Excerpt: Forming a Business Plan

Let’s assume for a moment that you were genetically engineered for the catering business. Having the right skills and personality traits is only half the battle – if you’re really going to succeed, you must develop both a Business Plan and a Sales Plan. If you don’t have a plan, how will you know when you have succeeded – or failed? You will need equal warning for knowing when your business is about to require expansion and when it’s time to cut your losses and move on.

Any successful business venture requires a significant amount of research and planning. We recommend that you read everything you can find about the catering business. Check out the competition. Are there other catering businesses in your area? Are they doing well? What can you do to make your business better than the competition? Can the market sustain another catering service? If there aren’t any other catering businesses in your area to study, you’ll need to determine if it will go over well in your area. Will it fill a need? What segment of the population will you target as your primary customers? If there’s not already a demand for catering in your area, can you create a need?

A Business Plan focuses on what your business is, where you want it to go, and measures how well it’s going (and why). It will map out your ideas and put the successful business you envision on paper. A great guide to writing a comprehensive and manageable Business Plan can be found at http://www.business-plan-help.com/. A Sales Plan will outline where your sales will originate, the volume of sales you expect, and how much is needed. For more information, see http://www.bcentral.ca/archive/marketing_sales/sales_success.asp. These documents will help you create the business, and will give you effective tools for arranging financing. Basically, they’re your business resume.

There’s a wealth of material out there on writing effective business and sales plans (including some pretty good software programs), and the more information you have, the better your business plan (and your chance of success) will be. To give you some idea and get you started, here are some of the basics of forming a business plan (which can also contain sales plan information).

What a business plan should contain:

• Budget – your proposed budget and cash flow plan, usually divided into 3-year, 5-year and long-term strategies
  
• Business Goal – a brief description of the business
  
• Financing – financial needs of the business and potential sources of funds
  
• How will you reach and pique the interest of your customers?
  
• Marketing – your plans for promoting the business
  
• Qualifications – the skills and experience you have for this business
  
• What product or service will your business provide?
  
• What need will it fill?
  
• Where do you plan to obtain financing?
  
• How will your business be supported until it begins to generate a profit?
  
• Who are your potential customers, and what will make them choose you?

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