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Why should an entrepreneur develop a business plan?

Do you dream of becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own business? While it’s an exciting prospect and you might be eager to get going with your ideas, before you dive in, it’s wise to build solid foundations that will set you up for success.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), only two-thirds of new businesses will last two years , which means one in three new ventures won’t make it. Ensuring you have a well-thought-out business plan in place is one of the best ways to make sure you give your business idea every chance of succeeding.

Let’s take a look at what a business plan is, why writing a business plan is important and why it’s a critical step in helping you realize your dreams of running your own business.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a detailed document that sets out a company’s purpose, vision, marketing objectives, financial plans, resource needs and how it will achieve its goals. It essentially works as a roadmap or a guide to how the company will function and can be a valuable tool for attracting potential investors too.

A business plan should be a living document and should develop as your business grows and plans change. You won’t simply create a business plan and then file it away, never to be seen again. Think of your business plan as a tool for continually monitoring and analyzing how well you’re achieving your business goals. Refer back to it when you’re making key decisions and adapt it depending on what’s working and not working.

Aside from being a useful business tool, making sure to build in regular reviews and updates to your business plan is great for potential investors too. You’ll show potential lenders, business partners or investors that you’re on top of the business and a sound investment.

What is a business plan for entrepreneurs?

Any business plan should broadly cover the same aspects, but as an entrepreneur, you’ll want to make sure you’re addressing the needs of potential funders and investors for your new venture.

Great entrepreneur business plans should cover the following:

• An executive summary that summarizes your idea and acts as a business pitch.
• A company description that describes your purpose and objectives.
• An outline of your market research and potential so that you and your investors understand your target customers and potential market size.
• Competitive analysis that identifies other competitors in the marketplace and what your unique selling point is.
• Your product or service description outlining the benefits and lifecycle of what you’re selling.
• A marketing strategy that sets out how you’ll launch, attract new business and grow your customer base.
• Your business financials, setting out your budget, financial plan and financial projections.
• The business structure you plan to adopt, the management team you’ll need and the staff you’ll need to employ.
• Realistic funding requests and how any financial partnerships will work – what’s in it for your investors?
• An appendix of official documents that your employees or potential investors might request, like deeds, permits, professional licenses, industry memberships, and key customer contracts.

Why a business plan is important for entrepreneurs

Although business plans can be time-consuming and at times tricky to navigate, they are worth the effort. It helps you as a business owner clearly define your goals, avoid costly mistakes, mitigate risks, define your target market and define a pathway to execute your vision. It also helps others – employees, strategic partners, lenders, or investors – understand your business and how they can add value and benefit from being a part of it.

A good indicator of whether a business plan is beneficial is always to ask others who’ve been there. A recent QuickBooks survey outlined that nearly 70% of business owners, with the benefit of experience and hindsight, recommended writing a business plan before starting out.

But more than the shared wisdom of those who’ve been there, the statistics also back up the benefits of business planning for entrepreneurs:

• Entrepreneurs who create business plans are more likely to create a viable new business.
• Companies with a business plan see growth 30% faster than those without one.
• 71% of fast-growing companies – meaning those with more than 92% growth in annual sales – have business plans.

When is the best time to write a business plan?

So you’ve got your idea for the beginning of an exciting hospitality career , and you know you want to write a business plan, but is there a right time to do it? Writing your plan before you start your business is of course essential, but statistically speaking, there is an optimal time to create a business plan.

According to Harvard Business Review , entrepreneurs who create a business plan within six to twelve months after deciding to start a business increase the probability of a viable venture by 8%. Business owners who spend around three months writing a business plan also increase their chances of having a viable venture by 12%. Any less time spent means there is usually not enough information or attention to detail, and any more time spent usually means the content loses its relevance.

Learn everything you need to know about starting your own hospitality business with Les Roches.

Business plans in entrepreneurship example

Entrepreneurs’ business plans can take different forms and should be tailored to the specific industry you hope to work in, as well as your business concept. To help, we’ve outlined some examples of how you might tackle different aspects of a business plan in diverse hospitality industries:

• Example of hotel business description:

Our mission is to revolutionize the boutique hotel market for budget travelers. Founded in 2022, we have over 20 years of international hotel management experience. Our objectives for the next two years are:

• Solidify our reputation as a customer-first, quality boutique hotel provider.
• Increase revenue from $100,000 in FY2022 to $500,000 in FY2024 based on performance in the last year.
• Example of restaurant market research and potential:

Our ideal customer is an affluent Boomer or Millennial with disposable income, typically aged 35 to 65.

Market research shows the potential for the restaurant industry internationally, in Georgia and Atlanta has never been better:

• According to the National Restaurant Association , the restaurant industry accounts for $800 billion in sales nationwide.
• According to the Georgia Restaurant Association , Georgia restaurants brought in a total of $19.6 billion in 2017.
• Almost 60% of the Georgia restaurant industry is in the Atlanta region.
• The serviceable available market (SAM) is estimated to be approximately $360 million.
• Example of events management service description:

Our events management service has three unique selling points:

• Throughout our careers, we have worked at high-end luxury events management companies for high-profile events and clients. This gives us unique access to world-class vendors.
• We’re the only management company with green, sustainable credentials certified by industry bodies.
• We have a 100% success rate and have been rated 5 out of 5 stars on Google by all of our clients to date.
• Example marketing strategy for a luxury brand:

Reputation is the top influencer in high-end luxury brand marketing. Our marketing plan and strategy will leverage, in order of importance:

• Word of mouth
• Social media
• Direct mail

Our social media strategy will involve using high-caliber brand ambassadors, as well as multiple accounts across Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube.

Whether you’re looking to start your entrepreneurial journey in sports, hotel management , events, hospitality consultancy , finance, or any other hospitality management business, putting in place a business plan is a critical first step. Make sure you have an effective business plan, addresses investor needs and is used as an ongoing business tool.

To set yourself up for business success it’s a good idea to invest in a hospitality degree that teaches you all the transferable skills you’ll need to run any business, including finance, leadership styles , problem-solving, and effective communication skills . The best schools also give you unique real-world experience so that you’ll learn the realities of putting business theory into practice — essential when it comes to creating your own business plan and running your own thriving business.

Study at world-class Les Roches to learn all the business essentials you’ll need.

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Importance of Business Plan to an Entrepreneur: Guide to Implement

Importance of Business Plan to an Entrepreneur – A business plan is an essential road map that entrepreneurs use to navigate the difficult process of starting and expanding a profitable firm. It performs as a strategic instrument for outlining the goals. Also, serve as a financial prediction of a company.

Importance of a Business Plan to an Entrepreneurs

A strong business plan’s importance cannot be overstated since it provides entrepreneurs with a comprehensive framework for making decisions, attracting investors , securing funding, and navigating the dynamic business world. This article will cover the significance of a business plan. Also, offer practical guidance on how entrepreneurs can utilize it to advance their ventures. Let’s discuss what are the importance of a business plan to an entrepreneur.

A Business Plan Provides a Roadmap for a Business

Picture you are going on a road trip to a dream destination. Before setting off, you would carefully plan your route, mark critical milestones, estimate travel time, and consider alternative paths in case of detours. Similarly, a business plan helps entrepreneurs chart their course by defining their vision, identifying target markets, assessing competition, setting financial goals, and mapping out strategies to overcome challenges.

Read – Can Anyone Be an Entrepreneur

Helps Entrepreneurs to Define Their Objectives

Imagine that an entrepreneur wishes to launch a sustainable clothing line. They would specify their goals through the business planning process, such as advancing ethical fashion, minimizing environmental effects, and making a good social impact. The business plan would outline these objectives and establish strategies and action steps to align the business activities with these goals.

Defined objectives in a business plan help entrepreneurs think critically, establish purpose, and guide decision-making. By setting SMART objectives, entrepreneurs can track performance, evaluate strategies, and make necessary adjustments to achieve desired outcomes. For example, an e-commerce business can increase online sales by 50% within a year, allowing regular monitoring, analysis, and adjustments to achieve its target.

Importance of Entrepreneurs to Identifying Their Target Market

When determining the target market for their goods or services, businesses place a lot of weight on their business plans. A business plan aids entrepreneurs in comprehending their potential clients, their demands, and their preferences by doing in-depth market research and analysis. This knowledge is essential for creating efficient marketing plans and modifying the company’s product offerings to satisfy the needs of the target market.

Let’s use the example of an entrepreneur who wants to launch a line of fitness clothes to demonstrate the significance of this. They would do market research as part of the process of writing a business plan to pinpoint their target consumers, such as fitness fanatics, gym visitors, or athletes. The business plan would include insightful information on the target market’s demographics, hobbies, and purchase patterns. With this knowledge, the business owner may carefully coordinate their product offering, price, and marketing messaging to appeal to the determined target demographic.

Entrepreneurs may focus on the appropriate audience, avoid one-size-fits-all techniques, and customize their products, services, and marketing strategies to their consumers’ needs by determining their target market. This aids in comprehending the competitive landscape, spotting gaps, and creating distinctive value propositions that appeal to the target market.

Helps Entrepreneurs to Assesses Competition

A business plan is a valuable tool that helps entrepreneurs assess their competition and gain a deeper understanding of the market landscape in which they operate. By following a structured approach, a business plan guides entrepreneurs on how to effectively analyze and evaluate their competitors.

A business plan helps entrepreneurs identify their key competitors by conducting research and gathering information about their products or services, pricing strategies, target market, marketing tactics, distribution channels, and customer reviews. This helps entrepreneurs understand their unique selling points and position themselves in the market. Entrepreneurs can compare their strengths and weaknesses to those of their competitors, identifying areas for differentiation. They also analyze market demand and customer preferences to identify gaps or underserved segments, tailoring their products or services to cater to these needs. A business plan guides entrepreneurs in positioning themselves against their competition, developing a unique value proposition that resonates with the target market. This roadmap helps entrepreneurs stay agile and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Importance to Evaluate Feasibility

Read – Benefits of Being an Entrepreneur

Importance of Entrepreneurs to Attract Investors

A business plan holds immense importance for entrepreneurs when it comes to attracting investors to support their venture. A well-crafted business plan serves as a persuasive tool that demonstrates the potential of the business and convinces investors to provide financial backing.

Helps Entrepreneurs to Secures Their Funding

A business plan is essential for assisting entrepreneurs in obtaining finance for their projects. It acts as a roadmap that details the company’s potential, financial estimates, and growth plans. Entrepreneurs should write a succinct executive summary, thorough business description, market and competitive analysis, financial projections, funding requirements, marketing and sales strategy, management team, risk assessment, and mitigation, and supporting documents to obtain funding through a business plan.

These elements help investors and lenders understand the business’s unique value proposition, target market, revenue potential, and funding requirements. By presenting realistic financial projections, well-supported financial projections, and a well-thought-out marketing and sales strategy, entrepreneurs can secure funding and attract investors and lenders.

Read – Common Myths about Entrepreneurs

Business Plan Guides Entrepreneurs to Resource Allocation

A business plan serves as a valuable tool that guides entrepreneurs in allocating their resources effectively. It provides a clear roadmap for resource allocation by outlining the key areas of the business that require attention and investment.

Importance to Facilitate Decision-Making

A business plan holds great importance for entrepreneurs in facilitating effective decision-making throughout their entrepreneurial journey. It provides a framework that helps entrepreneurs make informed decisions by considering various factors and evaluating potential outcomes.

To effectively use a business plan for decision-making, entrepreneurs should define goals and objectives, gather relevant information, evaluate alternatives, consider financial implications, analyze risks and mitigation strategies, seek input from experts, regularly review and update the plan, and trust intuition and vision. This balances analytical thinking with an entrepreneurial instinct, ensuring long-term sustainability and informed decisions.

Identifies Risks and Mitigation Strategies

To identify risks and develop mitigation strategies in a business plan, conduct a comprehensive risk assessment, analyze the impact and likelihood of risks, and develop specific strategies. Allocate resources, including financial, personnel, and time, to support the implementation of these strategies. Regularly monitor and update the business plan, seeking external expertise or consulting with industry professionals to gain insights. Communicate the identified risks and mitigation strategies clearly to stakeholders, including investors, lenders, and partners, to demonstrate professionalism and confidence in the business.

Importance of Entrepreneurs to Assists in Team Building

Read – Entrepreneurship Books for Students

Business Plan Supports Marketing and Sales Efforts

A business plan holds significant importance in supporting marketing and sales efforts for entrepreneurs. It provides a strategic roadmap for effectively promoting products or services and attracting customers. A business plan helps understand the target market, define the unique selling proposition (USP), develop marketing strategies, allocate budgets, monitor and measure results, and adapt and evolve.

Guides Product or Service Development

A business plan is essential for directing entrepreneurs as they create their goods or services. It offers a methodical way to determine consumer demands, specify product characteristics, and create a schedule for product development.

A business plan can guide product or service development by identifying customer needs, defining product or service features, setting development milestones, determining resource requirements, conducting testing and iteration, and integrating marketing and launch strategies. This helps entrepreneurs stay focused, track progress, and ensure the timely completion of activities. The plan should also outline the necessary funding, collaborations, and resources needed for the development process. By incorporating continuous improvement and iterative development, entrepreneurs can create a high-quality offering that meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Importance of Entrepreneurs to Manage Finances Effectively

A business plan holds great importance for entrepreneurs when it comes to managing finances effectively. It offers a thorough foundation for comprehending the financial facets of the firm and aids business owners in making defensible choices to maximize financial resources.

Business Plan Measures Progress and Success

A business plan holds significant importance for entrepreneurs in measuring their progress and success. They may compare their accomplishments to it as a standard to see if they are progressing in the correct path.

Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are in line with the goals of the business’s plan to successfully measure the growth and success of entrepreneurs. Regularly track and monitor KPIs to assess progress and make informed decisions. Conduct periodic reviews to evaluate progress against the plan, identify areas for adjustments or course corrections, and celebrate milestones and successes. Continuously update and evolve the business plan to reflect evolving goals, strategies, and market conditions.

Business Plan Importance to Enhance Credibility

To enhance entrepreneurs’ credibility, a well-presented business plan should present a professional image, conduct thorough market research, highlight the unique selling proposition, provide detailed financial projections, incorporate risk analysis and mitigation strategies, seek third-party validation, and regularly update and refine the plan. This shows credibility and commitment to continuous improvement, demonstrating the business’s ability to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing landscape.

Business Plan Provides a Basis for Partnerships

Read – Imitative Entrepreneurship

Importance of Entrepreneurs to Do Business Expansion

A business plan plays a crucial role for entrepreneurs when it comes to business expansion. It provides a strategic framework and guidance for expanding operations, entering new markets, or launching new products or services.

Guides Entrepreneurs to Succession Planning

A business plan is of significant importance when it comes to guiding entrepreneurs in succession planning, which involves preparing for the future transition of leadership and ownership within a business.

To effectively use a business plan for succession planning, assess current leadership and ownership, identify potential successors, define succession goals and timeline, develop a succession plan, communicate with stakeholders, and regularly review and update the plan. This process ensures alignment with the long-term vision and aspirations of the business and its stakeholders. Regularly assess the progress of potential successors and provide development opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge.

Importance to Increases Self-Awareness

Entrepreneurs should consider their objectives and values, perform a SWOT analysis, create reasonable company goals, ask for criticism and mentoring, constantly evaluate their success, and change to improve their self-awareness. By identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, entrepreneurs can create a clear vision and align their business plans with their values. By seeking feedback and mentoring, entrepreneurs can develop a stronger self-awareness and improve their business strategies.

An effective business plan is a crucial tool for entrepreneurs . It gives them a path to success. A successful business plan may help entrepreneurs define clear goals. Also, identify their target market, analyze the competition, determine whether their idea is feasible, draw in investors, manage funds, and track their progress. It functions as a manual to assist business owners make wise decisions, manage resources effectively, and adjust to changing conditions.

A solid business plan is crucial for entrepreneurs to navigate the complex commercial world, guiding their companies toward expansion, profitability, and long-term success. It should be evaluated and revised regularly to reflect company demands, serving as a compass for entrepreneurs.

FAQ about the Importance of Business Plans to Entrepreneurs

Why is a business plan important, when is the best time to write a business plan.

Typically, before launching a new firm. It is the ideal time to draft a business plan. Likewise, when a current firm is expected to undergo significant adjustments. Be sure you have a solid strategy in place before approaching investors, looking for finance. Especially, starting a business. Making a business plan, though, is never too late, and you can always change it as your company grows.

What is a Business Plan’s Main Objective?

A business plan’s main objective is to outline an organization’s goals, strategies, and financial predictions. It helps business owners communicate their vision, pinpoint their target market, assess the profitability of their endeavor, entice investors, and allocate their resources effectively. It serves as a compass for monitoring growth and making adjustments as needed.

What are the Typical Challenges of Writing a Business Plan?

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Reasons Why a Business Plan Is Important for Entrepreneurs

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated with new content that highlights the importance of proper business planning in 2021's economy.

What is a business plan? For people who are just starting out and forming their own company, whether it's a small freelance business at home or a new venture with an office and a starting pool of employees, there's a lot of importance to a business plan. It is a road map, an outline, a document that explains what your business is, what the goals of the enterprise are, and how exactly it will set about achieving those goals. So beyond being a document that identifies your business, what else does such a plan do for you?

1. Target Your Problems

2. Get Better Advice

The importance of a business plan to entrepreneurship can also be in the way it crystallizes just what kind of help you need. Merely telling a friend or potential business mentor you're aiming to start with ten employees, for example, is not an exceptionally detailed statement. Showing a business plan that outlines the exact duties, salaries, and expectations you have for employees gives far more information for people to provide advice about.

3. Organize Your Resources

A business plan is also essential as the primary guide for how you will structure and allocate your resources. It's here that you will see just how feasible it is to open an office, hire employees, and look at operating costs. The business plan can quickly show you whether you will be making a profit or running at a loss, and it shows how much those losses may be every month.

4. Approach Investors

For some, this may be critical. Investors want to know that you know what you’re doing. A business plan can often be the single most important document you can present to your investors that will provide the structure and confidence that they need to make decisions about funding and supporting your company.

5. Create Milestones

A business plan is also a plan of action. By laying out milestones, you now have targets to shoot for in the short, mid and long term. These goals also mean that you can "course correct" with greater agility if you have targets and realize that you may need to make some changes in order to meet them.

The importance of a business plan can be critical for entrepreneurs. Business may have some artistry to it, but real success comes from having a vision and being organized in the way you strive towards that vision. A business plan will help you immensely and in so many ways!

Template for a Business Plan for Entrepreneurs

To determine whether you have a solid business idea, you will need to do thorough research and create a business plan to see if your idea is feasible. Here is a simple business plan template that is broken into sections that include the key elements for what goes into each step of the process to help get you started.

Section 1: Executive Summary

Write an executive summary. The purpose of the executive summary is to give readers a high-level view of the company and the market before delving into the details. It appears first but is written last and provides a snapshot of your company explaining who you are, what you do, and why. The executive summary provides a short, concise, and optimistic overview of your business to capture the reader's attention and create a need to learn more.

Section 2: Business/Industry Overview

Describe your company and business model by summarizing what your company does, your mission statement, location details, business structure and business owner details, the marketplace needs that your business is trying to meet, and how your products/services meet those needs. Define your business's purpose (mission) and a statement based on your perception of the company's growth potential (vision). Include specific business goals and objectives. Provide background information about the company, including a brief history of the business and a list of fundamental company principles.

Section 3: Market Analysis and Competition

Analyze your market's conditions. The market will ultimately determine how successful your business will be. You will need to demonstrate that you have thoroughly analyzed your target market and have a high-enough demand for your products/services to make your business viable. The competitive analysis should include a comprehensive assessment of your competition and how your business will compete in the sector. Describe the industry within which your business will operate, identify and provide a general profile of your target market, and describe what share of the market you currently have or anticipate. Include both an analysis of research done by others, along with primary research you have collected yourself — whether via customer surveys, interviews, or other methods. Outline the strengths and weaknesses of potential competitors and strategies that will give you a competitive advantage.

Section 4: Sales and Marketing Plan

Design a marketing and sales strategy. Here is where you can plan out your comprehensive marketing and sales strategies to cover how you plan on selling your product. Before working on your marketing and sales plan, you will need to have your market analysis completely fleshed out and choose your target client personas, i.e., your ideal customers. Talk about the competitive landscape. Describe how you intend to entice customers to buy your products or services, including advertising and promotion, sales and distribution, pricing strategy, and post-sales support.

Section 5: Ownership and Management Plan

Outline all operations and management roles. This section describes the ownership, legal structure, and your business's management and staffing requirements. Use this section to outline your company's unique organizational and management structure. Describe how your company is organized, including its legal structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation); identify any special licenses or permits your business operates with; provide a brief bio of key managers within your company; include an organization chart.

Section 6: Operating Plan

The operating plan outlines your business's physical requirements, such as office, warehouse, retail space, equipment, inventory and supplies, and labor. For a one-person, home-based consulting firm, the operating plan may be short and straightforward. However, for businesses such as restaurants or manufacturers that require custom facilities, supply chains, multiple employees, and specialized equipment, the operating plan may need to be very detailed.

Section 7: Financial Plan

This section is the most crucial part of the business plan, especially if you need debt financing or want to attract investors. The financial plan must demonstrate your business' growth and profitability potential. To do this, you will need to provide projected income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets. For new businesses, these are forecasts. A golden rule of thumb is to underestimate revenues and overestimate expenses. Outline your financial model, including your business costs, revenue projections, and a funding request if you pitch to investors. Your start-up cost refers to the resources you will need to get your business up and running — and an estimate of how much each of those resources will cost.

Section 8: Appendices and Exhibits

Summarize the above with an appendix. The appendices and exhibits section should contain any detailed information needed to support other areas of the plan, including company brochures, resumes of key employees, a list of business equipment, copies of press articles and advertisements, pictures of your business location and products, any applicable information about your industry or products, key business agreements such as lease, and contracts.

Who Needs a Business Plan?

Start-up Businesses : The most classic business planning scenario is for a start-up, for which the plan helps the founders break down uncertainty into meaningful pieces, like the sales projection, expense budget, milestones, and tasks. When you realize you do not know how much money you need or when you need it without first laying out projected sales, costs, expenses, and payment timing, the need becomes apparent. And that is for all start-ups, whether they need to convince investors, banks, or family and friends to part with their money and fund the new venture. Existing Businesses : Established businesses use business plans to manage and steer their business strategies to address changes in their markets and take advantage of new opportunities. They often use plans to reinforce strategy, establish metrics, track results, manage responsibilities and goals, plan and manage critical resources such as cash flow, and set regular review and revision schedules. Business plans can be a powerful driver of growth for existing businesses.

Finding the Right Plan for You

Considering that business plans serve diverse purposes, it is no surprise that they come in various forms. But before you even start writing your business plan, you need to think about who the audience is and your plan's goals. While there are standard components found in almost every business plan, such as sales forecasts and marketing strategy, business plan formats can differ depending on the audience and business type. For example, if you are building a biotech firm plan, your plan will detail government approval processes. If you are writing a restaurant plan, details about location and renovations might be critical factors. The language you would use in the biotech firm's business plan would be much more technical than the language you would use in the restaurant plan. Plans can also differ significantly in length, detail, and presentation. Those that never leave the office and are used only for internal strategic planning and management may often use more casual language and might not have much visual polish. On the other end of the spectrum, a plan destined for a top venture capitalist's desk will have a high polish and focus on the business' high-growth aspects and the experienced team to deliver desirable results.

Elements of a Business Plan

While the plans may vary by type, certain key elements appear in virtually all business plans. These components include the review schedule, strategy summary, milestones, responsibilities, metrics (numerical goals that can be tracked), and basic projections. The projections include sales, costs, expenses, and cash flow. These core elements grow organically for the actual purpose needed for the business.

Developing a High Power Business Plan

The business plan development process described here can provide the guidance entrepreneurs require for developing a business plan best suited for their needs; a high power business plan.

The Stages of Development

There are six stages involved in developing a high-power business plan.

Essential Initial Research

This stage requires you to analyze the environment in which you anticipate operating at each of the societal, market, industry, and firm levels of analysis. In this planning stage, the essential initial research is a necessary first step for better understanding the trends that affect their business and their decisions to lay the groundwork for and improve their potential for success.

Business Model

Inherent to any business plan is a description of the entrepreneur's chosen business model that will best ensure success. Based upon your essential initial research of the setting in which you anticipate starting your business (your analysis from stage one), you should determine how each element of your business model might fit together to improve the potential success of your business venture. These elements include their revenue streams, cost structure, customer segments, value propositions, key activities, and key partners.

Initial Business Plan Draft

This stage involves taking the knowledge and ideas developed during the first two stages and integrating them into a business plan format. A suggested approach is to create a complete draft of the business plan with all the sections, including the front part with the business description, values, vision, mission, value proposition statement, a preliminary set of goals, table of contents, and lists of tables and figures set up using the software features enabling their automatic generation. Writing all the operations, human resources, marketing, and financial plans as part of the first draft ensures that all these necessary parts can be appropriately integrated. The business plan should tell the story of a planned business start-up in two ways: using primarily words, along with charts and graphs in the operations, human resources, and marketing plans, and through the financial plan. Both approaches must tell the same story.

Making Business Plan Realistic

The first draft of a business plan will seldom be realistic. As you write the plan, it will naturally change as new information is gathered. Another factor that commonly renders the first draft unrealistic is the difficulty in ensuring that the written section—in the front part of the plan and the operations, human resources, and marketing plans—tells the same story as the financial part does. This working stage involves making the necessary adjustments to the plan to make it as realistic as possible.

Making Plan Appeal to Stakeholders and Desirable to the Entrepreneur

A business plan can be realistic without appealing to potential investors or other external stakeholders, such as suppliers, employees, and needed business partners. It may also be realistic and possibly appealing to stakeholders without necessarily being desirable to the entrepreneur. During this stage, try to keep it as realistic as possible when adjusting the plan to appeal to potential investors and yourself.

Finishing the Business Plan

The final stage involves putting all the essential finishing touches on the business plan so it will present well to potential investors and alike. This step involves ensuring that the math and links between the written and financial sections are accurate. It also involves ensuring that all the needed corrections are made to the formatting, spelling, and grammar. The ultimate set of goals should be written to appeal to targeted readers and reflect what the business plan specifies. An executive summary should be written and included as the final step.

FAQs about Business Plans

What are the 4 types of business plans.

1. Mini-plan : A mini-plan may comprise one to 10 pages and include at least cursory attention to such critical matters as business concepts, financing needs, marketing plans, and financial statements, especially cash flow, balance sheet, and income projections. It is a great way to quickly test a business concept or measure the interest of a potential partner or minor investor. It could also serve as a valuable prelude to a full-length plan later on.

2. Working Plan : A working plan is a tool to operate your business. It should be lengthy in detail but may be short on presentation. As with a mini-plan, you can probably afford a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality when preparing a working plan.

3. Presentation Plan : If you take a working plan, with its low stress on cosmetic appeal and impression, and twist the lever to boost the amount of attention paid to its visual appearance, you will end up with a presentation plan. This plan is suitable for showing to financiers, investors, stakeholders, and others outside the company.

4. Electronic Plan : Most business plans are composed on a computer, then printed out and presented in hard copy. However, more and more business information transferred between parties only on paper can now be sent electronically, so you may find it convenient to have an electronic version of your plan available. An electronic plan can be useful for presentations to groups using a computer-driven overhead projector, for instance, or for satisfying the demands of discriminating investors who want to delve deeply into the underpinnings of complex spreadsheets.

What are the 3 main purposes of a business plan?

1. Establish a business focus : The primary purpose of a business plan is to establish your plans for your business's future. These plans should include goals and milestones alongside detailed steps on how the business will reach each step. Creating a roadmap to your goals will help determine your business focus and pursue growth.

2. Secure funding : One of the first things private investors, banks, and other lenders look for before investing in your business is a well-researched business plan. Investors and stakeholders want to know how you operate your business, revenue and expense projections, and how they will receive a return on their investment.

3. Attract executives : As your business grows, you will likely need to add executives to your team. The business plan helps you attract executive talent and determine whether they are a good fit for your company.

What are the 5 elements of a business plan?

1. Business concept : Describes the business, its products/services, and the market it will serve. It should point out exactly what will be sold, to whom, and why your business will hold a competitive advantage.

2. Financial features : Highlights the important financial points of the company, including sales, cash flows, profits, and return on investment.

3. Financial requirements : Clearly state the capital needed to start the business and expand. It should detail how capital will be used and the equity that will be provided for funding. If the loan for initial capital is based on security instead of equity, also specify the source of collateral.

4. Current business position : Furnishes relevant information about the business, its legal form of operation, the principal owners, when it was formed, and key personnel.

5. Major achievements : Details of any developments within the company essential to the business's success. Major achievements include patents, prototypes, location of a facility, any binding contracts that need to be in place for product development, or any test marketing results.

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About The Author

Daniel plays a fundamental role in WSI’s global franchise expansion and development. He has since overseen WSI’s franchise development process, and he is personally associated with the recruitment of 600+ global franchisees.

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• Marketing and Sales Strategy
• 11 July, 2022

10 Steps to Create a Complete Sales and Marketing Business Plan [Templates included]

Jump to the end of the post to get access to our free sales and marketing business plan templates.

Turning an idea into a functional business requires laser-sharp focus. You must take care of development, marketing, sales, customer success, and whatnot. 

While most entrepreneurs start with some form of a plan, they often forget about it soon after. 

Blame it on changing dynamics, trial and error to find a product-market fit, or blatant ignorance. But overlooking the planning process is a sure shot reason for failure — as the common saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail.

An essential part of this document is the sales and marketing segment. The sales and marketing plan outlines everything you need to do to promote your products and generate revenue for your business. 

Why do you need a sales and marketing plan? 

Having a revolutionary product that solves a genuine problem is great. But it won’t mean anything if people don’t know about you. 

A sales and marketing plan helps you get discovered, structure your activities, and move forward with your growth goals. 

It’s more or less like a roadmap about what you should do to make things work in your favor. 

Your sales and marketing plan will help you: 

• Identify the bridge between where you are today and where you want to reach your business goals. 
• Get much-needed clarity and avoid conflicts and confusion in case of any disruptions.
• Gain and document insights about your target audience, industry, trends, costs, etc. 
• Justify your business model in front of investors and lenders in case you need to raise funds.
• Stay focused on a north star metric, improvise growth tactics and achieve harmony between various growth activities. 
• Promote sales and marketing alignment.

Your sales and marketing plan would also help you avoid distractions and save time and money lost. 

And you know how easy it is to lose direction and get distracted when starting or running a startup. Documenting everything as a plan will help avoid confusion and add clarity to your everyday affairs and long-term mission. 

However, different companies need different plans based on the stage of operations and their unique growth goals. 

A clear marketing and sales plan promotes alignment between marketing and sales departments at every stage . This reduces resource waste and creates fewer “blame-game ” occasions in your meetups. 

What to include in the marketing & sales plan? 

Planning is a subjective activity. 

You’d receive several different answers if you read, talk to, and consult multiple experts on what to include in your marketing and sales plan. 

So, how should you decide which elements to include in your marketing/sales plan? 

Let’s take a step back and understand the “why” of planning. 

You need a plan so you don’t get confused and can keep walking towards your goal.

Your plan should: 

• Serve as a roadmap for everything related to sales and marketing for the first few months if you’re just starting. 
• Outline and articulate the core strategies you’ll experiment with, the desired outcome, and the KPIs to measure performance. 
• Set realistic KPIs, outcomes, and objectives based on market understanding, competition, funding requirements, and your target audience’s pain points. 

Marketing plan for your startup: The what and why

In an ideal world, every penny you spend in marketing should enhance your visibility, take you closer to your audience,  and increase your conversion rates. 

But in reality, it takes a lot of effort, time, and investment to make it happen. 

A marketing plan helps you navigate through the tricky maze called marketing without getting lost in the process. 

Basically, you build a marketing plan to gain enlightenment about how you’ll promote and stay relevant to your audience. 

You do it beforehand so that when things get tricky, you have a directional beacon to guide you.  

Creating any plan should start with an understanding of the purpose. The same applies to marketing, too. Try to find the reason behind marketing your product – why are you working towards your goal. 

Knowing your why would help you gain clarity – an essential element for the success of any activity on the planet. Before you begin, you should try to find answers to the following questions: 

• Why are you making the marketing plan?
• What do you want to accomplish with the marketing?
• What will be the value proposition? 
• What are the goals that we want to achieve?

These answers will allow you to think better and prepare for strategizing your plan with a better perspective. 

Also, while at it, remember that your marketing plan is not a rigid document etched in stone. Instead, it’s a result of an iterative process that depends on five fundamental aspects: 

1. Product: What are you marketing? 

The product section should explain what you are selling exactly. 

• What do you sell? 
• How is your offering different from your competitors?
• What are the benefits your potential customers would derive from your offerings? 
• What is your core USP? 

Answering these questions would help you craft a great positioning statement and marketing message for your marketing campaigns. 

2. Place: Where are you available? 

This section should outline where you will sell or market your products. How will you get customers to reach out to buy your product or service? 

Though this will depend on the nature of business — online or offline, manufacturing or services, answers to the following questions would help you gain clarity: 

• Where will you be available for your customers? 
• Which distribution channels would you use to be more accessible to customers? 
• What percentage of sales/conversions do you expect from different distribution/marketing channels? 

3. Price: How much will you charge? 

This is an essential part of your planning process. Your pricing decisions would decide how you will generate revenue for your startup . 

Your pricing decision should be based on market analysis, competition, value offering, buying behavior, etc. 

• What will be the pricing model you’ll adopt to generate revenue? 
• What is the most favorable price point that your customers are ready to pay for your offering? 
• Will you make any profit/loss at this price point? 
• How soon can you break even based on your pricing strategy? 

4. Promotion: How will you promote your offering? 

You can have the best product, but no one would care if you’re not promoting it. 

Moreover, one of the primary reasons to create a marketing plan is to help you promote your offering. 

• Who is your target audience? 
• How will your reach your target audience? 
• What strategies will you adopt to convert your audience into customers? 
• Which channels of promotions will you use to promote your offerings? 
• How much will you spend on promotions and marketing? 
• What will be your team structure for the next quarter, year, and long term?
• How will you track the marketing effectiveness? 

5. People: Who will do the marketing?  

While most marketing plans you see out there would cover the traditional 4Ps of marketing, often the fifth P, people, is ignored. 

And you know there’s no growth or promotion without your team – your people. 

This aspect should help you understand your current capabilities and the resources needed in your team. Think about how you will find them, their responsibilities, and where they stand in the big picture. 

• Who will do the marketing for you? 
• What do you look for in a human resource?
• At what point do you start expanding the team? 
• Who are you going to hire first?
• How do you plan to hire for marketing? 
• What will be the core responsibilities and KPIs for your team? 
• How will you set KPIs/OKRs and analyze your team’s performance? 

Sales plan for your startup: The what and the why

Your sales plan would help you generate revenues from your marketing efforts by completing the journey from generating leads to turning them into customers. 

A sales plan defines your sales goals, the strategies you’d bet on, your desired results, your challenges, the solutions you have for them, and the structure (people, budget, process, and tools) you need.

Your sales plan would cover everything you need to register sales and generate revenue for your business. 

A sales plan is created to: 

• Provide a strategic direction to your sales team
• Define the core objectives and goals in terms of sales 
• Outline roles and responsibilities
• Analyze and measure your wins in terms of sales. 

These reasons help you succeed more than experimental businesses that beat around the bush while trying to make things work in a world where everyone’s selling something. To ensure your sales plan is effective, it should include: 

1. Sales goals — What do you want to achieve? 

Like any other activity in the world, your sales planning process should also revolve around the end goals for sales

Saying that you want more customers is a generic goal that doesn’t have any tangible metrics attached. Moreover, saying that you wish for more sales is too broad a goal that would involve outlining several action steps. 

So, it’s always better to have a SMART goal and break it down into tangible, measurable, and KPI-driven objectives. You can say that you want to: 

• Nurture 10% more MQLs into SQLs, and ultimately, customers.
• Reduce your churn rates by 5% before the end of Q1.
• Expand your sales team with 3 people to nurture and convert leads faster — reduce time to conversion by 5 days.
• Increase the customer lifetime value through upsells or cross-sells by $200.
• Expand your sales activities into new territories or regions.
• Optimize your pricing strategy to improve your conversion rates by 8% for new accounts.

2. Tactics — The process and activities

This segment will include the specific tactics, processes, and activities you’ll use to generate revenue for your business . 

A solid understanding of your target audience, goals, and capabilities would help you discover exciting and profitable tactics for your industry. 

Try to pick and choose the tactics in line with your ideal customer profile. You can conduct a survey and get insights from your marketing team to align your sales efforts accordingly. 

An aligned sales and marketing team will help you accelerate sales enablement and strike gold with more leads, higher conversions, and better results. 

Interested in exploring new sales tactics? Read this blog on popular sales strategies and techniques for your business. 

3. Timelines — The time you’ll need to make things happen

A plan without a timeline is just a wish. You must link your goals, tactics, and sales strategies with realistic deadlines. This will ensure that everyone’s motivated to work towards your goals. 

Keep all the stakeholders in the loop by developing a realistic growth goal and attaching a practical timeline to it. 

While you’re at it, don’t forget to assign one person who’ll be responsible for ensuring compliance. 

This tactic is known differently in business circles. 

Some call it a key Point of Contact (POC) for an activity; others call this person a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI). 

Another popular approach includes assigning OKR (Objective and Key Results) to an individual in a team who owns up the responsibility of making this happen. 

Whatever you may do, make sure you are realistic, practical, and sensible in creating achievable deadlines for your sales teams. 

Failure to do so would lead to dissatisfaction among sales team members, ultimately harming your bottom line. 

4. KPIs — the metrics you’ll track to determine success 

KPIs will help you understand if your sales tactics align with your revenue generation goals. These metrics help enhance sales teams’ performance, optimize the sales funnels, and improve conversion rate. 

If you want a solid sales plan, you need to tie everyone (and everything) to a tangible sales metric. 

You also need to ensure proper sales and marketing alignment so that all your marketing spends get attributed to some kind of improvement in KPIs. 

Here are some questions and corresponding KPIs you can think of adding to your sales plan: 

If you track these KPIs well, you’ll understand the challenges better, predict future problems, and get better at generating revenues from your sales activities. 

Moreover, the answers you gather and the KPIs would help you keep an eye on the overall efficiency of the sales process and build a strong sales team. 

Apart from these standard inclusions to your sales plan, you can also add the following information: 

• Team structure: How big your sales team should be, and what will be the responsibility (job role and KPIs) of each member of the team? 
• Resources/tools required : What tools and resources do you need to execute the sales tactics and strategies you’ve planned? 
• Current market trends: How is the present market regarding customer interest in your product, competition landscape, and overall sentiment in your industry? 

Rethinking the traditional plan for digital businesses, service companies, and SaaS startups 

The traditional ways of creating a sales and marketing plan are geared more toward the product economy. 

Today, most businesses don’t even have a physical “product”.

Distribution and conversion cycles are not so simple, too.

The sales and marketing ecosystem has transitioned from a single-sales mindset to a culture of lead nurturing , upsells/cross-sells, and experiences to enhance the customer’s lifetime value. 

Even users don’t look at companies, products, and solutions like they used to anymore. 

Don’t you think the old ways should be reimagined? 

In his book, Subscribed, Tien Tzuo mentions how the world economy is transitioning to a digital era powered by subscription-based startups and digital businesses.

Naturally, with changing consumer mindset, the traditional business planning models (including sales and marketing plans) should change, too. 

There has been a hot debate about reimagining marketing and sales operations for the future — digital businesses, SaaS products, and the subscription economy. 

PADRE is a promising framework with all the elements of a traditional business plan, reimagined for the modern digital economy. 

The PADRE framework keeps the customer at the heart of everything and divides all activities (including sales and marketing) into eight subsets: 

• Position: How will you create awareness, turn it into demand for your product and build a pipeline of leads? 
• Acquire: What is your ICPs buyer’s journey? How will you address their pain points and turn them into customers? 
• Deploy : How will you onboard , service, and delight your customers as efficiently as possible so they can use your product, service, or SaaS quickly?   
• Run:  How will you ensure that your customers get what they expect (and deserve) from your product or service? 
• Expand: How will you grow your company through retention, growth, and customer advocacy? 
• Product: How will you evolve your product, service, or offering and manage everything? 
• People:   How will you recruit, onboard, train, and retain the best talent to serve your customers? 
• Money: Where and how will you fund and fulfill your need for running and growing your business most efficiently? 

If you look at the PADRE model carefully, it has almost all the elements discussed above for sales and marketing plans, just in a different way. This differentiation makes more sense for a dynamic digital business than the traditional sales and marketing business plan. 

You can take ideas from the PADRE model to create your version of a dynamic business plan based on your unique business idea. 

10 steps to create a solid sales and marketing plan

Regardless of your approach to creating a business plan, you will have to gather data, make some important decisions, and collate everything together. 

Remember, your sales and marketing plan is a living document that should be revisited repeatedly for optimization. 

Here are the steps you can take to create an actionable plan based on the insights shared above: 

Step 1: Gather data based on company insights and external trends

“Always measure the depth of the pool you’re diving in!” 

Before you start planning your sales and marketing observing and documenting macro-level industry trends is a must. It will give you an understanding and insight into what to expect in the future. 

You can use industry insight to strengthen your assumptions, understand the market, add clarity to your sales and marketing mix, and refine your plan. 

Always look for industry insights around sales and marketing trends — what worked in the past, how things are changing, and what future trends will drive growth. While industry trends are not a full-proof solution, it gives you a direction to provide a concrete shape to your plans. 

Use industry trends to add “meat” to your hypothesis, and see if you can get data about: 

• Consumer behavior and psychology that drives sales. Use the Facebook Ads manager audience tool to find your audience’s topics of interest and behavior trends.
• Psychographic analysis of your target audience.
• Marketing effectiveness of different channels. You can use platforms like Similarweb to peak into the traffic sources of your competitors and get an estimated idea of the volume.
• Sales trends of lateral and complimenting businesses. 
• Competitor analysis, including their past financial performance and effectiveness in generating revenue. 

Step 2: Create your ideal customer profile (ICP) 

As a business owner, you must know everything about your target audience. 

Without a deep understanding of your ICP, you could end up like a door-to-door salesman trying to sell but end up annoying everyone. 

This information helps you take the necessary steps to add context and relevance to your marketing and sales plan. 

You should break up your ideal customer persona (ICP) into several sections covering all aspects of your persona’s — the demographic profile, what they think, believe, and trust in, their needs, motivations, drives, and psychographic profile. 

Sample questions for building an Ideal Customer Profile

Knowing your audience allows you to talk the way they want to be talked to. Also, you get to understand what makes them buy, their problems and pain points, and where they spend most of their time. All this is crucial for creating an effective marketing strategy. 

You can even use this knowledge to segment your audience personas and personalize your marketing campaigns — a powerful tactic to market your brand in 2022. 

Step 3: Assess your current situation 

Once you’ve gathered data and foresight, start the self-introspection process. 

Ask yourself where you stand in your startup journey. 

✓ How is your business performing right now? 

✓ Are you performing according to your revenue estimates and KPIs? 

✓ Do your business and revenue generation efforts align with market and industry trends? Do they need to align?

✓ Are you marketing and selling where your customers are looking for options? 

✓ What are your strengths and weaknesses? 

✓ What challenges are you facing in getting your business to the next level? 

✓ Is there any better way of doing things than you do now? 

All these questions will give you ideas to start the actual planning process. Moreover, you’d understand if whatever you did was even worth it. 

Step 4: Define metric-driven objectives and goals

Have you ever traveled without a destination? 

Well, maybe you have. But that’s not how you run a business. You need to have an exact destination in mind — where you’re headed to. 

That’s why having an objective and goal is essential for making a sales and marketing plan. Tangible and realistic goal-setting should be the #1 priority of anyone trying to succeed as an entrepreneur. 

Your goals will will allow you to track if you’re making a real impact on your business. Plus, having a metric-driven goal gives you an understanding of what you need to do for success. 

Your goals and objectives should be tied to your business vision and mission.

Often, we see there’s a misalignment between sales and marketing objectives. That leads to confusion and, thus, poor performance. Hence setting a SMART goal is critical for ensuring clarity.

SMART objectives for your sales and marketing plans should be: 

• Specific: The goal is clearly defined, and everyone within your team understands the goal and its importance. 
• Measurable: The goal/objective should be tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) and visibly measurable.
•  Achievable: Being realistic is an important factor in setting an attainable goal. Look at your team’s ability, budget, and current situation to ensure the goal is within your limits. Setting the bar too high will only lead to disappointment and wasted time and effort. 
• Relevant: Your objectives should be aligned with your business vision and mission. If your marketing and sales aren’t aligned to your bigger picture, it will lead to losses (and potential conflicts). 
• Time-bound: Any objective you define must have a clear timeline, which means there should be a start and end date. Without that, your goal is just a wish. 

Step 5: Determine metrics for success (KPIs) 

You know you need to measure your goals and objectives in real-time. 

That would ensure everything’s on track and help you red flag any deviations from your desired path. 

But setting a measurable KPI for any business is a tricky business in itself. Especially when there’s a lot to plan in sales and marketing, and every business is different. 

KPI or key performance indicators should be planned based on industry best practices, prevailing marketing trends, and taking stakeholders in confidence. 

You can align standard industry KPIs with your business or marketing/sales goals to create your version of KPIs that will objectify your success figures. 

Standard Goals and KPIs you should track

Always ensure that each KPI you track links to the bigger picture — where and how it contributes to your business’s mission and mission. This will add relevance to your sales and marketing plans giving you more accurate insights for the future periods.

Step 6: Build a forecasting model

Forecasting is an activity that predicts what your sales and marketing efforts will lead to on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. 

Creating a sales or marketing forecast involves taking the opinions of industry leaders, financial consultants, CPAs, marketers, sales managers, and your team members. It also will involve studying and analyzing the insights you gathered in step one.

A forecast will help you make better hiring decisions, budget for your expansion in a better way, and linearly predict your revenues. You can also add dynamic variables to the forecasts to analyze how your KPIs would perform under real-life situations. 

Creating a forecasting and budgeting model for your sales and marketing team is highly essential to keep things in check. However, it would be best if you didn’t fall into the lure of creating forecasts for more extended periods as things are changing quite rapidly, especially after COVID-19. 

Better to create a forecast for a quarter, review it based on actual expenses and performance, and keep iterating. You can also take advantage of popular forecasting tools for more accurate models. 

Step 7: Identify gaps within your assumptions 

By this step, you’d have a clear idea about your capabilities, the goals you want to achieve, the industry trends and the forecasts for the future.

This will give you an opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of your sales and marketing activities in terms of your revenue growth. 

You can use this information to plug in gaps because of your assumptions and biases, analyze what’s required and the challenges you’d face to make things happen. 

Identifying gaps between your existing situation and your goals based on forecasts would help you make informed decisions. 

You can choose to hire more people in sales and marketing, increase your budget, try new marketing tactics, or even start an entirely different lead generation and nurturing channel to achieve your goals. 

Step 8: Create a team structure and involve stakeholders. 

The most important part of the planning process is to understand your capabilities. If you’ve assessed your current scenario correctly, you’ll have a clear picture of who’s responsible for growth, marketing, sales, etc. 

And if you’re just starting, this is a great time to start planning a structure for your marketing and sales team, starting with: 

• How many people will be needed for each team? 
• Who will be responsible for specific KPIs?
• What will be the responsibilities of each member of the team? 
• How will teams communicate with each other and ensure alignment between efforts? 
• How will the performance be measured? 
• What are the challenges marketing and sales teams face in your company (or industry)? 
• How will expansion needs be identified?  

Remember, if you’re just starting to build a team and have existing team members, take them in confidence and involve every stakeholder before creating a structure.

The more aligned and closely knit your sales and marketing, the faster you achieve your growth goals. 

• Build a Strong B2B Marketing Organization Structure for Modern Teams
• Sales Operations Responsibilities: Roles, duties, and obstacles
• Revenue Operations Roles: Who do you need to build a RevOp team?

Step 9: Outline action items 

By this step, you’re almost done with the planning. You just need to answer two more questions:

• What do you need to do to achieve your goals? 
• How will you do what you need to do? 

This means outlining action steps, developing marketing and sales tactics, and finalizing the cogs required to run your marketing/sales engine. 

You can start by putting together a rough draft of all the insights you’ve gathered, the available resources, the budget, best industry practices, trends, and growth projections. This will give you foresight into what can work in your favour. 

Build a list of action steps that you need to take to move in the direction of your goals. 

Step 10: Identify and implement tools and systems

Okay! This is the last step of the planning process. After this, you will be left with the exact steps you need to take daily to achieve your KPIs. 

But don’t take this step lightly. Think of this as the building blocks of a bridge that would take you from “here” to “there”. 

You’ll need to make a list of tools, systems, and solutions you’d need to make things happen. 

For example, if you’ve concluded that you need to set up a lead nurture campaign , you need a tool or platform that makes that happen. 

You’ll need to evaluate the available options and pick a tool that aligns with your goals and budget. 

While picking up any tool, make sure that it should: 

• Save time, money, or effort for your marketing and sales team members.
• Have prominent success stories and case studies that closely relate to your goals, tactics, and life stage.
• Is reliable and doesn’t use any under-the-hood tactics to make things happen. 
• Has an active developer and customer success team.
• Is supported by a thriving public community of happy users. 

Make sure that whatever tech stack you’re finalizing has a solid mechanism to track success and your KPIs. 

This will help you ascertain success quicker. Also, communicate with all the stakeholders about the tools and success metrics. 

Ready-to-use sales and marketing plan templates

To make things easy for you, we have prepared comprehensive templates for both your sales and marketing plans. To download the template click on the links below and duplicate the document. Then, fill in the blanks.

Download the Marketing Plan Template

Download the Sales Plan Template

Your sales and marketing plan is a living document. Keep revisiting! 

If you’ve come this far with your planning, you should have a functional plan for supercharging your marketing and sales operations in the coming weeks and months.. 

But remember, sales and marketing planning isn’t a one-time activity. Keep optimizing your plans with fresh insights to stay on track with changing dynamics. And don’t forget to track the right metrics and KPIs.

A marketing automation platform like Encharge can help you to execute your marketing and sales plans. Don’t believe us. Check the success stories to see how others businesses are amping up their marketing and sales game now.

Meet your new marketing automation platform

“encharge helped us visually redesign our onboarding flow resulting in a 10% increase in our trial activation rate .", 21 inbound marketing tools to turn traffic into revenue fast.

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What is a marketing plan and why is it important?

Before you spend a cent on marketing, you first have to understand the market and your customers.

Companies of all sizes have one thing in common: They all began as small businesses.  Starting small  is the corner for those just getting off the ground. Learn about how to make that first hire, deal with all things administrative, and set yourself up for success.

A marketing plan is a blueprint for launching new products, understanding the intricacies of your market, growing your audience, and promoting your company to customers who want what you’re selling. 

With a well-designed marketing plan, you can design more effective promotions and impactful campaigns, reach your customers with targeted advertising, and track your business success with analytics. Without one, you might as well throw your marketing budget down a well and hope for the best. 

If you’ve been tasked with creating a marketing plan for your company, there are some basic elements to keep in mind. Though every marketing plan will reflect the specific business and industry it’s been created for, most share a few common features and can be boiled down to just one or two simple objectives. In this article, we’ll outline some of the basic elements of a marketing plan and how to write one.

When you’re ready to put the plan into action, WeWork All Access and WeWork On Demand are there to support you with hundreds of dedicated workspaces around the world, so you can seamlessly collaborate on marketing strategy in a professional and stylish office space.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a document outlining a company’s future marketing efforts and goals. It can be as short as a single page or made up of many smaller campaign plans from different marketing teams. 

However large and complex those plans are, the idea remains the same: A marketing plan is created to organize, execute, and eventually measure the success of a business’s marketing strategy .

Types of marketing plans

Marketing plans come in as many different shapes and sizes as there are different kinds of business, but they can be broadly placed into one (or more) of a few different categories. Here are some of the most common you’ll encounter.

• Annual marketing plans. These types of marketing plans arrange campaigns according to when they’re expected to launch, rather than the content of the campaigns themselves. It’s a useful way to get an overview of a marketing strategy for the upcoming year, and to measure success continuously as time passes.
• Content marketing plans. This is a more content-focused way of approaching a marketing strategy, and highlights the specific channels and audiences you want to reach. Content marketing plans can look very similar to annual marketing plans, but are less concerned with the “when” and more with the “what” and the “how.”
• Product launch plans. Launching a new product or service requires a specific kind of marketing plan. The main goal is to successfully introduce the new product to the market. But these plans also include the strategies, tactics, and content needed in the buildup to the launch itself.
• Social media marketing plans. Social media channels are such a vital part of a company’s marketing goals that it’s often wise to create a separate social media marketing plan dedicated to creating advertising and promotional content on these platforms.

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

A marketing plan lays out your business strategy for acquiring new customers and selling more products and services. But it also serves as a way of analyzing exactly how successful your marketing efforts have been so far. Knowing this information helps steer ongoing campaigns in the right direction, aligns your marketing with your company’s values, and ensures that future campaigns are better targeted and more effective.

To understand why a marketing plan is important, just consider what would happen without one. Your advertising budget would be spent based entirely on guesswork about where your potential customers can be found and what they’re looking for. You’d have no idea which of your campaigns contributed to increased sales figures. And you’d have no baselines from which to build more effective campaigns in the future.

How to create a marketing plan

Elements of a marketing plan.

The basic building blocks of any good marketing plan are focused on objectives, research, competitors, and content. These objectives should be clearly defined and easily measurable goals —ideally no more than two or three—and informed by as much consumer research as you can reasonably gather.

Whether your goal is increasing your Instagram followers, driving traffic to your site, or attracting more cheese fans to your cheese store, set a specific target by which to monitor the performance of any campaign. As you develop your marketing plan and learn what’s effective and what’s not, you can set more accurate targets and begin to hone in on the strategies that really work for your company.

A marketing plan should also describe your brand’s biggest competitors and the campaigns they’re running, as well as identify any openings in the market that would allow your company to grab market share. This is where SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis comes into its own, enabling a company to shape its marketing plan around its own strengths and weaknesses.

Lastly, a marketing plan should outline the content of each campaign. Will your pre-roll video content use animation or live actors? Can you offer discounts and voucher codes to new customers? Will you leverage your mailing list to notify existing customers of a new product launch?

Define a marketing plan strategy

If your marketing plan is a roadmap, then your marketing strategy is the road. The strategy describes which tools you’ll use to hit the targets laid out by the main marketing plan document, and how they’ll be applied.

Here’s where you get down to the fundamentals of selling. Depending on who you ask, there are as many as seven P’s of marketing, though most agree on four core elements: price, product, place, and promotion.

What are you selling? How much are you charging? Where will your customers see it? And how will you promote it to them? Marketing gurus will promise you that if you can answer all of these questions correctly, you’ll be guaranteed boundless success.

Of course, in the real world it’s not quite so straightforward. But the four main P’s are an ideal starting point for anyone creating a market plan from scratch.

How to measure the success of a marketing plan

An enormous amount of effort and investment is poured into monitoring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, but at some level, consumer behavior becomes what’s known as a black box. You can measure what goes into it and what comes out the other end, but what happens inside the mind of a consumer can ultimately only be guessed at based on outcomes. Even the shoppers themselves can’t reliably report on why they choose certain products over others.

That’s why tracking a marketing plan’s performance alongside more specific KPIs (key performance indicators) is crucial. Advertising spend and sales figures aren’t linked in a simple or obvious way, so measuring success on a more granular level—such as increasing conversions or returning customers—helps create a much clearer picture of how well your marketing plan is doing.

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Final thoughts on creating a marketing plan

Marketing plans need to be squarely outlined and adhered to, but they shouldn’t be set in stone. You need to be able to course-correct when something isn’t landing, or lean more into campaigns when they’re working well. 

Quick aside: This is particularly true when it comes to the content of social media marketing plans, which are truly effective only when they’re timely and topical. Memes are a perfect example of this: How often have you seen a promoted tweet deploy some forgotten joke from months ago, presumably because it had been left in somebody’s annual marketing plan?

But while it’s useful to have a flexible approach , it’s important that your marketing plan is resilient and doesn’t flip-flop or bounce wildly between ideas. Move the goalposts too much and your plan will quickly fall apart, leaving your campaign in chaos. Allow your strategies some time to settle in, and even if you don’t reach success, you will gain invaluable performance data for future projects.

Steve Hogarty is a writer and journalist based in London. He is the travel editor of City AM newspaper and the deputy editor of City AM Magazine , where his work focuses on technology, travel, and entertainment.

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If you’ve been asking questions like, how will I know when I find a product market fit? How long should I explore before launching? Or what should I initially price my product? These are all questions that founders have asked, and below are the answers from the founders who’ve figured it out.

Tom Hewitson, Chief AI Officer at leading AI training company General Purpose , offers tips for small businesses

Do You Really Need a Business Plan?

The art of storytelling, from net margin to sales.

Why is a business plan important?

• Who will the reader be?
• What do you want their response to be?

Four Reasons to Write a Business Plan

1. To raise money for your business

2. To make sound decisions

3. To help you identify any potential weaknesses

4. To communicate your ideas with stakeholders

More by this contributor:

• Challenges Become Opportunities
• Discontinuing Healthy Workplace Consultancy
• Financial Planning for the Pandemic

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How to Write a Business Plan for Your Small Business

Entrepreneurial Sales and Why It’s Important

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In the uber-competitive world of entrepreneurial sales, it helps to learn from the best. And, Babson College Associate Professor Vincent (Vini) Onyemah  is one of the best.

We sat down with Onyemah recently to learn more about what he has been up to and why he says entrepreneurial sales is the single most important business function. We gleaned valuable information that will be helpful to entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals alike.

Sales from an Early Age

“I started selling when I was 11 years old to survive.”

Onyemah is from Nigeria, he speaks seven languages (he can sell in all of them), he started two businesses, and he currently teaches sales and marketing at Babson College, the No. 1 ranked school for entrepreneurship .

It Starts with the Light Bulb

“Sales is the lifeblood of any organization,” said Onyemah. According to him, any business that isn’t selling is dying. Moreover, selling should start as soon as you have that lightbulb moment.

“You start selling. You hit the road. You hit the pavement. You go meet those customers that you had in mind,” said Onyemah.

“And, you let them tell you, before you invest too many resources, that this is a bad idea, or a good idea. This is why it’s bad, or this is why it’s good. This is what would make me buy the product. Or, this is my pain when it comes to this issue,” Onyemah said.

What Is Entrepreneurial Sales?

Entrepreneurial sales is, well, everything.

As Onyemah describes it, entrepreneurial sales is not just revenue generation, though it’s that, too. Entrepreneurial sales also is everything else.

“It’s selling to get revenue. Selling to convince suppliers to give you good products at a good price. Selling to suppliers to increase the number of days of credit you have. Selling to investors to put in more money. Selling to someone to be on your advisory board. Selling to your colleagues to be partners with you. Selling to get talent to come work for you. All of these are selling scenarios but people don’t see it that way,” said Onyemah.

A Must-Read for MBAs

Onyemah doesn’t just know how to teach. His last book entitled, Entrepreneurial Selling: The Facts Every Entrepreneur Should Know , came out in 2017 and the Spanish version went on sale in February of this year. It’s now required reading for all MBA students at the famed IPADE Business School in Mexico City.

“This book is based on the field research on five continents, talking with entrepreneurs about how they made their first sales, and what they learned from it,” said Onyemah. “It’s full of advice. It’s full of frameworks. It’s full of how-to examples.”

You Need a Coalition

“When I say that an organization that is not selling is dying, it’s not just from the point of view of revenue generation,” said Onyemah. “It’s also the ability to convince several players to come play with you. To say yes to you. That is selling.”

“Because a tree cannot make a forest, you need a coalition of actors to be successful. For that dream to become a reality, you have to know how to sell.”

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15 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan in 2024

Posted august 5, 2024 by noah parsons.

Imagine you’re going on a road trip. You know your final destination, but you haven’t figured out how to get there. 

While it might be fun to start driving and figure things out as you go, your trip will likely take longer than expected and end up costing more. But, if you take the time to look at a map and chart the best way to get to your destination—you’ll arrive on time and on budget. 

Planning for your business isn’t much different, which is why a business plan is so important to your continued success.

What is the purpose of a business plan? 

The primary purpose of a business plan is to help you figure out where you want to go with your business and how you will get there. Writing a business plan helps you set your direction and determine a winning strategy. A solid business plan will set your business up for success and help you build an unbeatable company.

If you start off without a plan, you may go down some interesting detours, but you’re unlikely to grow quickly or stick to your budget.

15 reasons why you need a business plan

“Creating a road map for my business is all well and good, but do I really need a business plan? I’d rather just get started.”

If you’re still thinking like this and decide to skip writing a business plan, you’re making a big mistake and setting yourself up to fail. Even if your business survives, without a plan, you’ll miss valuable growth opportunities and never truly be in control.

Still not convinced? Here are the critical reasons why a business plan is important for small businesses. 

1. You’re more likely to start

Documenting your business idea makes it more official. It takes rough ideas and turns them into the making of a real business. 

According to a study by the Harvard Business Review , entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than those who don’t.

Even if it’s just notes about your potential business, writing things down will make you more likely to proceed with your business. Without a plan, you can’t prove to yourself, partners, mentors, or investors that you’re serious about starting.

2. Reduce potential risks

Writing a business plan takes some of the risk out of starting a business. It helps you think through every facet of your business to determine if it can truly be viable. 

• Does your solution fit the market? Are your startup or operational costs manageable?
• Will your proposed business model actually generate sales?
• What sort of milestones would you need to hit to achieve profitability?

Your business plan can answer these startup questions .

For those already running a business, writing a plan can help you better manage ongoing risk. 

• Should you bring on a new employee?
• What does cash flow look like for your next month, quarter, or even year?
• Will you meet your milestones or do you need to change your focus?

Keep your plan up to date, review it regularly and you can easily answer these growth questions and mitigate risk.

3. Test a new business idea and prove it’s viable

When you have a new business idea, it helps to spend time thinking through all the details. 

A business plan will help you think about your:

• Target market
• How much money you’ll need to launch
• How your idea will actually work before you spend any real money

A business plan will also help you easily share your idea with other people to get input and feedback before you get started. 

There’s no need to create a detailed business plan either. 

Instead, I recommend using a one-page business plan to quickly test your ideas and determine if you have a viable business. 

4. Understand your market and build a marketing plan

No matter how good your idea is, you have to figure out who your ideal customers are and how you will get the word out to them. 

That’s where a marketing plan comes in. It can be an indispensable tool to figure out how you get your first customers as well as your thousandth customer. It can start as a simple bulleted list of potential marketing channels that expands in detail as you need it.

5. Build a better budget and a financial forecast

Without a business plan, it’s impossible to know how much money it will cost to start and run a business. You don’t just need money for your initial purchases; you need enough cash in the bank to maintain your cash runway and keep your business afloat while you get fully up and running.

When you plan, you’ll need to create your expense budget , set sales goals, and identify how much cash is needed to keep your doors open, purchase inventory, and more. 

The beauty of incorporating forecasts into your business plan is that you don’t need exact numbers to start. You can work with general assumptions and compare against competitive benchmarks to set a baseline for your business. 

As you operate and collect financial data, you can revisit your business plan and update your forecasts to generate a more accurate picture of your business’s future.

6. Attract investors and get funding

Sharing your business idea with investors requires a business plan. 

Investors may never actually ask for your full business plan, but they will certainly ask you questions that you’ll only be able to answer if you’ve taken the time to write a plan. 

At the very least, they’ll want to see your financial forecasts, so you should be prepared for this. If you pitch your business to investors, having a business plan makes it much easier to translate the right information into a pitch deck. 

In short, you’ll have all of the right information ready and available to show why your business is worth investing in.

7. Plan for different scenarios

Things rarely actually go to plan. The world is always changing, customer tastes change, and new competitors arrive. 

Having a plan allows you to experiment with different scenarios to see how changes to your business will impact your forecasts, budgets, profitability, and cash flow.

Without a business plan, you’ll be reacting blindly with no way to track if your decisions are making a real impact.

8. Attract employees

Especially if you’re a young startup company, attracting employees can be hard. Without a proven track record, why should someone take a risk to work for you? 

Having a business plan can help solve that problem. Your plan can help prospective employees understand your business strategy and growth plans so that they can feel confident joining your team. It’s also incredibly useful in determining when and if it’s feasible for you to hire more employees . 

9. Get your team on the same page

A great business strategy can only be successful if your team understands it. By documenting your strategy with a business plan, you can easily get everyone on the same page and working towards the same goals. 

It’s even better if you regularly review your plan with members of your team. Have everyone revisit your core strategy, analyze it, and explore how it impacts individual and team goals .

10. Manage your business better 

A business plan is all about setting goals for your company — both financial goals and milestones you hope to accomplish. 

When you use your business plan to manage your business, you’ll see which parts of your strategy are working and which aren’t. 

For example, you may have invested in new marketing efforts to sell one of your products, but that strategy just isn’t working out. With a business plan in hand, you’ll be able to see what’s going to plan and where you need to adjust your strategy, pivoting to new opportunities that will drive profitability.

Regular business plan reviews , ideally monthly, will help you build a strong, resilient business.

11. Effectively navigate a crisis

Having a business plan not only helps you create a roadmap for your business but also helps you navigate unforeseen events. Large-scale economic downturns, supply shortages, payment delays, cash flow problems, and any number of other issues are bound to pop up. But by leveraging your business plan, you can be prepared to face each crisis head-on.

A plan helps you assess your current situation, determine how the crisis will alter your plan, and explore what it will take to recover. 

With a little planning, you can even prepare your business for future downturns with this same process. Having the right plan and processes in place will make crisis planning easier and, ideally, recession-proof your business .

12. You’ll be ready to sell

You might decide to sell your business or position yourself for acquisition down the road. Having a solid business plan helps make the case for a higher valuation. 

Your business is likely worth more to a buyer if it’s easy for them to understand your business model, your target market, and your overall potential to grow and scale. 

Remember, if you were buying a business , you’d likely want to see their business plan and any previous documentation. So, the more organized and professional your plan is, the easier it will be for a buyer to say yes.

13. It’s easier than you think

You may be procrastinating in writing a business plan because it sounds like a lot of work. The truth is that planning is much less complicated than you think. 

Start small by writing a simple business plan you can complete in about half an hour. With the emergence of AI business plan generators , getting stuck with a blank page is a thing of the past. Just be sure that you don’t just let AI write your plan for you and keep yourself involved in the planning process.

From there, refine your plan until your idea is solid. At that point, you can invest more time in a more detailed business plan. Just start with the basics and expand from there.

14. You’ll sleep better at night

When you have a plan for your business, you have peace of mind. You know that you’ve invested the time to figure out a business model that works, and you’ve considered different financial scenarios so you can handle the unexpected. 

Plus, you have a management tool to run your business better than your competitors. 

15. Research shows that business plans work

A Journal of Management Studies study found that businesses that take the time to plan grow 30% faster than those that don’t. 

Our own 2021 small business research study found that 58% of small business owners who have or are working on a plan feel confident in their business, even amidst a crisis. 

A study in Small Business Economics found that entrepreneurs who write business plans for their ideas are 152% more likely to actually start their businesses.

There’s plenty of additional research linking business planning with success, so it’s a proven fact that you won’t waste time when you write your plan.

Why is a business plan important? Because it sets you up for success

There are plenty of reasons to write a business plan, but they all relate to one thing—increasing the likelihood of success for you and your business. 

Taking the time to plan is an investment in yourself and your business that will pay dividends, whether you’re starting a new business or taking your existing business to the next level. 

If you’ve been putting off writing a business plan, now is the time to do it. Start by downloading one of the many free business plan templates out there, or for additional guidance, invest in an online business plan builder .

No matter what business planning tool you choose, just deciding to write a business plan will set you up to build, run, and grow your business. So, don’t wait—start planning today.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a structured document that outlines the goals, strategies, target market, and financial forecasts of a business. It serves as a roadmap for the business, detailing the steps necessary to achieve success.

Why is planning necessary?

Business planning is essential because it helps businesses set clear goals, allocate resources efficiently, identify potential challenges, and develop strategies to overcome them. It also provides a framework for decision-making and helps attract investors by demonstrating the viability of the business.

What happens if a business doesn’t plan?

Without planning, a business may lack direction and clarity, leading to inefficient use of resources, missed opportunities, and an inability to respond effectively to market changes. This can result in financial difficulties, operational challenges, and ultimately, business failure.

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Noah Parsons

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Nine reasons why you need a business plan

Building a great business plan helps you plan, strategize and succeed. Presented by Chase for Business .

Making the decision to create a new business is an exciting yet stressful experience. Starting a business involves many tasks and obstacles, so it’s important to focus before you take action. A solid business plan can provide direction, help you attract investors and ensure you maintain momentum.

No matter what industry you plan on going into, a business plan is the first step for any successful enterprise. Building your business plan helps you figure out where you want your business to go and identify the necessary steps to get you there. This is a key document for your company to both guide your actions and track your progress.

What is the purpose of a business plan?

Think of a business plan like a roadmap. It enables you to solve problems and make key business decisions, such as marketing and competitive analysis, customer and market analysis and logistics and operations plans.

It can also help you organize your thoughts and goals, as well as give you a better idea of how your company will work. Good planning is often the difference between success and failure.

Here are nine reasons your company needs a business plan.

1. Prove your idea is viable

Through the process of writing a business plan, you can assess whether your company will be successful. Understanding market dynamics, as well as competitors, will help determine if your idea is viable.

This is also the time to develop financial projections for your business plan, like estimated startup costs, a profit and loss forecast, a break-even analysis and a cash flow statement . By taking time to investigate the viability of your idea, you can build goals and strategies to support your path to success.

A proper business plan proves to all interested parties—including potential investors, customers, employees, partners and most importantly yourself — that you are serious about your business.

2. Set important goals

As a business owner, the bulk of your time will mostly likely be spent managing day-to-day tasks. As a result, it might be hard to find time after you launch your business to set goals and milestones. Writing a business plan allows you to lay out significant goals for yourself ahead of time for three or even five years down the road. Create both short- and long-term business goals. 

3. Reduce potential risks

Prevent your business from falling victim to unexpected dangers by researching before you break ground. A business plan opens your eyes to potential risks that your business could face. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the hard questions that may need research and analysis to answer. This is also good practice in how your business would actually manage issues when they arise. Incorporate a contingency plan that identifies risks and how you would respond to them effectively.

The most common reasons businesses fail include:

• Lack of capital
• Lack of market impact or need
• Unresearched pricing (too high or low)
• Explosive growth that drains all your capital
• Stiff competition

Lack of capital is the most prevalent reason why businesses fail. To best alleviate this problem, take time to determine how your business will generate revenue. Build a comprehensive model to help mitigate future risks and long-term pain points. This can be turned into a tool to manage growth and expansion.

4. Secure investments

Whether you’re planning to apply for an SBA loan , build a relationship with angel investors or seek venture capital funding, you need more than just an elevator pitch to get funding. All credible investors will want to review your business plan. Although investors will focus on the financial aspects of the plan, they will also want to see if you’ve spent time researching your industry, developed a viable product or service and created a strong marketing strategy.

While building your business plan, think about how much raised capital you need to get your idea off the ground. Determine exactly how much funding you’ll need and what you will use it for. This is essential for raising and employing capital.

5. Allot resources and plan purchases

You will have many investments to make at the launch of your business, such as product and services development, new technology, hiring, operations, sales and marketing. Resource planning is an important part of your business plan. It gives you an idea of how much you’ll need to spend on resources and it ensures your business will manage those resources effectively.  

A business plan provides clarity about necessary assets and investment for each item. A good business plan can also determine when it is feasible to expand to a larger store or workspace.

In your plan, include research on new products and services, where you can buy reliable equipment and what technologies you may need. Allocate capital and plan how you’ll fund major purchases, such as with a Chase small business checking account or business credit card .

6. Build your team

From seasoned executives to skilled labor, a compelling business plan can help you attract top-tier talent, ideally inspiring management and employees long after hiring. Business plans include an overview of your executive team as well as the different roles you need filled immediately and further down the line.

Small businesses often employ specialized consultants, contractors and freelancers for individual tasks such as marketing, accounting and legal assistance. Sharing a business plan helps the larger team work collectively in the same direction. 

This will also come into play when you begin working with any new partners. As a new business, a potential partner may ask to see your business plan. Building partnerships takes time and money, and with a solid business plan you have the opportunity to attract and work with the type of partners your new business needs.

7. Share your vision 

When you start a business, it's easy to assume you'll be available to guide your team. A business plan helps your team and investors understand your vision for the company. Your plan will outline your goals and can help your team make decisions or take action on your behalf. Share your business plan with employees to align your full staff toward a collective goal or objective for the company.  Consider employee and stakeholder ownership as a compelling and motivating force. 

8. Develop a marketing strategy

A marketing strategy details how you will reach your customers and build brand awareness. The clearer your brand positioning is to investors, customers, partners and employees, the more successful your business will be.

Important questions to consider as you build your marketing strategy include:

• What industry segments are we pursuing?
• What is the value proposition of the products or services we plan to offer?
• Who are our customers?
• How will we retain our customers and keep them engaged with our products or services and marketing?
• What is our advertising budget?
• What price will we charge?
• What is the overall look and feel of our brand? What are our brand guidelines?
• Will we need to hire marketing experts to help us create our brand?
• Who are our competitors? What marketing strategies have worked (or not worked) for them?

With a thoughtful marketing strategy integrated into your business plan, your company goals are significantly more in reach.

9. Focus your energy

Your business plan determines which areas of your business to focus on while also avoiding possible distractions. It provides a roadmap for critical tradeoffs and resource allocation.

As a business owner, you will feel the urge to solve all of your internal and customers’ problems, but it is important to maintain focus. Keep your priorities at the top of your mind as you set off to build your company.

As a small business owner, writing a business plan should be one of your first priorities. Read our checklist for starting a business, and learn how to take your business from a plan to reality. When you’re ready to get started, talk with a Chase business banker to open a Chase business checking or savings account today.

For Informational/Educational Purposes Only: The views expressed in this article may differ from other employees and departments of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Views and strategies described may not be appropriate for everyone and are not intended as specific advice/recommendation for any individual. You should carefully consider your needs and objectives before making any decisions and consult the appropriate professional(s). Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results.

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Opportunity Lender, ©2023 JPMorgan Chase & Co

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Why Sales People Should Think and Operate Like Entrepreneurs

Published: September 04, 2020

Successful salespeople are far from your average employee.

For stellar sales reps, their approach to work goes much further than hitting their number each month. If you’re ready to knock your sales career out of the park, it’s time to put yourself in the mindset of an entrepreneur, managing your sales market the same way you would manage a business.

Why Salespeople Should Think Like Entrepreneurs

First, let’s talk about what it means to think like an entrepreneur as a sales rep. Whether you manage a specific territory, customer account, or service, there is likely a segment of your company’s business that you are responsible for when it comes to generating revenue. That’s a big responsibility, especially in a competitive landscape, but I know you’re up for the challenge.

As the business owner of your market, your attention should be on more than just your monthly quota. You should have a solid understanding of your target market, how current and world events may be impacting your industry and customer, and what other companies who offer products to your customer demographic are prioritizing.

When it comes to thinking like an entrepreneur, your mindset becomes more important than your skillset. After all, if you’ve made it this far as a rep that means you have the foundations of selling down. Now it’s time to expand upon your knowledge to take your business acumen to the next level.

Here are some ways salespeople can tap into an entrepreneurial mindset to make more sales.

7 Ways Salespeople Can Think Like Entrepreneurs

• Imagine you own your company.
• Position yourself as an expert.
• Hone in your listening skills.
• Establish ownership over your market or territory.
• Identify underserved areas and haps.
• Create a plan.
• Stay creative.

1. Imagine you own your company.

How would you approach your work if you had full ownership and were accountable for the success or failure of your business? Chances are, you would take it seriously and would do as much as you could to avoid failure.

When you’re striving to close your deals and make the sale, are you doing so to make more money for your company, or are you closing the deal because you know that’s what your manager expects of you? The latter is an example of having an employee mindset and being more motivated by the opinion of company leadership than what’s best for the company. The former has a mindset of an entrepreneur who is motivated by growing their business and seeing it grow.

This is an important shift for reps who are accustomed to having an employee mindset. Having an entrepreneur mindset makes you more accountable to provide an excellent experience to your customer, helping you drive more sales in the long run.

2. Position yourself as an expert.

Think of a small business owner you know or a business influencer you follow on social media. Imagine you had a question about their product and went to them for the answer. Chances are, they are an expert in the benefits and features of their product and can speak on why their customers need their offer with authority.

As a seasoned salesperson, it is crucial you position yourself as an expert when it comes to your market and the products you’re selling. Although you may not have created the product, you should be able to speak as if you had. When you’re talking to a prospect or customer, you want them to think of you as their go-to for the problem they are looking to solve which requires a perceived level of expertise.

Establishing a sense of expertise over your sales cycle gives you authority and ownership over what you’re selling and how you engage with your customers.

3. Hone in your listening skills.

Successful entrepreneurs know their ideal customers very well. They know what their pain points are, how they can benefit from using their product, and they likely engage with their customer base frequently. The key to having positive engagements with customers is by listening to them.

By leveraging strong active listening skills and behaving like an engaged entrepreneur who is genuinely interacting with and getting to know their customers, you will understand exactly what your customers need. With this approach, you can receive valuable feedback from your potential buyers and current customers that can help you better serve them in current or future deals.

4. Engage with your regional customer or territory communities.

Brick-and-mortar business owners are often very involved in their local communities, knowing what’s going on in the areas near their business.

For salespeople who support a specific territory or region, having this same sense of ownership and engagement when it comes to serving your area can give you a competitive advantage over others in your market.

Though you may not physically be present, you should know what is going on in the area your customers are located in. Whether that’s staying on top of local news, major events, or new businesses opening in your territory, understanding what’s top of mind for your regional customers provides valuable insight into how you can best support them.

5. Identify underserved areas and gaps.

Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for ways to provide new and exciting offers to keep their customers engaged. This doesn’t always involve launching new products or offers — this can also include identifying the underserved needs of your customers or potential customers and speaking to ways your offering can close that gap.

6. Create a plan.

When an individual is looking to establish a business, they usually start by creating a business plan to map out their venture before launching. As a sales rep, you should take a similar approach.

Creating a sales business plan as you enter a new sales cycle or start gearing up to sell a new product is incredibly valuable. Having a strategic plan laid out identifying what you would like to achieve in the coming sales period, quarter, or year can be helpful in keeping you aligned and accountable to your goals.

Check out this post to learn more about creating a business plan as a sales rep.

7. Stay creative.

Business owners, especially solopreneurs , tend to be creative problem-solvers who are good at thinking on their feet and handling a variety of things being thrown their way.

As a sales rep, you can embody the creative spirit of entrepreneurs by looking for new ways to do things. Whether you are identifying processes that can save time and reduce admin, or you look for new ways to engage with customers, challenge yourself to feel a level of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and try new tactics that can best serve your customers or business as a whole.

Though it may be a big mindset shift, thinking like an entrepreneur can unlock endless potential for your sales career. For more career development advice, check out this list of Entrepreneur Books Every Salesperson Should Read .

Don't forget to share this post!

Outline your company's sales strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

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Why A Thoughtful Business Plan Is Essential For Success

Starting a business is an exciting journey, full of opportunities and challenges. For women entrepreneurs, particularly those transitioning from corporate life to entrepreneurship, the path can feel daunting. But with the right roadmap (a well-thought-out business plan), you can navigate the uncertainties and set your business up for success.

A business plan is more than just a document; it's your blueprint for building and growing your business. It outlines your goals, strategies, and the steps you need to take to achieve them. A strong business plan not only guides your decisions but also communicates your vision to potential investors, partners, and employees.

Here’s why a business plan is crucial and how you can create one that will steer your business toward success.

The Importance of a Well-Thought-Out Business Plan

1. clarifies your vision and objectives.

As you build out your business plan it forces you to think deeply about your business idea and if it’s a viable idea. What exactly are you trying to achieve? What are your short-term and long-term goals? By putting these thoughts on paper, you create a clear vision that will guide every decision you make.

2. Helps You Understand Your Market

Researching and writing a business plan requires you to analyze your market. Who are your competitors? Who is your target audience? What are the market trends? This understanding helps you position your business strategically and identify opportunities for growth.

3. Defines Your Strategy

A business plan includes your marketing strategy, sales approach, and operational plan and outlines how you will achieve objectives. This strategic framework ensures that your efforts are aligned and focused on achieving your goals.

4. Secures Funding

If you need financial support to start or grow your business, a well-prepared business plan is essential. Investors and lenders want to see a clear plan for how you will generate revenue and repay any loans. A business plan that demonstrates a thorough understanding of your industry and a solid strategy is more likely to attract funding.

5. Guides Your Decision-Making

A business plan serves as a reference point, helping you make informed decisions that align with your long-term goals. By consistently referring to your business plan, you ensure that every decision contributes to the overarching vision and objectives of your business, ultimately driving growth and success.

6. Tracks Your Progress

A business plan includes milestones and key performance indicators (KPIs) that allow you to track your progress. Regularly reviewing your business plan helps you stay on course, adjust your strategies as needed, and celebrate your successes.

The bottom line is that creating a business plan is a crucial step in turning your entrepreneurial dreams into reality. It’s your roadmap, guiding you through the complexities of starting and growing a business. For women entrepreneurs, especially those transitioning from a corporate career, a well-thought-out business plan can provide the clarity, confidence, and direction needed to succeed. Take the time to craft a business plan that reflects your vision and sets the foundation for a thriving, profitable business.

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Home » Advice » Sales & Marketing » What is a sales and marketing plan?

What is a sales and marketing plan?

• July 19, 2021

Everyone has heard the saying ‘without a plan, you plan to fail’, right? And this rings especially true when it comes to sales and marketing plans for your business. Sales and marketing plans are put in place by sales and marketing teams to outline specific goals and the steps that should be taken in order for these goals to be reached.

The sales and marketing teams of any business play a pivotal role in the business’s overall success. One of their most important tasks is developing practical, structured and detailed sales and marketing plans. Large or small, your business needs to have a plan if it wants to enjoy success.

In this article, we look at what is involved in the average sales and marketing plan, the importance of goal setting, and how these plans affect your business.

Differentiating sales plans and marketing plans

Small businesses usually merge their sales team and marketing teams, while larger businesses usually separate their sales team from their marketing team. In either case, you can create separate sales plans and marketing plans or create a combined sales and marketing plan. Sales and marketing are very closely linked, and even if plans are separate, they will feed into each other and affect each other at some point.

Before you begin creating a sales and marketing plan

Before you rush into creating a sales and marketing plan, there are a few things that you should be certain of, including:

• Your previous year’s financials, number of products sold etc.
• Previous marketing plans to draw from
• Your exact target market
• Which team members will be responsible for coming up with the plan
• What time period you want to create a plan
• In-depth knowledge of trending sales and marketing strategies
• What sort of marketing plan your competitors are using
• Options of the latest tools, technology, and applications that you could use for your plan
• Knowledge of your current problem areas and weaknesses and what needs to be improved upon
• Any skills or ‘hidden talents’ that your sales and marketing team possess that could be used to elevate the plan

Make sure that you have gathered all of the information and documents you need before creating your plan; otherwise, you will just have to make dozens of edits as new information comes to light.

What a sales and marketing plan should consist of

The most important part of any sales and marketing plan should be the goals that are set within it. The goals should be very specific (i.e. sell x amount of products, gain x amount of followers on social media, improve engagement by x per cent etc.). The goals should also be realistic, and research should be done into current market trends and competitor brands to help create goals that are achievable.

Aside from very specific goals, a good sales and marketing plan should also consist of:

• A detailed list of marketing strategies that are going to be implemented, and timeframes for each
• What tools and applications will be used in the sales and marketing strategies
• Which team members will be responsible for the specific tasks laid out in the sales and marketing plan, and which team members will assume leadership positions
• Milestones leading up to each ‘end-goal’
• The incentives, bonuses, and commission involved for when goals are reached
• Potential obstacles that may be encountered along the way
• The resources that your team currently has available to them

Overall a sales and marketing plan should be a blueprint that team members can refer to for when they need to remind themselves of sales and marketing objectives and what steps need to be taken in order to meet the business’s goals. Every member of the sales and marketing team, and even employees part of other divisions, should have a copy of the sales and marketing plan.

Everything in the plan should be laid out cohesively in a way that is easy to understand. There should be the use of visuals, such as branding, graphs etc., and should overall stay true to the brand’s identity.

Why is a sales and marketing plan so important

Sales and marketing plans play a vital role in keeping your business relevant and staying on track with its various objectives in the sphere of sales and marketing. An outline helps keep things organised, ensuring that every member of the team knows what is expected of them, what they are working towards, and what sort of incentive they can hope to enjoy should the goals be achieved.

Without a structured and detailed plan in place, you run the risk of complacency, confusion, and not being able to keep up with your competitors.

Executing your sales and marketing plan

If detailed steps are put in place and sufficient research is done, executing your sales and marketing plan should not be a problem at all. There should also be contingency plans laid out if certain things do not go according to plan. The results from sales and marketing should be closely and regularly monitored so that the entire team is aware when certain goals have been achieved and their hard work has paid off.

How often should sales and marketing plans be done?

This will differ from business to business, but it is recommended that a detailed sales and marketing plan should be created at least every year. Some businesses create seasonal sales and marketing plans for specific festive, busy seasons.

The original plan can always stay in place, with slight tweaks being made to it need be, such in the cases of new marketing plans being implemented or when new employees are added to the team. Even if you use the same plan for a few years, it should be referred to regularly and inspected for any areas that need changes to ensure that you are always headed towards achievable goals and are one step ahead of your competitors.

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5 Reasons Every Entrepreneur Should Start in Sales The sales team knows that closing deals is what makes the company go. You want everyone on the team to know that, too.

By Parth Misra Edited by Dan Bova Jul 16, 2018

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Ask any businessman which is more important, their product or how it's sold, and you're likely to get a long explanation on why product takes the cake any day of the week. They are not wrong. You don't have a business if there was nothing to sell.

But, as we enter an era of hypercompetition, how we sell has become at least as important, if not more important. than the product itself. There is barely any industry that isn't exploding with products and/or services. From healthcare to IT to eateries, we are swamped with endless options. A simple search for SaaS companies in Crunchbase alone returns over 9,600 hits!

And that's only a tiny fraction of the total number of vendors out there. Being outcompeted and cash-flow problems are the main reasons cited by companies that fail in annot survive their first few years.

People in sales are acutely aware of both those challenges and many more. They are also the ones who are best equipped to tackle those problems, which might be why 15 percent Fortune 500 CEOs started in sales . Sales made realists out of them. They know what works, what doesn't and they are competitive as hell. Those are the qualities you will need as an entrepreneur.

So, without further ado, here are five skills why sales makes the perfect starting point for your career as an entrepreneur.

Related: Here's Why so Many Successful Entrepreneurs Got Their Start in Sales

1. You will become tenacious.

Tenacity is what sales people are best known for. It is a well known fact in sales circles that sales is mostly a numbers game -- success is often a process of elimination. We start with a general set of assumptions about how a business should look and work. With each failure, an assumption is ruled out, making the next move slightly better.

Complete this cycle enough times and you are bound to achieve your goal. Salespeople understand this cycle better than anyone. Being persistent is important in business as a sale rarely happens on the first contact.

Obviously, such resilience to adversity is vital to entrepreneurs who have to wade through a lot of failure before succeeding. Here are some ways you can make both yourself and your organization achieve unshaking grit…

Understand that you cannot do it alone : There is this really persistent myth that all the best salespeople (and entrepreneurs) are just flooded with self-motivation. This is just downright false. Everyone needs some help every now and then. Instead of focusing your efforts on simply getting people who seem intrinsically motivated (everyone looks motivated in interviews), your efforts are better spent trying to make a culture of motivation a pervasive part of your organization.

Related: How to Motivate Millennials, By Millennials

Have occasional meetings with your team : Sooner or later everyone asks - "why me?" When the going gets tough, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you're the only one facing problems. Giving yourself and your team members a chance to vent frustration and learn that they are not alone can radically help you/them persevere. There is a good reason why the humble sales kickoff remains a pervasive part of modern corporate work culture.

Meetings such as these are remarkably empowering. They help to acknowledge a person's strengths, overcome their failures and gives everyone the opportunity to celebrate each other's accomplishments.

Foster healthy competition within your organization : While collaboration and teamwork are important aspects of productivity, every organization needs a competitive spirit to drive progress. But competition, if not managed properly, can devolve into petty office politics and selfish maneuvering. Healthy competition instills a sense of pride and playfulness all while respecting everyone around.

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team , Patrick Lencioni lists the fear of conflict, which drives people to hold back their opinion out of fear of reprisals as one of the main reasons why teams fail to perform, in turn creating a team of "yes men."

He instead suggests that a spirit of healthy productive conflict where people debate on the issues they are facing without any fears in order to help the organization achieve its goals.

Think of it as a game: Gamification is all the rage today, and for a good reason, too. It shifts our perspective from interpreting situations as a challenge rather than a threat. Seventy percent of business transformation efforts fail due to lack of engagement. However, you can easily circumvent the hardships by turn a hard task into a game.

Many companies are successfully using gamification to drive business. Airlines issuing frequent flier miles, loyalty programs such as Samsung Nation, the success of Pokemon Go, U.S. Army's America's Army all are great examples of gamification being put to good use. Workplace gamification can be used to drive up productivity. Consider the following...

Focus on small wins : Teresa Amabile, Baker Foundation professor at Harvard Business School in her article The Power of Small Wins notes the results of a study of 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees in seven companies.

Amabile found that the employees who journaled their experiences and tracked their successes reported a much higher rate of motivation. She explains that the practice of recording our wins, no matter how small actuates the reward circuitry of our brains which results in feelings of pride and accomplishment.

Related: How Gamification Is Engaging Customers and Employees Alike

2. Sales makes you a networking ace.

Remember how cashflow can be a problem for a new startup? Impressing investors to back your idea is just about the hardest thing there is, and for a good reason too. Investors are approached all the time by founders who promise quick returns on their investments. Most fail to deliver.

To become a better networker, you need to have a plan. First, identify all the places where your prospects or investors like to hang out. Many professional networking places are good options. These include…

Chamber of commerce events

Professional meetings

Alumni events

Meetup groups

While professional spaces are nice, informal networking is a better option as people are not thinking about work there.

Consider going to...

Sporting events : Sharing a sporting passion with someone is a great way to open a conversation with them.

Gym/Yoga/Pilates/MMA Classes : Try helping someone out with their bench-press, then strike up a conversation with them. You could consider opening with - "Well, my work has been giving me hell so, I need to blow off some steam here."

Book clubs : Often organize meetings to discuss new books. You won't even need an ice-breaker here.

Charity organizations : Many businessmen and investors donate to and visit charities regularly. Talking to them about issues the charity deals with is a great way to build a relationship with them.

Social media : Are you member of any group that deals with areas of interests specific to your business? If not, then join them and start conversing with people on them. You can also create your own groups and communities and invite people to them.

Networking is an easy thing to mess up. Keep in mind the following:

Don't make it all about you : Whatever you do, don't approach people with the intention of taking something. Instead, try and find out what problems they are dealing with and then offer to help.

Know your story : Don't be afraid to share your challenges, triumphs and failures once you become comfortable with someone. Doing so will help you build your own personal brand .

Be clear on your USP : When the time to tell people what you do does arrive, be sure of what you are offering. You should be able to boil down your USP to - "I work with [target market] to help them solve [their problem]."

Follow-up : 80% sales require at least 5 follow-ups after a meeting. Add your contacts on social media, send interesting, helpful content and respond to their posts to keep in touch with them.

Follow the 70-20-10 rule of content sharing : While the rule is for sharing content on social media, it will help you build your personal brand as well.

Develop a thick skin : You will be hearing "no" a lot. Get used to it and never take it personally.

Leverage your team's networks : Everyone you know will have their own networks. Ask your employees or partners to provide referrals whenever possible.

Related: The 3 Things You Must Do to Build Your Network

It Will Make You Persuasive

Persuasion is the ability to get other people to see your point of view and agree with you. Suffice to say, it is an extremely important skill and one that you will need in your entrepreneurial kitty if you want your business to survive.

A study of 17,000 serial entrepreneurs by Target Training International found that persuasiveness is rated as the number one skill.

Fortunately, persuasion can be mastered as well. Here's how to...

Persuade, don't manipulate : Firstly, it is important to recognize that being persuasion is NOT manipulation .

To persuade, you need to focus on what's important to your prospect, not yourself.

Go out of your way to help your prospects : In doing so, you can tap into the reciprocity norm , which states that people feel strongly indebted to those who help them.

Position yourself as a thought-leader : Think of yourself as a provider of solutions. Publishing interesting and insightful content that solves problems is a great way to build a loyal audience.

Share both the positive and the negative : When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. In which case, showing you are aware of potential drawbacks will help you win confidence. You can always follow it up with how they can overcome said drawbacks, too.

Understand context and timing : Even the most well-crafted elevator pitch will fail if it is irrelevant. Framing your communication such that it fits your prospect's situation will make it more relatable, therefore persuasive.

Timing is obviously very important here. Try and find out what your prospect's current challenges are how your solutions can assist them.

Compliment your prospects : Circles back to the reciprocity norm. Did you know that complimenting someone had the same effect as giving them a gift ?

Don't be afraid to speak out : Being a little cocky can actually help you win someone's approval.

People automatically assume that confident people know what they are talking about.

Brett Cohen, a Youtuber for instance, dressed up as a celebrity and went out on a walk in New York City to see how people would react to his presence. The result was shocking and hilarious!

While not exactly a double blind study, his social experiment is a perfect example of how a little confidence in the right context can go a long way to helping you persuade others.

You will learn to set realistic goals and achieve them consistently.

All entrepreneurs know the importance of setting goals. Heck, everyone today does. But whether they actually achieve them is a totally different story. A study by University of Scranton found that 92 percent of people never achieve their New Years goals . Their goals are either not specific, too ambitious or not in alignment with the person.

The same applies in business as well. While there are many reasons given for a startup's failure, it invariably boils down to a lack of planning or foresight.

Salespersons understand the need to set smart, realistic goals early on and turn it into a process.

Because they are constantly under pressure to perform, their goal setting skills are refined to a very high degree, too.

Typically, businesses require goals, KPIs and targets in order to function properly.

Goal refer to the general objective you are trying to achieve. For example - increasing profit margin.

KPI or Key Performance Indicators are metrics that tell you whether you are moving in the right direction. For example - a company's Client Acquisition Rate.

Target refers to the benchmark you are trying to achieve against a KPI. For example - acquiring 10 new clients per month.

Salespeople have their own goals, KPIs and targets which they achieve over and over again. Since their commissions are tied to performance, their goals tend to take a lot more tangible form.

As a business person, you need to break down your goal into concrete, measurable indices that your team understands and pursues. Constantly measuring whether your company is on track is the only way to ensure your goals are consistently achieved.

The first art you should master is making a habit out of writing down your goals.

Seeing your goals in front of you is strangely empowering and gives them a very concrete feel.

Some people like to write a post dated check for themselves, while others simply write it down on the back of a napkin. Whatever your prefered method is, make sure it is something you can see every day.

Next, consider following the SMART formula for goal setting . SMART stands for...

S pecific (Simple, easy to explain)

M easurable (You can put a number on it)

A chievable (You are confident it can be done)

R elevant (Realistic, it helps you achieve your objectives)

T ime Bound (There is a time limit within which it should be attained)

Your goals should be specific .

Be very clear on what actions that you need to take in order to achieve your goals. Consider asking...

What is to be attained? How it is to be obtained? Who all will be involved? Which resources will be used?

Your goals should be measurable . There should be a starting point and an endpoint for each goal. This is where KPIs can help you out. By defining realistic KPIs and measuring them, you can keep a close eye on your progress.

Your goals should be achievable . While optimism is great, each step of your goal should be within your reach. That's not to say that your goals shouldn't be challenging.

Questions to consider...How you could achieve your goals? How long it will take to achieve them?

Your goals should be relevant . Relevance can be both personal as well with respect to your company. Are your actions actually helping you fulfill your desires, or, taking your company in the direction that you want?

Your goals should be timely . Open-ended goals have a way of becoming unimportant. Putting a time limit on your objectives makes them a lot more real while providing a challenge to you. However, ambitious time limits can hurt rather than help your business. The best way to figure out how much time you need is to look back at the amount of time you required to complete a similar activity.

Related: Use This Acronym to Create and Complete S.M.A.R.T. Goals

You will know what your market wants.

By far the biggest reason why startups fail is because they have a product that no one wants. That's just another way of saying that most entrepreneurs are utterly detached from their respective target markets.

Sure, everyone thinks that their idea can change the world. But do they actually have the data to back that hunch up? While you can always run your own market research or hire a company to do it for you, nothing beats on the ground, first hand experience.

As salespeople are the ones responsible for promoting the product, they know their customer's evaluation, objections and potential upgrades. Many companies rely on insights from their sales teams in product development.

Truly innovative companies try their best to engender collaboration between sales, customer relations and product development teams. In doing so they not only allow new ideas to flow quicker, but remain grounded in their approach as well.

Letting the users know that their feedback was taken into account empowers them and can help you develop a deeper rapport with them.

Uservoice in their survey - The Influence of Customer Feedback on the Product Development Cycle, found that product teams considered feedback from customer relationship and sales teams the most vital.

By starting out in sales, you will already have a good idea on what direction to take.

With the US economy already back from the 2008 recession, we are again seeing an increase in startup activity. Trends in Europe and Asia are taking a similar route.

Not only are more people expressing interest in starting a business, but governments are starting initiatives to support them as well. In other words, it has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. Startups are rebounding and the trend is expected to continue. While the development is a boon for the economy, it also means first time businesspeople can expect increased competition.

Consequently, it is best to arm yourself with the right tools for the job before even getting into it. For those looking for a career as an entrepreneur, sales remains a great starting point. It can help new entrepreneurs gain crucial skills in overcoming the very challenges that cripple most startups.

Remember, most of your competitors will probably not consider taking the same line, giving you will a massive head-start. You can eliminate many assumptions very early in your career while your competition grapples with them. Sales experience offers many more benefits than the points covered above as well…

You learn to work with a wide number of people regardless of your "type."

You will gain a zen like mastery over your time.

You will become an expert in closing.

You will become more realistic in your approach.

Even if you choose not to pursue a career in entrepreneurship, sales experience can be utterly rewarding in it's own right. Not to mention, it can open doors to other career options, too.

Content Strategist, Writer at Quill Canvas

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Why a Business Plan is Important for Entrepreneurs

With anything you set out to do in life, it’s a good idea to have a plan. This same advice holds true when you start your own business .

A business is a risky venture. You can make a lot of money, you can break even or you can lose a lot of money. Every entrepreneur has high hopes for a profitable venture, but sometimes a closer look shows that your business might succeed after all.

A business plan is a chance to evaluate your business. You will get a closer look at how you propose your business will be organized, the financial situation of the business and smaller details, like marketing and planning a budget. You get to see every aspect of your business at once.

A business plan can help you clarify your goals and see if your idea will be profitable in the long run. Plus, you’ll be able to foresee problems you may experience down the road. While writing the business plan, you may examine various areas and see that the business is actually not going to be profitable. This will help you save time and money in the long run.

What is in a Business Plan?

A business plan outlines your plans for the various aspects of the entrepreneur’s proposed business. It may include information about human resources, marketing, finances, operations and intellectual property. It is essentially a document that outlines sub-plans for each area of business. If the goal of the business plan is to obtain a loan, then it will focus primarily on finances and ways you plan to raise money.

Why Do You Need a Business Plan?

A good business plan can help you accomplish the following:

• Determine how much money you will need to start up your business and keep it operational
• See if you can make a decent profit from your business
• Convince investors, banks and other lenders to loan you money
• Define your market—determine how your customers will be and what percentage of the market share you will be able to reach
• Find out what your competition lacks
• Develop an effective marketing strategy
• Foresee future problems

Raising Money

The primary goal of a business plan is to raise money. Therefore, your plan should focus on how will business will work and what you will be spending money on. It should be well-researched and well-written if you want an investor to back you up financially. Investors want to see your future goals and how you see your company in the future, so include a cash flow projection and profit and loss analysis. Plus, a study showed that start-ups with a business plan raised twice as much money as those that didn’t.

Learn More About Drafting a Business Plan

A business is a significant undertaking. You need to start with a business plan that will outline what you hope to achieve in the end. You wouldn’t build a house without plans, so why would you start a business without one?

If you’re considering entrepreneurship, Godfrey Legal business firm in Orlando can help you get started on the right foot. With more than three decades of experience, we can help you draft a viable plan so your business venture has the greatest chance of success. Contact us at (407) 890-0023 today for a consultation.

entrepreneur.com/article/74194

inc.com/articles/201107/5-reasons-why-you-need-a-business-plan.html

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• July 14, 2022

Importance of Sales & Marketing in Business

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In this new era, sales and marketing teams have to operate within the interests of the customers. To be successful, these teams must focus on their strategies and actions keeping in mind the buyers’ problems and opportunities.

In any organization, the sales and marketing departments play a pivotal role in the success of the business. The unique and important role of sales and marketing is proving to bridge the gap between potential customer needs and the products and services that the organization has to offer.

An added advantage that sales and marketing teams can exploit while working together is the exchange of information and ideas between the teams can help improve results and create a seamless experience for prospective buyers.

Defining Sales and Marketing

Sales include the activities and operations involved in the promotion and selling of goods and services.

Marketing includes the process of promoting, selling and distributing a product or service.

These statements help us understand 2 very important aspects of the relationship between sales and marketing:-

• Both the groups and their responsibilities are closely linked
• Marketing plays a vital role in supporting sales

Key Responsibilities of Sales and Marketing

Even though both the functions are grouped separately, their functions overlap each other. Businesses that understand the critical areas where these functions overlap can immensely benefit from the combined efforts of both the teams.

Responsibilities of Sales

A key responsibility of sales includes follow up. This means following up with the leads generated by the marketing department.

Relationship Building

Nowadays modern sales focus on relationship-building between the buyer and the seller. An effective salesperson can understand the needs of the buyer and develop a rapport delivering a persuasive (not too pushy) message differentiating the company’s product from its competitors.

Closing & Retention

A salesperson is responsible for turning leads into customers and is judged on his or her ability to close the deal. Also, by checking in with an existing client, a sales team member demonstrates that he or she has a long-term interest in the client’s success and is not just a one-time sale.

Responsibilities of Marketing

Brand awareness is one of the key responsibilities of a marketer. An effort to build awareness of the brand and its product and service is the first step in the process.

Engagement efforts help build an initial awareness campaign to deepen a consumer’s connection to the company or the product.

Conversion & Retention

Conversion is a critical transition of a potential customer to a known lead. For marketers, conversion marks as the completion of the web form which starts from the instigation of a chat to a customer service line. Retention, on the other hand, helps a business grow its repeat customers. This function of marketing helps maintain awareness and engagement after a sale.

For Sales: All these skill sets can be achieved with the guidance of sales training online or a university degree. A certification or qualification marks you as a professional who is able enough to handle such responsibilities. A sales training online or a professional course gives you an added advantage while being considered for a job.

For Marketing: Marketing courses online help you achieve the desired skill set you need to get a better understanding of the field. These courses help you to get into the customers’ mindset and understand the connection he/she might have with your products or services and how you can make it better as to turn them into leads.

More Information:

Ultimate Guide to Career in Marketing

Advantages & Scope of Digital Marketing

Objectives of Learning Sales & Marketing Management

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The University of Chicago The Law School

Institute for justice clinic on entrepreneurship—significant achievements for 2023-24.

The Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship (IJ Clinic) continued to be a lifeline for small businesses in Chicago in 2023-24 through our meaningful representation of low-income entrepreneurs, advocacy for economic liberty, and outreach to small businesses throughout the city. Particularly in the South and West sides of Chicago, entrepreneurs and small business owners struggle to navigate the changing economic and regulatory landscape. IJ Clinic students and attorneys were able to provide invaluable guidance to clients and lawmakers so that the small businesses that are key to our economic future can survive and even flourish.

IJ Clinic Clients - Underserved Chicago Entrepreneurs

The IJ Clinic is delighted to work with Chicago entrepreneurs looking to transform their companies and communities. In our role as outside general counsel for a select group of client businesses founded by low-income entrepreneurs, we forge long-term relationships and are uniquely situated to gain insights into the business objectives and operations of clients.

In 2023 we bid farewell to a few clients who graduated, and in 2024 welcomed three new clients with student participation in reviewing prospective client applications, interviewing candidates, selecting and onboarding them as clients.

Our clients feature businesses across various industries and neighborhoods.

• a co-op grocery store in the formation stage aiming to provide a comprehensive, sustainable, community-based solution addressing food insecurity in an area designated as a food desert by the USDA on Chicago’s South Side
• a maker of wine and mead using locally produced ingredients in a converted former industrial building near a forest preserve and bike path on the Far South Side of Chicago with a tasting room, patio, and production facility
• a multi-cultural haircare vending business focused on connecting consumers with unique products in places where they otherwise are challenged to find what they need for their personal self-care
• a marketplace of local entrepreneurs with innovative businesses operating and selling from repurposed shipping containers
• a designer sneaker and handbag company founded by a man who learned his craft in a prison workshop and determined to build a company around his talents when he came home
• an urban agriculture business educating students from grade school to high school and the public about growing food in the city with regenerative farming practices
• a solopreneur who manufactures and sells products made from hemp
• a business offering tax preparation services, bookkeeping, business consulting, and insurance sales services
• a vegan Mexican restaurant with unique foods that aims to grow through manufacturing its products
• a Vinyl record store with plans to evolve to offer on-site music experiences with innovative interactive technology and plans to develop neighboring vacant properties to better their neighborhood

IJ Clinic Transactional Projects

The IJ Clinic advises on a wide array of contracts and issues ranging from entity structures, finance, real estate, employment, IP strategy and protection, and customer and vendor facing contracts.

Students benefit from frequent client interactions, leading meetings, scoping out projects and delivering results. In addition to researching legal issues, students develop communication skills including how to deliver creative solutions and sometimes unwelcome news.

By providing free legal services to our clients, we help them transform their companies and communities. Details of our engagement with and representation of our clients are confidential, of course. But here is a sampling of some of the major projects students worked on for clients in the past year:

• Advised on international manufacturing arrangements and drafted contracts with offshore producer.
• Reviewed complex rules for complying with various grants including the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund and Chicago Recovery Grant to support clients in successfully complying with grant terms and receiving critical grant funds.
• Guided a restaurant business through exploring different leases for a new location, negotiated the LOI and lease, and advised on options for arranging funds through traditional lenders to fund the expansion.
• Counseled clients on entity formation and restructuring taking into account tax and estate and gift tax implications.
• Researched and provided guidance on the three tier liquor license rules for a restaurant business.
• Applied for and successfully obtained key trademarks for clients, overcoming questions raised by the USPTO about potentially conflicting marks.
• Created master forms of contracts for clients for customers and vendors.
• For multiple start-up clients, reviewed organizational documents and counseled on entity governance compliance, board duties, and elections.
• Recommended best practices on employment and independent contractor arrangements.
• Researched and advised on compliance with various federal regulations including FDA and FTC guidance for product marketing.
• Counseled a client on the decision to terminate a major contract and negotiated a favorable termination.
• Advised a client on compliance with Chicago regulations for retail businesses.
• Analyzed strategy for trademark protection, in view of competitors’ similar marks.
• Drafted an extensive application for the Zoning Board of Appeals, in light of precedent.
• Researched how state cooperative laws, federal and state securities laws, and federal tax laws interact in order to draft a cooperative’s bylaws and policies.

IJ Clinic Client Testimonial

As one of our clients expressed to our student team as they prepared to graduate , ”Before you go ... your impact on our business plans went beyond our expectations. You gave us the power to add new options for important decisions and more confidence once our choices were made. [Our business] quickly became able to move faster with more complex transactions. Great students ask good questions. And we got a lot of the right questions when we needed them to catch our attention.”

IJ Clinic Regulatory and Policy Projects

The IJ Clinic acts as a watchdog, advocating for legislative reform to knock down excessive regulatory and legal barriers that keep entrepreneurs from making their dreams a reality.

• In the academic year 2023-24, students researched, analyzed, strategized, and advocated for policy reforms at both the state and city levels. IJ Clinic students carried out these key regulatory and policy projects:
• Stopped a Chicago zoning ordinance that would have drastically increased cost and uncertainty for owners of shared kitchens (that serve as community-based micro-business incubators); negotiated policy alternatives until ordinance was fully withdrawn by the sponsoring Alderman.
• Proposed amendments and changes to an introduced Chicago ordinance to exempt more small business activities from the public place of amusement license requirements, one of the longest, most bureaucratic and most expensive licensing processes in the city.
• Researched the opaque and costly process for zoning variance applications, identifying the barriers for people who cannot afford to—or do not even know they need to—hire attorneys and expert urban planners.
• Researched the complicated systems deployed by Cook County and Chicago to manage vacant properties in their possession, laying the groundwork for the IJ Clinic’s efforts both to educate entrepreneurs about navigating the system to acquire vacant properties and to recommend steps to make the process simpler and more transparent.

In addition, the IJ Clinic led the continuing efforts to root out inequities in occupational licensing in Illinois. In the previous year, the IJ Clinic drafted and lobbied for two bills that passed in the Illinois General Assembly. Under the moniker CLIMB, standing for Comprehensive Licensing Information to Minimize Barriers, the new laws were designed to present the General Assembly with more information, data, and context about the unintentional or excessive burdens that the State of Illinois places on people starting jobs. Occupational licenses impose strict requirements for individuals who want to enter an occupation, like barbering or make-up artistry, or social work. By their very definition, they exclude people who cannot afford to meet the requirements (and put some people into debt to meet them). And that makes it very difficult for the low-income entrepreneurs we serve to start innovative or traditional businesses and to hire eligible employees. In one CLIMB bill, Public Act 102-1078, we designed a task force to analyze occupational licensing for low- to moderate-income occupations, with a focus on equity. In 2022-2023, we led the effort to set up the task force, collect and analyze relevant data, and present the task force with the information needed to complete their report. One key finding of our analysis of public occupational licensing data revealed that only 1.7% of low- to moderate-income licensees ever faced discipline from state regulators, and sixty-six percent of those disciplinary actions were initiated for state revenue collection, not for scope-of-practice infractions that could impact public health and safety. Our goal is to have a General Assembly that is well informed of the facts about individual people’s challenges, not just the goals of the trade associations and trade schools that benefit from exclusionary, restrictive licensing.

Impactful Community Outreach and Big Stage for South Side Entrepreneurs

The IJ Clinic provides educational seminars and community events aimed at offering entrepreneurs practical advice on starting and growing a business, with a healthy dose of inspiration along the way.

South Side Pitch : The IJ Clinic continues to shine a spotlight on innovation and inspiration from Chicago’s South Side entrepreneurs. South Side Pitch is a competition for businesses that culminates in the finalists facing off before a panel of prominent judges, Shark Tank style. In 2023, we had a live audience of over 105 attendees at the Polsky Center while also presenting a professional live video stream for a group of viewers. Rodney Trussell of R City Kitchen, through his own unique pitch, won three awards: First Place, The Community Favorite Award, and the Rustandy Center Social Impact Award. He went home with $15,500. Second Place went to April Preyar of Justus Junkie, Inc. In this tenth annual event, we reviewed more than 100 applications, exposed hundreds of Chicagoans to the twenty-five semi-finalists who posted video pitches and five finalists whose businesses contribute so much to their South Side neighborhoods. Often, South Side Pitch participants are prospective clients for the IJ Clinic where we can further support their business visions and growth.

Pitch Perfect: An opportunity for Chicagoland businesses to develop and hone the all-important business pitch hosted in the Green Lounge. In June 2024, our first Pitch Perfect of the year was open to any Chicago area business. As one participant noted “... I will incorporate all the knowledge I gleaned from the event last night as I move forward in my business. Also, I will definitely share information about this event to others I feel will equally benefit from this program.” In 2023, we also held Pitch Perfects in August and November with partner organizations like The Urban Juncture Foundation and its Build Bronzeville Small Business Development Center. Overall, nearly sixty participants attended all three Pitch Perfects in 2023.

Workshops: In 2024 the IJ Clinic has already hosted two workshops, one focused on vacant lots advocacy and another on website optimization for businesses. The IJ Clinic collaborated with 2022 South Side Pitch finalist CJ Harris of That’s So Creative, LLC to host the workshop “Make Your Website Work For You!” The IJ Clinic also hosted a roundtable with community leaders and local entrepreneurs who have encountered obstacles to obtaining city-owned vacant lots and who wish to reform the acquisition process. The group plans to reconvene in November or December of 2024 to consider any progress made by the city which has announced initiatives to streamline certain city processes to help make sure vacant lots in disinvested communities are given back to those community members.

Lunch Talks : In April 2024, the IJ Clinic collaborated with two student-led organizations, Impact Initiative and the Law and Business Society, to present two Lunch Talks. These two lunch talks included IJ Clinic clients Connie Anderson and Clifton Muhammad from The Record Track on revitalizing their neighborhood record store and Professors Tom and Amber Ginsburg’s creative and regulatory journey to transform an abandoned synagogue on the South Side into a green community arts center.

Deepening Connections with IJ Clinic Alumni

Generous with their time and openly sharing their experiences, we so appreciate our IJ Clinic alumni.

In January 2024, we held a happy hour for IJ Clinic alumni in New York City to reconnect with Professors Catherine Gryczan and Beth Kregor.

During the school year, IJ Clinic alumni were guest speakers in our seminar meetings. One spoke about her experience as a lawyer and advocate for businesses in the cannabis industry, and a pair of alumni shared their career paths before and into their roles as in-house counsel in a sports team, a financial firm, and a food services business.

Reflections from our IJ Clinic Students

While we are very proud of our achievements for our clients and community, we are also proud of all the aha moments when our students’ skills take a leap forward, when they make new connections between the classroom and the world, when they deliver difficult news, when they identify solutions to clients’ problems in a creative but practical way. Those moments of reflection and discovery are significant achievements too.

Here is how some of our students described the experience:

“I began my 3L year quite worried about whether I would be ready to practice law in just a few short quarters. But during my time at the Clinic, I learned such a wide array of hard and soft skills that I'm ready to enter the legal profession with confidence!”