It’s important to avoid the temptation of delegating the responsibility for planning to an employee, a team or a consultant. It’s great to have others organize and participate in the planning process, but you must be seen as a strong and active advocate of the process.
Types of Plans
There are different types of plans for different parts of your business. Some are blueprints that guide your overall operations; others are specific documents that guide strategies and tactics.
Business plan. A complete business plan contains three major components: strategies, actions and projected financial statements. (A fourth area, policies and procedures, is also important to the planning process, but is not included in the business plan.)
Marketing plan. This plan focuses solely on the marketing function of your business. Portions of the marketing plan appear in the business plan.
Strategic plan. Strategic planning considers your business environment and the major long-term decisions you face, in order to ensure success over the next three to five years.
Operational planning. This process focuses on short-term actions (one year, usually). When you don’t base operational planning on a strategic plan, you run the risk of making decisions that seem good today but could have a negative long-term impact on your profitability. Ideally, operational planning should occur after strategic planning. However, small businesses are usually short-term oriented, and thus emphasize operational planning.
Financial planning. Financial planning includes the process of preparing budgets and projected financial statements. These numbers must be updated whenever any planning activity is undertaken. They are a numerical representation of your strategic and operational planning processes.
Financing proposal. A financing proposal is developed to secure financing, not to manage the business. But most of it comes from the business plan, so it’s essentially a byproduct of the planning process.
Feasibility study. As we learned in Chapter 2, a feasibility study is an important tool for anyone who wants to start or grow a business.
Assemble a Planning Team
Giving employees a sense of ownership in a plan greatly improves its chance of success. You may also want to involve professional advisors. Businesses often hire an outside facilitator to keep the planning process running smoothly. (This person’s role is to facilitate the process, not to control or participate in it.)
At the first meeting, set a timeline for future meetings and for completing the planning process. Make sure that each person on the team understands her responsibilities.
…
When I first got the idea for my business, I had one customer in mind: me! Everything was tailored to what I would want from a business like mine.
Since then, I’ve learned, changed and adapted...but at the core, I still believe that my initial vision is what continues to set us apart. It’s very rewarding to have found a balance between being true to a personal vision while also evolving to serve people of all types. For me, careful marketing was the key to finding this balance.
Catherine Baggott began Bag-It Gourmet on the simple premise that most people want good, healthy food, but are too busy to prepare it.
This was her own situation when she sold advertising space for a gourmet food magazine. During the week, Catherine would work long hours, go to her health club, and get home late, tired and hungry. Most of her favorite restaurants didn’t deliver, so she often ended up ordering pizza or Chinese food. She soon found herself wishing that more varied, higher quality food was available for delivery.
Soon, she came up with a business concept based on the features she wanted but wasn’t getting: Bag-It Gourmet would take one-click orders from local restaurants and food carts and deliver to subscribers within a 5-mile radius of her home. Subscribers would pay a flat monthly fee, which would entitle them to a certain number of free deliveries per month; you could earn points toward additional free deliveries by referring new customers, rating restaurants and writing reviews. Tips would be handled entirely online, so that the delivery team wouldn’t have to carry cash or make change, and customers wouldn’t have to dig under the couch cushions for tips.
Because Catherine had spent many, many nights trying to decide what kind of food she was in the mood for, the site would also include a “suggestion” service that recommended restaurants based on taste and cuisine preferences. If you were in the mood for something spicy, it would give you suggestions and then let you drill down from there: South American? North Indian? South Indian? Thai? Or, if you preferred the human touch, you could visit the community forum and get advice from other customers.
It would also give you an approximate delivery time, so that you could choose the quickest option if you were in a hurry.
Catherine conducted a brief feasibility study for Bag-It Gourmet, clearly outlining her estimated costs—including a sales fleet and Web design, which would be the main expenses—and sales forecasts. Having decided the business was viable, she prepared to leave her job.
…
Getting PREPARED
Before you start drafting your plan, revisit your original business concept and—if applicable—review your feasibility study. You should be perfectly clear and confident about the direction in which you want to take your business.
Next, list and prioritize the things you’ll need in order to pursue your business idea. Let’s suppose you want to open a café with a laundromat attached. Although there are several other laundromats in your area, they are poorly lit and maintained. Larger apartment buildings have laundry rooms, but most of them are too small to serve more than one or two tenants at a time. Your vision is to create a place where local, younger apartment dwellers will go not just to wash their clothes, but also to socialize, do homework, or answer emails over a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
You’d start by making a list of the skills you’d need, such as maintaining laundry machines and managing a café. You might eventually seek outside investors or lenders, so you’d need to think like one. Ask yourself, “What’s so great about my idea? Am I targeting the right neighborhood and the right customers? What makes my idea unique? What value am I offering my customers? What type of Internet connection will I need? Should I have network or bandwidth restrictions to prevent people from downloading movies or large music files? Would environmentally friendly washing machines and dryers increase the appeal to my target customers? How long before I make a profit? Where is my competition, and how will they respond to my entry into this market? What are my long- and medium-term plans for growth?”
Once you’ve clarified your thinking in this way, it’s time to start drafting your plan. You will write each element of the plan in your NxLeveL® workbook.
YOUR NxLeveL® Business Plan
The major components of the NxLeveL® Business Plan are as follows:
Cover and Title Page
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Business Concept
Business Organization and Operations
Marketing Plan
Financial Plan
Appendix
Cover and Title Page
Your business plan must look professional, so you should present it in a binder or bind it with a stiff cover. The cover should state the name of your business; your name (and the names of your partners, if applicable); your business address, phone number, email and website; and the date.
The title page is the first page readers see when they open the plan. It should have the same information as the cover.
Table of Contents
The table of contents lists the major headings and subheadings of your plan, along with their page numbers. To ensure that the table of contents is accurate, prepare it after you’ve finished the rest of the plan, or use a program that can generate a table of contents automatically.
Section I. Executive Summary
Your executive summary should be no more than one page, and it must include the following information:
Business description, mission statement and product description.
Names and relevant background of the owner or owners, as well as important team members.
Your target market and your competitive advantage in that market.
Financial requirements, as well as estimated sales and profits. If you’re using your plan to get a loan, you should also explain how much capital you need, how you will use it to achieve your goal, and what type of collateral you offer.
Any intellectual property, existing contracts or market research findings that support your business concept.
Instead of writing all this information from scratch, you will adapt it from the relevant sections of your plan after you complete them. When writing your executive summary, be clear, concise and convincing. Lenders and other professionals scan the executive summary to decide whether the rest of the plan is worth reading, so it must capture and hold their attention.
…
One year later, Bag-It Gourmet was making more than 800 deliveries a week. Catherine had an all-electric delivery fleet and a team of enthusiastic young drivers who were just as committed to excellent customer service as she was.
It’s an incredible thing to have an idea that resonates with so many people. You may think your needs and preferences are very personal, but when you start a business you realize that a lot of the things you thought were specific to you fall into larger, more universal categories.
So many of the features I wanted fell under a single heading, like “Choice” or “Convenience” or “Safety.” When you start thinking like that, you can serve many types of people; it’s not about giving them what you think they want, it’s about giving them the tools they need to get what they want. The way I see it, any business that isn’t using technology to move in this direction is missing out.
One area in which technology definitely helped was trendwatching. Catherine could see that the landscape in which her business operated was changing. An increasing number of customers were inquiring from outside her delivery zone or requesting service from a wider selection of restaurants.
Clearly, there were opportunities for growth. Catherine was especially excited about the new housing developments north of town, so she decided to expand her area of operation to serve them. She also decided to make her restaurant reviews and community forum accessible to people who weren’t subscribers. It would increase costs, but she felt that it would be offset by increased orders and goodwill. In addition to updating her site, she assumed that she’d need at least two more vehicles and drivers.
Having used a substantial portion of her savings to get up and running, she’d need a loan to expand. She heard about a successful businesswoman named Lisa Aldridge, who made loans to woman-owned businesses. Catherine decided to give her a call.
…
Section II. Business Concept
This section introduces your products and the value they offer. It should also include your mission statement, which explains what your business hopes to be and do.
A. Business Description
This section should describe your business simply, so that an outsider can easily understand what business you are in, what product you offer and who your customers are. The Mission Statement Worksheet will help you develop a clear mission statement.
This section should also describe the unmet or underserved needs in your target market and explain how you will meet them. Why will your business succeed? What advantages does it have that competing businesses lack?
B. Business Goals and Objectives
This section describes your goals and objectives for the short term (one year) and the long term (two to three years), and explains how you’ll achieve them. This is also the place to explain your plans for growth. Thinking ahead will impress your readers, so use this section of the plan to state clear goals, objectives and timelines.
C. Industry Information
This section introduces your industry, noting where it’s been, where it is now and where it’s headed. It also explains how your business fits into current and future trends.
Industry Background Information
This section identifies your industry and states its current size in terms of total sales, number of customers and number of businesses. It should also describe the industry’s historic growth rate and note whether larger or smaller businesses currently dominate the industry.
Current and Future Industry Trends
Where is your industry headed in the next three years? Is it growing, stable or declining? What political, economic, social and technological trends affect it? What are the opportunities and threats? How are products currently bought, sold, packaged and delivered? How is the Internet changing how your industry promotes, sells and delivers products? What current and potential regulations affect your industry?
Business Fit in the Industry
Here, you will write a brief description of how your business fits into your industry. Is it one of the smaller or larger businesses in your industry? How is it similar to competitors? How is it different or better?
Section III. Business Organization and Operations
This section introduces the people who own and manage your business, states their qualifications and explains their plans.
A. Business Structure, Management and Personnel
Business Structure
This section describes the legal form of the business. Is your business a partnership? A sole proprietorship? A corporation? (We’ll explain these options in Chapter 5 Choosing the Right Legal Structure.) If there’s more than one owner, this section should state each owner’s percentage of ownership.
Personal Background Information
This section briefly outlines your skills, training and experience. It should detail your experience in the industry, along with any special expertise that gives you an advantage.
Management Team
For each key manager, include relevant details such as skills, experience and education, as well as the specific assets each person brings to your venture. This section should tell readers why you and your team are qualified to manage the business. If applicable, include an organizational chart to clarify the roles and responsibilities of your management team.
Personnel
Summarize your non-management personnel needs, if any. Discuss where and how you recruit employees, what screening process you use in hiring, and how you train and manage your employees.
Outside Services and Advisors
Which tasks will your business outsource to freelancers, temporary employment agencies and consultants? This section identifies outside service providers and advisors who will help you achieve your goals. It should explain who they are, what expertise they provide and how this expertise will benefit your business.
B. Operations Plan
This section describes basic operational and logistical issues, such as where your business is located, what kind of equipment and machinery it requires, what legal issues you face and how you will address them, and what risks you must insure against.
Site and Equipment
What is your business location? If you’re expanding, will you need more warehouse or work space? Why is your location and workspace appropriate for your business?
This section should also list the major equipment and tools you will need. For example, if you are manufacturing artisanal hot sauce for local restaurants, you might need commercial kitchen equipment, a bottle-filling machine and a delivery van.
Purchasing and Inventory
This section explains how you will handle purchasing of materials and supplies, and details how you will store, track and maintain your inventory. If applicable, this section should also list your primary suppliers for raw materials.
Contracts and Leases
This section describes any contracts or leases you have signed and explains their relevance to business operations and management.
Risk Management
This section summarizes the risks your business faces and how you will manage them. List the types and cost of insurance you need, as well as the type and cost of intellectual property protection. Also, list any other internal and internal threats, along with the steps you will take to reduce them (e.g., fire safety plans, continuity planning, a security camera system, or online data backup).
Laws, Regulations and Taxes
This section identifies local, state and federal laws and taxes that affect your business, and explains how you will comply with them.
…
Lisa Aldridge was impressed by Catherine’s vision and enthusiasm. In fact, Lisa had already heard about Bag-It Gourmet from friends, and she thought the business had a huge potential.
But when Lisa read Catherine’s financing proposal, she felt that it didn’t present a clear picture of Bag-It Gourmet’s target market and marketing strategy. The proposal largely failed to address this issue, and Lisa wondered if Catherine had overlooked other key elements.
Lisa told me that Bag-It Gourmet needed a much clearer picture of its customers and market. Without this information, she thought that it was just a matter of time before the business got off course.
She explained that Bag-It was at a very critical point in its growth. Where I saw lots of opportunities, Lisa saw lots of threats...the main one being that I’d grow too fast or for the wrong reasons. I’d done really well really fast, and she made it clear that she respected that. But my lack of a business plan—and all the marketing info it entailed—made it hard for her to judge whether everything was just dumb luck or the result of careful planning on my part. If it was mostly luck...well, she made it obvious that she didn’t consider herself much of a gambler. She was definitely interested, but she needed more information, and she wanted it in the form of a business plan.
Lisa ran down a long list of things she wanted to know: What was the average income of these residents? How old were they? What computer capabilities did they have? Were they married or single? Did they have children? How much did they spend per month on restaurant food? What restaurants were nearby? Were they willing or able to be part of Bag-It Gourmet’s service network?
She also had questions about the website: How much traffic would Catherine generate by making her forums and reviews public? How would this increase her costs? Would she need to hire someone to moderate the forum, or would customers flag inappropriate comments for removal? What would cause visitors to subscribe? Catherine was simply assuming that 10 percent of visitors would subscribe, but what was that number based on? What concrete plans did she have for converting visitors into users?
Also, if Catherine’s idea was as successful as she hoped, would her restaurants be able to meet the increased demand? “Your restaurants are basically your suppliers,” Lisa told her. “You need to know their capacity before you plan for growth.”
At first, I was a little annoyed. I resented the implication that I’d just been lucky. I knew how hard I’d worked and how careful I’d been. And I knew that wasn’t just a matter of opinion—the proof was all around me!
But when I looked around for marketing data to support my case, a funny thing happened: I realized that I didn’t really have any. I knew a lot about my subscribers; we had lots of data on them. But I didn’t know very much about the new housing development. I’d assumed that a lot of residents would be in my target market, but when I looked for the evidence, I had to admit that it was shaky at best.
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Section IV. Marketing Plan
The marketing plan identifies the markets your business serves and describes its position within those markets. We’ll discuss the marketing plan in detail in Chapter 4. For now, note that the marketing plan includes these components:
A. Product Description
Features and Benefits
B. Market Analysis
Customer Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Market Potential
C. Marketing Objectives, Strategies and Tactics
Product Lines
Positioning
Packaging and Branding
Pricing Strategy
Placement Strategy
Promotional Strategy
D. Direct Sales and Customer Service
Section V. Financial Plan
The financial plan is often the most important section of the business plan. It describes your financial needs for implementing your business idea and estimates the income you will generate.
A. Capital Requirements
This section details your financial needs and identifies the source of your capital (e.g., a bank loan, a personal loan, personal savings or a combination of sources).
Startup Costs
This section lists the capital and other resources your business idea will require.
Loans, Grants and Self-Financing
This section identifies the source, amount and terms of the capital your business will use. If you are applying for a loan or grant, identify the funding agency and the terms and amount. If you plan to self-finance, state the source and amount of the money.
B. Sales Forecasts
Here, you will present three years of sales estimates. This section also identifies your break-even point, if applicable; this is the sales level at which your revenue covers your costs. Once your business is past the break-even point, it begins to earn a profit.
Sales forecasts are based on market research, coupled with your own honest assessment of your ability to manufacture and sell your product or deliver your service. You can’t look at your market or your business in isolation. For example, if your market research shows that it’s possible to sell 8,000 eco-friendly travel mugs per month, you must consider whether your business can realistically make and sell that many at a competitive price.
Sales forecasts don’t need to be perfectly accurate. They just need to be reasonable, achievable and supported by credible market data. How much do you anticipate selling in your target markets over the next one, six, and 12 months? Consider presenting separate sales forecasts for different product types, geographic regions, and markets.
C. Cash Flow Projections
Cash flow projections estimates the revenues and expenses you expect over a given period of time. From the standpoint of lenders and investors—and your ability to run your business from day to day—cash flow projections may be your most important financial tool. It’s especially useful for estimating when and how much you’ll need to borrow during an annual cycle, and how much cash you’ll need for monthly bills.
This section contains these subsections:
Monthly Cash Flow Projections—Year 1
Notes to Cash Flow Projections
Annual Cash Flow Projections—Years 2 and 3
Cash flow projections are based on educated assumptions about your target market, competitors, economic outlook, technology trends and other factors. Therefore, you must include a statement describing these assumptions so that readers can judge whether they’re accurate and realistic.
D. Financial Statements
This section comprises three primary items, which we will discuss further in Chapter 20 Overview of Financial Statements.
Income Statement
The income statement shows how much your business earned, outlines your total cost and shows the resulting profit or loss. (That’s why it’s also called a profit and loss statement.) A projected income statement shows the profits your business expects to make. Projected income is often shown monthly for the first year of business and quarterly for the two years that follow.
Balance Sheet
The balance sheet lists your business’s assets and liabilities. Assets are any valuable items the business owns, including equipment, accounts receivable, inventory and cash. Liabilities are debts owed in the long and short term. These include lease payments, accounts payable and outstanding debts.
When you subtract your total liabilities from your total assets, you find out your net worth at a given time.
Cash Flow Statement
Your cash flow statement shows how money flowed into and out of your business over a specific timeframe. The data in this statement comes from the other two financial statements. This statement tends to be tricky to prepare, so most small businesses hire an accountant to produce it.
…
Because I’d used my own seed money to get up and running, I hadn’t bothered writing a complete business plan. To me, that was something you do mainly for banks. I was specifically avoiding getting into that kind of debt, so I didn’t see the point of taking time out to do all that work. I felt it was a better use of my resources to get into business, learn as I go and make adjustments as needed. It seemed to work, so I never looked back.
But now, I wanted answers to Lisa’s questions—not just to get a loan, but for my own peace of mind. Was it just dumb luck that Bag-It had done so well? I felt like I needed to know before I took another step.
Catherine began by gathering information from the local library, a real estate association, a food industry association, the U.S. Census website, and her local chamber of commerce. She spent hours online, looking at maps, calculating local mileage and population density, and researching traffic patterns, Internet connections and mobile device usage. She even went to the new housing development and talked to its residents and their neighbors.
Every day, she learned things that surprised her. The amount of information was overwhelming, but it was also exhilarating to see the pieces starting to fit together.
Because she was very busy with the day-to-day operations of her business, Catherine hired a local MBA student as an intern to help her write her plan.
Some of the most valuable information she gathered came from an idea this intern suggested: Why not create a simple 10-question survey, and offer a free delivery to everyone who completes it?
She did this and found that most customers:
Were professional singles and couples between the ages of 35 and 55
Had no children at home
Had a household income of more than $80,000 a year
Had high-speed Internet and at least one mobile device
Were willing to pay more for organic food and wines, and preferred biodegradable containers and cutlery
Those survey results came as a bit of a shock to me. It wasn’t the information so much as the fact that I hadn’t known it before then. It was obvious that the new housing development didn’t match my target market. My research showed that these were multi-family units, designed for budget-conscious, first-time home buyers with young kids. Very few of my customers fit that description.
I decided to slow down and reevaluate my options. At that point, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to grow anymore. Maybe it was safer to stay where I was, at least for the time being.
…
E. Additional Financial Information
This section of your business plan summarizes the financial needs of your business, its existing debt, and the financial position of the owner(s). It contains the following information:
Sources and Uses Statement. This shows readers how much capital you need, where you will get it and how you will use it. The information in this section comes from A. Capital Requirements.
Existing debt is a summary of all outstanding loans your business has received to date.
Personal Financial Statement. This lists any assets you can invest in the business, along with any other sources of income you have.
Financial worksheets
The financial worksheets offer many important details on the management of your business:
Salaries, wages, and benefits. How much does your business pay each month to compensate your team? What benefits does it provide to which employees, and how much do they cost?
Outside services. What outside contractors or service providers does your business rely on? What duties do they perform? How are services contracted and managed? How do you measure and ensure quality?
Insurance. Which types of insurance will you use to minimize risk? What are the premium costs and deductibles?
Advertising budget. What is the budget for advertising and promotion? How much will be spent on ad campaigns?
Occupancy expense. What is the monthly cost of renting or leasing work space, plus all related expenses?
Cost of goods sold (COGS). What does your business pay for supplies and other inputs? This includes all costs related to buying, storing, counting, processing and assembling inputs.
Fixed assets. What land, plant and equipment does your business own or lease? What is the market or book value of these assets?
Growth expenses. What expenses will growth require? Consider equipment, space, personnel, inventory, Internet, promotions, distribution and production.
Miscellaneous expenses. What other business expenses do you anticipate? Are these one-time or recurring expenses?
Attachments
This last section contains supporting documents, such as:
Personal credit history
Résumés of key managers
Product pictures
Letters of reference
Details of market studies, including surveys and other customer data
Relevant magazine or book references
Licenses, permits or patents
Legal documents
Copies of leases
Building permits
Contracts
List of business consultants, including attorney and accountant
Although this is a crucial part of your business plan, you should not include it with every copy of the plan. Much of the information in this section will be confidential, so you should give it only to people who need to see it, such as lenders and investors.
Is Your Plan Feasible?
Be honest with yourself when creating your plan. It’s easy to paint a glorified picture of your idea, so be sure to seek input from friends, family, employees, and mentors before you commit to your plan.
A weak plan can be fatal, not only because it may turn away prospective lenders and investors, but also because it won’t properly direct you toward success.
A realistic business plan helps to identify your weaknesses and strengths so that you can budget the time, energy and money to improve areas that need it.
Once you’ve drafted your plan, ask yourself:
Does my business plan make sense?
Do I need to revise my business concept?
Am I targeting the right market?
Is there a real demand for my product?
Is there a potential for ongoing growth?
Are my financial projections correct?
Do I need additional education or skills?
Could I operate more profitably or efficiently?
Will I look for investors? If so, where?
Be sure to answer these questions before seeking financial assistance from family, friends, investors or banks. Don’t beat yourself over the head if you find major problems with your plan. You can always revise and improve it. Once you’re satisfied with your results, you can start putting together your executive summary.
Always remember that a business plan is a living document. It should evolve as you learn more about your market, your business and yourself. You should plan on a yearly review of your business plan.
Finally, don’t be a slave to your plan. If new opportunities arise, don’t avoid them just because they weren’t anticipated.
…
After some reflection, Catherine remained sure that she wanted to expand. She loved the challenges and rewards of her business, and felt that she’d just begun to realize its potential. But obviously, she needed to reevaluate her growth options.
In the course of gathering market information, her intern discovered that construction for a large office complex was due to begin in the next month, which would add to an already large and vibrant office community. In fact, the east side of town was rapidly expanding into one large commercial zone. If her goal was to expand her business, why not look there?
My drivers began work at 5 p.m., which meant my fleet was sitting in a lot for most of the day, costing me money without bringing anything in. What if I started offering breakfast and lunch service as well? I could do gourmet continental breakfasts for early business meetings, as well as lunchtime office meetings and seminars. And of course, there were also plenty of business owners like me, who crave a good meal but don’t necessarily have time to go out for lunch.
After Catherine carefully researched the number and type of businesses in her area, and the restaurants in their immediate vicinity, she concluded that the idea was feasible and incorporated it in her revised business plan. When she was finished, she scheduled another appointment with Lisa.
This time, she would be ready!
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A Polished Presentation
Painstaking research, planning and documentation mean nothing if you can’t present your ideas clearly and convincingly in a few minutes. That’s all the time most lenders or investors will take to look at your plan, so you must pique their interest with a compelling and professional plan.
Your NxLeveL® Business Plan should be:
Well organized and logical
Clear, concise and easy to read
Accurate and honest
Free of repetition and vague ideas
Free of industry-specific terms (unless they’re briefly and lucidly defined)
Absolutely free of spelling and grammatical errors
Augmented by charts and graphs with consistent styles, colors and fonts
Printed on quality paper
Presented in a hard folder or binder
Once you’ve checked your document and its formatting, you should pass it along to several trusted friends, relatives and mentors for review. Keep an open mind as to their input, and revise the plan as necessary.
When possible, find readers who don’t know anything about the nuts and bolts of your business. Outsiders will provide a more realistic assessment of the plan’s clarity. If there’s a point your readers don’t understand, there’s a good chance your target audience won’t understand it either. Similarly, if your readers feel that they’re being beaten over the head with a specific point, consider editing the plan to remove redundancy. Saying too much can be almost as bad as saying too little.
When presenting your plan, you should:
Budget your time in advance.
Prepare and practice your presentation.
Dress professionally.
Speak clearly and confidently, looking directly at your audience.
Present a compelling executive summary in the first 30 seconds, and use the next two or three minutes to provide details and supporting information.
Use simple charts or tables to clarify ideas and focus attention.
Finish with a clear conclusion and detail what you want from the listener.
Remain courteous and positive regardless of the response you get.
…
Lisa was impressed with Catherine’s research. She felt that Catherine’s marketing plan was realistic and well informed, and that her estimate of costs was on target. She was ready to make the loan!
Her main stipulation was that Catherine needed to focus more on social media and mobile marketing. Bag-It was not currently optimized for smartphones and tablets, nor was Catherine taking advantage of real-time capabilities like tracking delivery status and location-based recommendations. She also suggested more use of video, such as tours of kitchens and interviews with cooks. Part of the capital would have to go toward increasing interactivity and online features, especially for corporate customers.
I came away from that meeting feeling so good. Of course it was great to get the financing, but even more than that, it was so empowering to feel like I really understood who my customers were and what they wanted.
I’d felt very confident about my business in the past, but so much of that confidence was based on missing information: I ignored information I didn’t want to hear or didn’t feel like taking the time to dig up. It’s very easy to be confident when you don’t really know what’s going on!
But suddenly, my confidence was based on facts. And the best thing was, I now have a system in place that can grow with me. When things change, I knew where to go to get information. That’s an amazingly powerful tool to have at your disposal.
Good luck is a wonderful thing, and I’m very grateful that I’ve had so much of it. But it’s no substitute for having a good plan!
…
Conclusion
The NxLeveL® Business Plan is an operating plan for the entrepreneur, a financing proposal for lenders, and a source of inspirational information for prospective partners and employees. It is also the capstone of your participation in the NxLeveL® training program.
When you’ve completed the soul-searching and the hard work that go into the plan, you should feel proud. You will have taken a huge step toward making your entrepreneurial dream a reality. But more than that, you will have developed a powerful set of tools, skills and knowledge that can help your business grow, thrive and excel for years to come.

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| NxLeveL® TECH TIP BUSINESS RESOURCES AND THE WEB
Need to do some research on trends, demographics, laws or statistics before you embark on your business plan? The following U.S. government websites can help. Library of Commerce Business Reference Services is a good starting point for conducting research on business and economics. Reference specialists can help you access the wealth of business information in the Library’s collection. www.loc.gov/rr/business The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Center provides information on economic policies affecting small businesses; educational and training programs; employment opportunities and internships; expos and trade shows; retirement plans for small businesses; and much more. www.uschamber.com/sb

Why Business Plans Succeed Here are some things that you should bear in mind when writing your plan. Provide evidence for your assumptions. Most readers of business plans are looking for a solid factual foundation, with well thought out reasons for the business to exist. Too many business plan writers fail to do their homework, and this usually results in a plan that doesn’t offer enough evidence to give readers faith in the success of the venture. Acknowledge the challenges you face. Failing to produce an honest account of obstacles to success is a common mistake among novice writers. It’s better to describe challenges with complete candor, and then offer credible solutions. Stay focused on market needs. Many technology-oriented companies dwell on the art and science of their innovation, without regard to a market need. These plans tend to fail because they do not tie the technology to the market in a compelling way. Highlight past performance. Although it’s important to tout the credentials of your team, investors and bankers want to know if your group has ever faced similar challenges and succeeded. Describing where they worked isn’t enough. Instead, demonstrate that they have a history of innovating, solving problems and reaching goals.