Writing a Business Plan for your Home Business

So you’ve reached that stage where you’re ready to get your home business started in every way except one: you need money. Whether it comes from a loan or from investors doesn’t really make too much difference, since there’s one thing that they all need to see before they’ll give you a cent. That thing is your business plan.

What’s a Business Plan? Think of your business plan as being like a list of answers to questions that people might have about your home business. You will not get outside funding without one, because the people giving you the funding want to know that you’ve thought through what you’re doing. A business plan says to them ‘I’ve considered this from every angle, and here’s what I’ve come up with’.

But what should your business plan include?

What is Your Service? This is the first question every business plan should answer. Just what is it that you plan to do? Tell them which industry you’re going to be in, and why you’ve chosen it.

Who are Your Customers? Once you know what you do, the next thing you need to know is who you’re going to be doing it for, and so that’s the next thing that should be written on the business plan. You should also include your area here.

What Makes You Different? You need to say what the ‘key factors’ are that make your business different to other businesses in its sector. What is it that you’re planning to do to make the business succeed?

What are Your Expenses? Your start-up expenses include any equipment that you need before you can get up-and-running, while your day-to-day expenses are staff costs and supplies.

An Example of a Home Business Plan.

Key Factors: We will use industrial-quality ingredients but provide bespoke-quality design and service. This will allow us to provide food that looks excellent and tastes acceptable, while keeping costs low.

Expenses: Since I will be using my kitchen for the business and making the food myself, there are only two real expenses: the one-off cost of a larger cooker, and then the day-to-day cost supplies. A suppliers’ letter listing prices is attached – enquiries with others in the catering industry have shown this supplier to be the best value for my business.

To finish it all off, you should include a breakdown of projected profit and loss per month for the first year of the business, in the form of a graph. You would work this out by working out a reasonable repayment of any one-off expenses and adding this repayment to the day-to-day expenses, before graphing day-to-day expenses against projected sales. Your business plan should show you making enough of a profit each month to live – if you doesn’t, then it will be considered unfeasible by anyone you show it to.

Find Real Business Plans.

The best way to figure out the dos and don’ts of business plans is to find real ones – they’re out there on the Internet. Once you’ve seen a few, you can start to get some idea of how much work is going to be involved to write one of your own. Remember, until your business exists for real, the business plan is the only tool you have to show anyone how great it’s going to be.

Index for 'Work from Home Businesses' Articles

Thought for the Day

Do you want Success? by Dave Vallieres

There are some things we can control about our future and there are some things we cannot control.

There are a lot of things out of our control: -

• The weather
• Natural disasters
• Terrorist activities ...

are just a few.

But there are a lot of things totally within our control...

• Our attitude
• Our habits
• Our thoughts and motivation

I want you to imagine yourself making more money in 2006 than you have in any other year of your life.

Can you imagine it? If you can imagine it, you can do it.

The only way to succeed is by changing ourselves.

If your habits, the things you do everyday are not getting the things you want out of life, it's time to CHANGE your habits.

Eliminate BAD attitudes, BAD habits, BAD or DISTRACTING desires by KNOWING what they are and HOW TO overcome them.

Let's talk about how your attitude and habits affect your ability to make money. There are certain rules for succeeding financially ... like 'golf' there are 'rules' ... and there are rules to winning the Internet marketing business too.

If you don't even know what the rules are how can you formulate a strategy to win? You can't formulate a strategy because you don't understand what the GAME is all about! And that's why you aren't successful ... yet.

Learn the 'rules' and win by playing the best you can play ... Now is the time to look forward. Look toward changing those habits that have kept you back... what are they?

IDENTIFY them! Name them and write them down! Then you can SEE them for what they are... BARRIERS to YOUR success! Kill them, stomp on them, HATE them!

• Do you tend to procrastinate?
• Do you ease up after succeeding?
• Do you fail to plan ahead?

All of these are BAD habits that must be broken.

How?

By DESIRING it... by WANTING success so bad you can taste it.

Stop settling for LESS, EXPECT more from yourself and 'feel bad' when you don't make money.

Feel terrible when you failed to DO SOMETHING to bring you closer to your goal.

Use your feelings to propel you forward... feel afraid of being POOR ...WANT MORE, WANT BIGGER dreams to come true, for you.

Then and only then will you have the motivation to succeed.

There's only one rule you need to know to succeed: If you want success you have to STOP doing what you have been doing and do something else instead until you reach your goals.

Your habits will FORCE you to succeed. To be more successful change your habits.

Learn MONEY-MAKING Habits.

That's all the news for now,

-Dave Vallieres
(c) 2006 by David Vallieres.
All rights reserved.
David Vallieres is the Editor and Publisher of "Little Known Ways To Make Money Online"
a resource eLetter.

Find out more at http://www.cherrykay.com/DVwebsite.html