As your company grows, your planning grows. As you grow, if you add people to your team, then you want to bring them into the process, and make sure you’re on the same page. You bring in skills.
The business gets more complex as it grows. Cash flow gets more sophisticated. You start to manage the money and administration differently.
Or you have a business plan event. You want or need to present a complete formal business plan, or the elevator speech, or the pitch presentation, or summary memo.
That’s what this section is about. Grow it and dress it as needed.
Financial Forecast
By the time you have the basic numbers in your evolving plan, it’s not too hard to fill in some blanks and follow some standards to create a complete financial forecast. That’s the projected income (profit and loss), balance sheet, cash flow, business ratios, the whole thing. It will make you look good and feel good to have a complete financial forecast.
Supporting Information
This is about the classic market analysis, industry analysis, and business descriptions: your management team, company history, and so on. Earlier I said this should be separate from your plan until you’re going to use it. This is about how to do it when you need it.
Dress It As Needed
This is about the output. Having a plan, how to create an elevator speech, a pitch presentation, a summary memo, and of course the full formal business plan document.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
