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The Business Plan Workbook A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating And Developing A Successful Business 9th International Edition Colin Barrow, Paul Barrow, Robert Brown - Solutions
Who aside from your team can you enlist to advise on your business plan?
Prepare and rehearse a presentation of your business plan.
Who can help you to edit and rewrite the final version of your plan?
Write a first draft of your business plan along the lines recommended.
Who do you propose to send your business plan to first, and why have you chosen them?
Investigate any potential acquisition opportunities. Shortlist three potential targets and investigate by reviewing their accounts and product literature. Take a day out to see their facilities.
What market segments are you not selling into that could be reached relatively easily with your existing products and services?
What additional products or services could you sell to your existing customers, without requiring more investment or distracting you from achieving the goals of the first year of your business plan?
For those existing customers that you are not the main supplier what would you need to do to achieve that position?
How much more of your current products or services could be sold to your existing customers?
Why do you consider them important?
What other business controls do you plan to introduce into your business at the outset?
Explain the relationship between any sales activity and the results expected. For example ‘We expect to open one new account for every ten we cold-call; or for every 10,000 cold e-mails sent out.
What other marketing records do you plan to keep, eg for advertising costs and results?
Draw up a customer record card for your business, or show your existing one.
Describe your records for monitoring sales activities.
What would you consider changing as a result of carrying out your ratio analysis (for example, collect money in faster, carry less stock)?
How do those ratios compare with those of either a competitor or your current organization?
What will your basic business ratios be if you achieve your financial objectives?
Who will keep the books and produce the accounts?
What control information does it produce and with what frequency?
What bookkeeping and accounting system have you chosen and why?
What could be done to mitigate these risks?
Under which of these circumstances would you plans be unviable?
List five factors that could adversely affect your costs and expense projections.
List five factors that could adversely affect your sales projections.
List the key assumptions that underpin the projections for your business.
What contingency plans do you have to either manage or minimize the consequences of these risks?Risk area PlanEffect
What are the key risks that could adversely affect your projections? (These could include technical, financial and marketing risks.)Risk area Financial impact on:SalesProfits
What further private cash, if any, is available to invest in the business?Source Date Funds provided Amount £/$/€Total £/$/€
Will you be receiving any grants or loans to help to finance your business (other than from the organization to which you are now applying)?Source Date Funds provided Amount £/$/€Total £/$/€
What security, if any, is available as collateral for any loan?Security Value£/$/€Total £/$/€
What exit route(s) could be open to potential investors?
What percentage of your venture would you be prepared to sell to raise the required funds?
How and when will any borrowing be repaid? Do a list like this:Source of repayment Amount £/$/€ Date Total £/$/€
Prepare a schedule showing when you need these funds.
Where do you expect to raise the funds you need to finance your business?
How does this compare with the sum that you and your partners or shareholders are putting in (ie level of gearing)?For example, if you already have £/$/€1,000 of assets and are looking for a loan
Based on the maximum figure in your cash-flow forecast, how much money do you need and what do you need it for?
Look back to Assignment 8 on Pricing, and review your proposed selling price in the light of work/research carried out during this assignment.
Estimate the effect of the following events on your break-even point for each year:a. a 10 per cent rise/fall in sales volume;b. a 10 per cent rise/fall in unit selling price;c. a 10 per cent
Construct a break-even analysis for year 1 of your business from the figures calculated in the last three chapters. You can use the Wavendon example below as a guide, or use a spreadsheet as given
Construct a balance sheet at the end of years 1, 2 and 3 assuming you achieve the level of sales in your sales forecast. These should be done after you have completed the pro forma profit and loss
List and explain the assumptions underpinning your financial forecasts.
Construct a balance sheet for your business as it might look on the day before you start trading. This should be done now.
Carry out a sensitivity analysis, noting by how much each of the following must change seriously to affect the apparent viability of your business plan:a. Sales lower by x per centb. Fixed costs
Construct a four-line summary (sales, gross profit, operating profit and profit before tax) of your profit and loss accounts for the full five years (annually).
Construct a profit and loss account for years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, assuming you achieve the level of sales in your sales forecast. Include a statement of key assumptions made.
Construct a cash-flow statement for years 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 assuming that you achieve the level of sales in your sales forecast.
Construct a cash-flow statement for the pre-trading period leading up to ‘opening’ day.
Give an estimate of the likely market share that these forecasts imply.
Support your forecast with examples from other similar ventures started recently, and drawing from company accounts and other sources.
Prepare a sales forecast by value and volume for each major product group (eg for a hotel: bedrooms, restaurant, off-licence) throughout the whole period of the business plan – eg up to five years
Give market research data that support or verify these forecasts. This is particularly important for ventures in the retail field, for example, when names of customers are not necessarily known in
Provide details of all customers you expect to sell to over the forecast period, and how much you expect to sell to each.
Provide details of any firm orders on hand.
How will you ensure your computer system is kept virus free?
What hardware other than a computer will you require?
Describe the software you will need to ensure your business can run effectively.
What back-up systems will you use to ensure vital data is not lost?
How will you handle your incoming and outgoing mail?
Determine the specification of your computer system.
What telephone and absent answering systems do you plan to use and why?
Have you incorporated the cost implications of these operating regulations in your financial forecasts?
How much national insurance will you be responsible for paying?
Will you have to collect and pay tax for any employees?
How much tax do you expect to have to pay?
If you have to register for VAT, which is the best scheme for you?
Will you have to register for VAT, or could it be to your advantage to do so?
How will you handle refunds?
Does your proposed advertising, both print and website, comply with the various advertising regulations?
Will you be holding data on customers, suppliers and employees, and if so what are the implications of the Data Protection Act on your plans?
Does your venture require a licence to operate?
Do you envisage any legal issues in recruiting and employing the staff you have in mind?
What steps will you take to manage them effectively?
What pay and reward system will you use?
How will you go about recruiting them?
Who else apart from yourself does your venture need from the outset and in the first year of operations?
How will you equip your office?
What bought-in materials and/or services will you need, where will you buy them from and how much will they cost?
What plant and equipment will you need, what can it do, how much will it cost and where will you get it from?
If you are making a product, describe the production process; also explain how your principal competitors go about manufacturing.
How much of your product or service do you plan to produce in-house?
What processes will you use to ensure you are paid on time?
What sales volume and activity targets, such as calls per day, etc, have you set for each salesperson or selling method?
How long is the process from becoming aware of your product or service to making the buying decision, receiving the product or service and finally paying for it? This will have an important bearing
Who will direct, monitor and control your sales effort and what experience/skills do they have?
What incentives are there for people to meet sales targets and how will you motivate them to do so?
What procedures do you have for handling customer complaints?
Describe the selling process, leading from an unaware prospect to a converted client, covering identification of decision makers, overcoming objections, gaining agreement, etc.
Who will manage, monitor and control your sales effort and how will they do so?
Will you use point-of-sale material – leaflets, brochures or videos, for example?
What selling methods will they employ?
Who will conduct the selling for your business, and have they been professionally trained to sell?
Start using Google Analytics to track and analyse your website traffic.
Review social media activity in your market and see which channels – Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc are most used by current players.
Check out submission services to see if they could be useful.
Decide on your domain name, making sure first that you can use it. Test it out online to make sure it can be found easily, does not conflict with similar names that might ‘steal’you web traffic
Brainstorm a list of key words that people could use when searching for your products or services online. Then see how those could be built in and repeated on your website.
Can you demonstrate in some way that is visible to your customers and employees that you are meeting the appropriate quality standards?
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