business plan for a new role

The Best 30-60-90 Day Plan for Your New Job [Template + Example]

Published: December 06, 2023

I remember my first day at HubSpot. I was so nervous and had a million concerns swimming around in my head.

Will I adapt to my new job? How long will it take for me to get the hang of things? Can I manage the workload and maintain a good rapport with my coworkers?

Fortunately, my outstanding manager at the time prepared a comprehensive checklist to be completed over a few months, and it helped me slowly but steadily adapt to HubSpot. Fast forward a few years, and I'm a rockstar at my job.

The checklist was called a 100-day checklist, but it followed the rhythm of a typical 30-60-90 Day Plan.

A 30-60-90 Day Plan, or something similar, is imperative to the success of a new employee as it helps them set and reach attainable goals and acclimate to their new position.

To help set your new employee, or yourself, up for success, here's what you need to know about crafting the best 30-60-90 Day Plan.

30-60-90 Day Plan

A 30-60-90 day plan lays out a clear course of action for a new employee during the first 30, 60, and 90 days of their new job. By setting concrete goals and a vision for one's abilities at each stage of the plan, you can make the transition into a new organization smooth and empowering.

Learning the nuances of your new role in less than three months won't be easy. But crafting a strong 30-60-90 day plan is your best bet for accelerating your development and adapting to your new work environment as quickly as possible.

You‘d write a 30-60-90 day plan in two situations: during the final stages of an interview and the first week of the job. Here’s how each type can be executed:

Free Sales Training Template

Use this template to set up a 30/60/90 day sales training and onboarding plan.

• 30/60/90 Day Goals
• People to Meet
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30-60-90 Day Plan for Interview

Some hiring managers ask candidates to think about and explain their potential 30-60-90 day plan as a new hire.

As a candidate, this would sometimes confuse me in the past, but I now understand they just want to see if a potential hire can organize their time, prioritize the tasks they likely take, and strategize an approach to the job description.

For a new hire, a well-thought-out 30-60-90 day plan is a great way to help the hiring manager visualize you in the role and differentiate yourself from all other candidates.

But how can you outline your goals before accepting a new job? How are you supposed to know what those goals are? I've found that starting with the job description is an excellent stepping stone.

Typically, open job listings have separate sections for a job‘s responsibilities and a job’s qualifications. Work to find commonalities in these two sections and how you might turn them into goals for yourself.

Then, stagger those goals over three months.

For example, let‘s say a job requires three years of experience in Google Analytics, and the responsibilities include tracking the company’s website performance every month.

I would use these points to develop an action plan explaining how:

• I‘ll learn the company’s key performance metrics (first 30 days)
• Strengthen the company's performance in these metrics (next 30 days)
• Lead the team toward a better Google Analytics strategy (last 30 days)

30-60-90 Day Plan for New Job

The second situation where you‘d write a 30-60-90 day plan is during the first week of a new job, which I highly recommend whether you’re a new employee or a manager working with a new hire.

If you're the hiring manager, this plan will allow you to learn how the new employee operates, address their concerns or preconceived notions about the role, and ultimately help them succeed.

If you‘re starting a new job and are not asked to craft a 30-60-90 day plan during the first week of that job, it’s still a good idea to write one for yourself.

A new position can feel like a completely foreign environment during the first few months, and having a plan in place can make it feel more like home.

Even though 90 days is the standard grace period for new employees to learn the ropes, it's also the best time to make a great first impression.

How long should a 30-60-90 day plan be?

While there's no set length for a 30-60-90 day plan, it should include information about onboarding and training, set goals that you're expected to hit by the end of each phase, and all the people to meet and resources to review in support of those goals. This can result in a document that's 3-8 pages long, depending on formatting.

The purpose of your plan is to help you transition into your new role, but it should also be a catalyst for your career development.

Instead of just guiding you over your job's learning curve, the goals outlined in your plan should push you to perform up to your potential and raise the bar for success at every stage.

HubSpot's Senior Manager of Content (and my former manager) Meg Prater suggests having a solid template for your plan that allows it to evolve.

“Anytime I onboard someone, I review all training docs and ensure they're up to date,” she says. “I also ask for feedback from the folks on the team who have most recently been onboarded. What did they like? What didn't work for them?”

She also says moving the plan to a more interactive platform proved to be helpful to new employees.

“One of the most helpful shifts we've made recently is moving our 30-60-90 plan (or 100-Days Plan) from a static Google Doc to Asana,” she says. “The plan is organized by week, and each task contains relevant readings and links. It's much easier for folks to move through, and it gives me better insight into where folks are in the plan.”

Meg onboarded me when I started at HubSpot, and I can confirm that my checklist in Asana was a game-changer because it helped me stay on task and visually track my progress.

The checklist below isn‘t mine, but it’s one she set up and follows the same format as the one she created for me.

Free 30/60/90 Day Onboarding Template

Fill out the form to get the template., parts of a 30-60-90 day plan.

An effective 30-60-90 day plan consists of three extensive phases — one for days 1-30, one for days 31-60, and one for days 61-90.

Each phase has its own goal. For example, the goal in the first 30 days is to learn as much as possible about your new job.

The following 30 focus on using learned skills to contribute, and the last 30 are about demonstrating skill mastery with metrics and taking the lead on new challenges.

Each phase also contains components that help define goals and describe desired outcomes. These parts include:

The primer is a general overview of what you hope to achieve during the current 30-day period.

I prefer sitting down with my manager to pinpoint a primer that aligns with my goals and desired company outcomes, and I encourage you to do the same.

This ensures you and your manager are on the same page about expectations early on in your journey with the company.

The theme is a quick-hitter sentence or statement summarizing your goals for the period. For example, your theme might be “find new opportunities”, “take initiative,” or “be a sponge.”

Learning Goals

Learning goals focus on skills you want to learn or improve to drive better outcomes at your job. For example, if you're responsible for creating website content at your company, you should learn new HTML or CSS skills .

At the start of my career with HubSpot, some marketing trends and jargon were unfamiliar, and I wasn‘t used to the company’s writing style.

As a result, my learning goals as a new blogger were to become more well-versed in marketing and to adapt to HubSpot's writing style.

Performance Goals

Performance goals speak to specific metrics that demonstrate improvement. These include making one more weekly content post or reducing the revisions management requires.

For example, I was only writing one article per week when I started HubSpot, but it was my performance goal to be able to write multiple articles by the end of 30 days.

Initiative Goals

Initiative goals are about thinking outside the box to discover other ways you can contribute. This might mean asking your manager about taking ownership of new website changes or upgrades with a specific deadline in mind.

Personal Goals

Personal goals focus on company culture — are there ways you can improve relationships with your team members or demonstrate your willingness to contribute?

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How to Succeed Quickly in a New Role

• Greg Pryor,
• David Sylvester

A role transition, whether it’s a promotion, a move to a new organization, or a fresh challenge in an existing job, can be a huge boost to one’s career. But in today’s hyper-collaborative and dynamic workplaces, successful moves aren’t as easy as they once were, even for the most qualified, hardworking people. After analyzing employee relationships and communication patterns across more than 100 diverse companies, and interviewing 160 executives in 20 of them, the authors discovered an overlooked prerequisite for transition success: the effective use of internal networks. That involves five practices: surging rapidly into a broad network by asking a lot of questions and discovering boundary-spanning, innovative people across the organization; generating pull by understanding, energizing, and adjusting to new connections; identifying how to add value, where one falls short, and which people in the broad network can help fill any gaps; creating scale by using the network to engage other key opinion leaders, expand the scope and impact of one’s projects, and more efficiently deliver outsize results; and shaping the network for maximum thriving by making connections that enhance one’s workplace experience.

Five ways to build a strategic network

Idea in Brief

The problem.

People who transition to new roles—within their organizations or in other ones—often have a hard time doing so successfully. Surveys indicate that 27% to 49% of them underperform.

The Research

Analysis of transitioning employees in 100 diverse companies suggests that the ones who get up to speed and excel most quickly are those who know how to use internal networks effectively.

The Strategies

These people follow five “fast mover” practices: They surge rapidly into a broad network; generate pull by energizing new connections; identify how to add value and who can help them fill skills gaps; use the network to expand their impact; and prioritize relationships that enhance their workplace experience.

A role transition—whether a promotion, a move to a new organization, or a fresh challenge in your existing job—can be a huge boost to your career and a chance for you to blossom and thrive. You know the drill heading in: Apply your experience and talents to the position, make sure you are accepted by the hierarchy (including your own direct reports), and clinch a few big wins in the first couple of months to demonstrate what you can do.

• Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and a senior vice president of research at the Institute for Corporate Productivity. He is the coauthor of The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Add Up—and What to Do About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023) and author of Beyond Collaboration Overload (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).
• GP Greg Pryor  is the former SVP, People & Performance Evangelist at Workday and co-founder of Connected Commons.
• DS David Sylvester is the director of executive recruiting and onboarding for Amazon Web Services.

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• 20 Apr 2023

Tackle the First 90 Days of Your Next Role: A 5 Step Process for Success on the Job

Congratulations! After months of networking, interviewing, and sending out resumes, you’ve landed your next role. This is a huge accomplishment!

Celebrate, rest, relax and show your gratitude to the people who helped you achieve this goal.

Then, as day one in your new role draws near, make sure you have everything you need to succeed by following HBS Career Coach Matt Spielman’s five steps to success on the job in the first 90 days.

Why the First 90 Days Matters

In his work educating companies about successful onboarding , Spielman notes the importance of the first 90 days for employees and their employers. “Research suggests that an employee’s first 90 days will in large part determine his or her performance, longevity, and contribution to the company,” he shares.

Therefore, a successful onboarding program designed and executed by the company alongside an intentional plan designed and executed by the employee is critical. This joint process establishes and strengthens relationships, conveys transparency, and ultimately mitigates risk and maximizes success.

“For the employer, key elements of a successful onboarding process include introducing new hires to key stakeholders, setting employees up for success by designing an internal interview guide for conversations, and creating a 90-day plan laid out in three 30-day increments to meet key objectives and goals,” explains Spielman.

The important thing to remember as a new employee – you will not be executing on 90 days’ worth of goals on day one.

“As an employee feeling the pressure that accompanies a hard-won job, you will want to make a positive first impression,” Spielman says. “The natural reaction in many instances is to jump right in but as Jeff Olson said, ‘Sometimes you need to slow down to go fast.’”

Step 1: Detail What, Why, and How

Step 1 in the “slow down to go fast” five-step process is to detail the first 90 days by communicating openly with your manager about:

• What you plan to do to learn your new role and contribute
• Why you are structuring your approach in this way
• How you will execute this plan to make progress

To guide this conversation and keep you focused, break out your first 90 days into a three-segment action plan like the one outlined here . Segments one and two will be dedicated to accelerating your learning and beginning to contribute to the conversation. Segment three (days 61 through 90) will be further detailed as you meet stakeholders and conduct interviews.

Note the importance of quantifying output of each segment and scheduling check ins to manage expectations and maintain open lines of communication.

Step 2: Identify Stakeholders

After laying out your objectives for the first 90 days, the next step is to identify the stakeholders you should meet and interview. The conversations you have as a new employee may be an extension of what you learned during the interview process or provide completely new and highly valuable information.

Identify with your manager who you will be interacting with on a regular basis in your new role and who else within the company you should connect with to gain their insights or to prepare for future collaboration. Then craft your questions for these conversations using the 90-Day Interview Guide.

Sample questions include:

• What is our company’s greatest strength(s)?
• What’s the one thing we’re not doing today to accelerate growth (of revenue, customers, product, service, etc.) but should?
• What would need to happen for the organization to seize the potential of these opportunities?
• What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face) in the near future?

Step 3: Conduct Interviews

Next, set up your 30-45 minute stakeholder meetings where you’ll have an opportunity to build relationships, learn, and capture important information that will make you successful in your new role.

To make the most of these meetings, determine what method you will use to capture information (i.e. typed or handwritten notes, recorded Zoom meetings, transcriptions) so that you have an organized way to refer back to what you’ve learned and be ready to synthesize in Step 4.

Step 4: Synthesize (and Share?)

Notes in hand, in Step 4 you will be identifying key themes – both from what you did hear and what you didn’t hear in your stakeholder interviews. Were there any inconsistencies you noticed that might require clarification?

From all of the data collected, you will then be able to conduct a SWOT analysis for the company, specifically related to how that will impact the imperatives for your new role.

What you share and when will be up to your discretion. Unless you have significant concerns about the finding, best practice has been to share an anonymized summary of your interviews. “You can provide almost instant value – and make a positive first impression - by offering the insights gleaned during the onboarding process. The company can benefit from your fresh eyes and new perspective.”

Step 5: Build, Share, Work the Plan

Lastly, informed by your job description, job interviews, experiences, and data from the five-step process, you can write out clear goals.

What four goals (approximately) should you plan to achieve and in what time horizon?

To ensure that you are setting the right goals in this process, follow the ACHIEVE model: Action-Oriented, Consequential, Hard not Herculean, Integrated, Explicit, Visualized, and Endpoint-focused. Understanding the meaning and the consequence – the why – behind a goal dramatically increases the chances of it being achieved. Spielman, who designed the ACHIEVE model, states “When we add in the “V,” for the visual representation of the goal, we tap into the power of visualization that athletes have been using for decades.”

Furthermore, when sharing your goals, make sure they are supported by defined action items to will work in service of those goals, as well as a clear articulation as to why these goals are important. Incorporating these elements, along with a deadline for each aim, will turn your list of goals into a clear action plan that you can communicate to others and begin executing on in service of your new company.

More Resources

For more on navigating the first ninety days, check out the resources below:

• Inflection Points: How to Work and Live with Purpose
• “All Aboard!” Five Steps to Ensure New Employees Soar
• The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

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How to create a new role at work (and avoid common mistakes)

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What does it mean to create a new role?

What to consider before creating a new role, how to announce the creation of a new role, 4 things you should avoid when creating a new role.

Creating a new role at your company holds infinite possibilities. Learn the pros of creating a new position and how to avoid common mistakes when doing so.

A promotion is a coveted milestone in any career. But an open position for a well-deserving employee may not exist.  

Why not make one? Here are the best practices for creating a new role at work — and how to avoid the 4 most common mistakes.

People want to be given the chance to succeed and grow. If your company is doing its job right, your team will be learning and challenging themselves. Employees grow into leaders by taking on more responsibility. 

Sometimes, people will do this by leaving the organization. If they believe that they’ve hit their peak at the company, they may look for an environment that’s a better value fit or provides more upward potential.

Instead of waiting for a promotion to come around for an employee, you may be able to retain more of your best talent by transitioning an employee to a new role. Creating a new position gives the opportunity to bring nuance to a position and strengthen a department. It rewards the investment of time people have made in your company and team. This sets your organization — and your newly promoted employee — on track for long-term growth and industry success.

But if you’re the employee thinking about leaving, you may want to consider partnering with your leaders to create a new role at work. You may like your company, but feel unsatisfied with your current position. Changing roles within a company allows you to build on what you’ve already accomplished . As someone who is familiar with the company, you can leverage your experience to address pitfalls a newcomer likely won’t see. You also get to maintain your seniority and any benefits you’ve accumulated as a result.

For companies that are in rapid growth phases, creating a new position may be ideal. In the early stages, small businesses and startups often work on a skeleton crew . It’s not uncommon to have “one-person departments” or departments made up of people who were just “pitching in.” Creating new positions as you grow — or moving an employee to another department — reduces the chance of burnout . This increases employee retention of your most talented, loyal employees.

For companies that are in rapid growth phases, creating a new position may be ideal. In the early stages, small businesses and startups often work on a skeleton crew . It’s not uncommon to have “one person departments” or departments made up of people who were just “pitching in.” Creating new positions as you grow — or moving an employee to another department — reduces the chance of burnout . This increases employee retention of your most talented, loyal employees.

Creating a new position at work isn’t something to take lightly. A new job is a commitment on both the part of the employee and the company. 

In addition to the cost of salary and benefits, there are logistical considerations. A major one is the longevity of the new role. Once you shift responsibilities from one job description to another, it may disrupt the operations of your team to try to shift them back.

Here are some ideas to keep in mind before creating a proposal for a new position:

Reasons that justify a new role

1. consistent overload.

Is your team constantly overworked ? Are most people wearing multiple hats? Is overtime an expectation rather than an exception? If all this is true, your team is on the fast track to burnout. Creating a new position can help manage long term growth and improve employee morale.

2. Saving money on freelancers

Are you spending lots of money on contractors? While hiring freelancers or an external agency can be a smart way to streamline your workload, they can be a mixed bag . You may deal with privacy concerns, a lack or industry expertise, or struggle to communicate certain nuances. Managing your contractors can become a full-time job in itself. Replacing them with an employee could be the most efficient and inexpensive option.

3. Keeping the business competitive

Want to know where an organization is going? Look at who they’re hiring. If your competitors are creating new roles or even entirely new departments, beefing up your staff can keep you relevant in the industry. This is especially true as organizations change their hiring practices to reflect new priorities. This might include diversity leadership roles or managers with experience leading remote teams .

4. Providing room for growth

People enjoy feeling that the work they do is rewarding and helping them grow. If your team members are doing things that underutilize their skill sets, it may make sense to hire others to fill that role. This frees seasoned leaders to engage in projects that use their skills more effectively. It improves revenue as less complex tasks are delegated to less costly labor.

Reasons that do not justify creating a new role

1. temporary increase in workload.

Is your company moving into a busy season, taking on a major project, or short-staffed due to multiple leaves of absence? Hold off before creating a new position to cover the demand. While you may be feeling the crunch, short-term challenges don’t necessarily justify long-term solutions. Even if you need additional help, onboarding freelancers, interns, or even a part-time employee might be a better option. 

2. An offer you can’t refuse

If you’re being offered more money for your desired role at another company, that may not be enough incentive to get a new position created for you. If you are considering leaving and want to use the offer for leverage, outline the value that a new position would create for the company. Be sure that you’re willing to move on before you use that as an ultimatum.

3. To keep an unhappy employee

Rewarding hard work and loyalty with upward mobility is a strong retention strategy. However, the move should be mutually beneficial. Talk to the employee first to see if a new opportunity or job description would alleviate their distress. The company may not be a value match. Sometimes they want something that isn't possible or they’re just ready to move on . If that's the case, there’s no sense in creating a new role.

Before you create — or announce — a new role, it’s necessary to sit down with everyone who will be a part of the process. Create a business plan or proposal for the new position . Ask the following questions:

• What skills and core competencies do they need to have?
• Who will they work most closely with?
• How does this role contribute to the overall business strategy?
• What are they responsible for?
• How does this differ from similar roles in this organization?
• What metrics will they use to measure success?

From there, you can begin to establish the specifics of the position. These include job title, part-time or full-time, direct manager, and an estimated salary range. If you can, determine the amount of revenue this new position can generate.

Internal communication:

Once you’ve decided to create a new position, make it public knowledge in the company with internal communication . How you communicate will depend on the role and whether someone is already in mind to fill it. This may involve recruiting internally, sourcing candidates, or sending out a memo. Don’t forget to loop the teams (and managers) most directly affected into the conversation. 

It may be helpful to have a smaller meeting in advance of the announcement. The department welcoming the new person or position is likely to field the most questions about it. They’ll also have the most insight into how to support employees for a successful transition.

Onboarding of the person in the new role

Take enough time for training. Whether you hire externally or you’re helping a current employee transition from one job to another, don’t shortcut the process. It may help to create an employee transition plan that covers the expectations and skills needed for success in the new role. 

If the person is a new hire or someone else has been handling these tasks, outline a timeframe to have responsibility handed over to the new hire.

Checking up on the new role

Once the new hire has settled into their position, don’t abandon them! Check in with them throughout the onboarding process, starting with the first day. 

An ideal timeframe might include check-ins at two weeks, six weeks, and three months, with on-going support from a trainer. Set clear deliverables with the new hire so they know how to measure their own benchmarks and what your expectations are.

Ultimately, the goal of any new role is to increase the organization’s efficiency and revenue. 

It makes sense to take care when designing a new role — or moving an employee from their current role to another. Done well, this can create lasting benefits for both the individual and the team.

Here are 4 common mistakes to avoid when creating a new role:

1. Short-term thinking

How will this role benefit your organization in six months? A year? Five years? Outline a potential career path and long term goals for this position. When considering candidates, take those ideals into account. 

If you imagine the role quickly growing into a full-time position, don't hire somebody who only wants to work part-time. 

2. Blowing the budget

Be sensible about how you budget funds for this new role. Avoid being too optimistic about market growth or potential revenue. 

Hiring someone whose position is only justified by an idealistic income goal will put pressure on everyone. The new hire and the team will feel the pinch on the budget.

3. One-sided decision making

Even if they won’t have the final say in staffing, don't create a new role without talking to everyone involved who will be working with that person. Their input will be invaluable. If you can, get them involved in the interview process. They'll have a better understanding of the skill sets required to be successful in the role and how the new position will improve the company.

4. Putting your new hire in the crossfire

If your company is having internal issues, it might be wise to hold off on hiring anyone new. Don't create a new position to teach your employees “a thing or two.” Even a new supervisor, manager, or executive will rely on the team to get them acclimated to the new role. Introducing them as the tough new “boss” will just set your new hire up to be ostracized, making it harder for them to integrate into the new team.

Creating a new role for yourself or others at your company can be an exciting path forward — or it can be a frustrating waste of time and money. Take care to carefully outline the expectations of the new position. Talking to everyone involved will go a long way towards ensuring a smooth transition.

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Allaya Cooks-Campbell

With over 15 years of content experience, Allaya Cooks Campbell has written for outlets such as ScaryMommy, HRzone, and HuffPost. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and is a certified yoga instructor as well as a certified Integrative Wellness & Life Coach. Allaya is passionate about whole-person wellness, yoga, and mental health.

Coaching insider: How to take a whole person approach to one-on-one meetings

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100 Day Plan for Leaders New in Role (Examples + Template)

When I dropped my son off at school on his first day of kindergarten, he looked at me and said, “I can’t wait to not be new anymore.” Thinking about the many people changing roles and companies these days, I can’t help but wonder how many may be counting the days until they’re not new anymore, too.

No matter how many years of experience a person has – even the most senior of leaders – being the “newbie” is daunting for most and hard enough that many avoid taking the new job in the first place. Add to it the complexity of the workplace these days – exhausted teams, workforce shortages, supply chain and business disruption, the war for talent, and constantly shifting ways of working and connecting as teams and organizations – being a leader in a new role is even more challenging.

For those talented and brave souls venturing to new roles and opportunities, congratulations. Instead of a new coffee mug or new decoration for your Zoom background (or at least, in addition to it), give yourself the gift of preparedness so you make the most of your first months on the job and set yourself up for success.

Is a 100 Day Plan Necessary for Leaders New in Role?

In short, yes. As a newly appointed leader, it’s easy to fall into the trap of waiting for the dust to settle – for you to get comfortable in your role and get a lay of the land, for your employees and teams to get accustomed to having a new leader before you start making any plans. However, waiting to form your plan means you lose the opportunity to set the right tone from the start by being purposeful, organized, and action-oriented.

What is a 100 Day Plan for New Leaders?

A 100 Day Plan is an action plan to guide executive leaders through their first critical months in a new role – outlining strategies and tactics to identify and engage key stakeholders and to build relationships, understand the business, set goals, and gain traction quickly so you can set up a foundation for long-term success in an organization.

While a plan needs to be customized for each leader – and you can download a 100 Day Plan Template here to get started – our experience points to six critical strategies all leaders can deploy to ace their first 100 days regardless of industry or function.

What should a 100 Day Plan include?

While a 100 Day Plan for executive leaders in a new role can take on many forms and is as unique as the business challenges leaders face, there are some core components that the best plans have. Use this 100 Day Plan example framework as a guide:

• Situation Summary – Outline the current business landscape, strengths, opportunities and other important headlines that capture the context you’re stepping into as the leader in your role. This might include the state of engagement at your organization, cost pressures, how employees perceive you as the new leader and more. Take an employee-centric point of view by key audience segments and then try to understand the challenge they need to overcome in today’s environment. You may need to set up informational interviews with a few key colleagues to help confirm some of your assumptions and to highlight details that you wouldn’t yet know.
• Longer-term: What do you want people to say about you and the business 18 months from now and what are some of the big actions you might consider taking to make your vision a reality?
• Near-term: Where do you want to be 100 days in on the job? What impact do you want to have made and how does that line up with your longer-term goals? List your goals, ensuring there are business metrics and relationship goals.
• Evolve the vision and goals for the organization’s future (if needed)
• Retain top talent
• Know : What facts do they need from me? What new information can I provide them? Examples: Key milestones I’m setting, changes from how the role was previously defined and new priorities / expectations I’m establishing.
• Feel: What do I want to be top of mind when they walk away from meeting with me? What pain point are they currently experiencing that I might be able to begin alleviating? Example: Confidence in the path forward, comfort in their ability to talk to me.
• Do: Is there an action that you need them to take right now? Is there a behavior that you want to see them demonstrate going forward? Example: Share the information you’ve provided them with their team, commit to asking questions and keeping the lines of communication open and adopt a mindset that assumes good intent even when faced with challenges or times of change.
• Key Messages – Articulate what the main messages are that you want to convey as you get to know your various key stakeholders. These may be key themes that you know you want to highlight about your leadership style and vision for the role, high-level examples of how you view your function tying into broader company goals and strategies, or a list of commitments you are making to your staff and the actions you are asking them to take while you settle in.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication Plan – Make a plan for how you’ll purposefully reach your stakeholders and how you’ll communicate over time to accomplish your goals. When you consider your stakeholders, think about big “centers of gravity” so you can separate out how to allocate time and where you can have the greatest impact by investing time and energy. Also, consider what key relationships you need to build because they’re critical to establishing bridges and sponsorship across the organization. Look for communication channels that already exist so you can simply plug in without having to build infrastructure – don’t underestimate the value of informal conversations and small group huddles as a powerful vehicle while people are getting to know you.
• Quick Win Tactics – Identify opportunities to generate quick and meaningful wins that demonstrate progress toward your overall goals. It is easy for leaders to get caught up in the long game, focusing on the notable impact they aspire to make within a business, but it’s the small wins along the way that both give you something to celebrate and help your stakeholders appreciate the impact you are already making.
• Measures for Success – Consider how you’ll know when success is achieved. Identify the metrics and how you’ll monitor progress – remember, this is a 100 Day Plan, so the metrics should fit accordingly with that timeline. For example, a measure could be around moving sentiment – such as belief in the company, confidence and optimism in the future, and clarity around where we’re heading and why. Use the progress in your stakeholder engagement and communication plans to show momentum.

Want help getting started? Download our free 100 Day Plan Template .

100 Day Plan Example – Your 3 Month Action Plan

The following is a sample 100 Day Plan that shows how to quickly and strategically build out your approach. You can simply customize this list, or you can use the list for inspiration to develop a more detailed plan in alignment with your or your new organization’s preferred format.

Before you get started:

• Continue to learn as much as you can about the organization and your team
• Have pre-meetings with identified stakeholders to discuss the game plan and listen for key expectations, core issues and opportunities
• Begin to map key stakeholders
• Get briefed on the employee, culture and communication landscape (set up an initial meeting with the Communications team, if possible)
• Consider having an informal visit with your new team over breakfast or lunch
• Prepare your elevator speech and/or your initial message platform
• Create a list for your Listening plans, outlining who all you need to meet with to hear perspectives, observe and tap for insights; set up meetings with key stakeholders (including senior leaders, peers, direct reports and skip-level reports/teams) ; if you don’t yet know their names, list their roles to prompt you to then find out the right point of contact
• Begin your listening “tour;” reinforce that you’re hearing what people are saying and make a point to circle back with anyone who asked a question that you couldn’t answer in the moment
• Connect with Communications and HR partners to understand the company culture and how communication happens
• Set the stage with your team and stakeholders with what to expect these first days and weeks, including what to continue to focus on and do
• Identify key contributors and any key people who are flight risks on your team and engage with them, including conducting stay interviews
• Actively participate in company onboarding so you experience what others also experience
• Continue listening tour
• Work with team members to codify strategy; involve people representing a cross-section of the organization whenever possible
• Identify communication channels you’ll regularly use to share updates on what you’re hearing, doing and thinking in advance of the formal launch of your communications plan
• Finalize your strategy and plan and socialize with key stakeholders for alignment
• Develop a communication plan for playback of listening and to share strategy going forward
• Refresh key messages and leader platform
• Implement communication plan
• Continue a steady cadence of employee listening, and update/amend the plan and messages in real-time based on new, viable insights that come from listening and any key changes within the business or your work environment

6 Strategies to Learn and Lead in Your First 100 Days

From our years of experience working with senior leaders as they navigate being new in their role while leading teams and organizations, we’ve compiled a list of six strategies that will help you learn while leading yourself and others with confidence and credibility.

1. Study up

Learn everything there is about the team or company you’re joining, but also spend the time where it counts so you don’t get caught up in analysis paralysis. Have a game plan leading up to your start date for what you need to know to hit the ground running, what you can learn along the way and how you want to get immersed. There’s plenty you can read online, but there’s so much more you can learn from inside the organization, especially by speaking with those who have the pulse.

Get to know the Communications and HR/People/Culture teams early on because they likely have a wealth of information about employee mindsets, hot-button issues and the best ways to reach and interact with employees. Many Communications teams we work with would be happy to help you know how information flows in the organization and what channels are best for leaders like you to get information and communicate effectively with your teams.

When an incoming senior executive was getting ready to join the organization, we partnered with the Communications team to develop an executive briefing book on the state of the workforce and how communication happens inside the company. There was a briefing meeting, great discussion and an opportunity for the leader to get to know the Communications team as they discussed shared needs and expectations so the leader could get connected and communicate effectively with key audiences. All of this led to a better, more actionable 100 Day Plan.

2. Figure out where to start

The first months are an exercise in drinking from a fire hose. Prioritizing is essential, but it can be hard to know where to start. Many leaders we’ve worked with have found it helpful to have a “working session.” In those sessions, we work with the leader to sort through critical business and communication demands and needs and then map their 100 Day Plan – with a particular eye on the next 30 days. These sessions give the leader a chance to step out of the day-to-day, assess the situation, determine priorities and frame a practical action plan for how to spend their time – always with business outcomes and stakeholder needs in mind. This session also sets the foundation for the key messages to convey and what to communicate and when.

3. Hit the road

Get out of your office . Whether you’re rounding, doing listening tours, road shows or coffees, get in front of as many people as you can so you get to know people across levels and roles in the organization. There’s nothing like being in person to ask questions, surface ideas and stories, read the room, feel the vibe and get a sense of what’s being said (and not said). If you can’t be in person, do your best to hit the road virtually with virtual office visits, coffees and the like. Make a commitment to visit those teams and sites as soon as possible when you can. This one is easy to put on the back burner, so make a point to schedule a set number of meet-and-greets per week to hold yourself accountable.

Asking questions during your onsite or virtual meetings is an important part of your listening. The best leaders lead by listening . They seek to understand, not to judge, and make this a regular part of how they lead. Find out why things are the way they are. Get to know people’s stories. Ask them what gets them excited to come to work, and what pain points or barriers they see and experience that get in the way. Make it about them, while also giving them a window into who you are.

As important as listening is, that doesn’t mean you can’t also share your story. As a leader, people need to know you first before they’ll get on board with your vision or strategy. Help them know who you are as a person and as a leader – what gets you excited, why you want to be a part of the team, how people who know you best describe you, what principles you live by and what brings you joy outside of work. All these things give others a chance to know you, how you tick and how you think about the world, which gives them a chance to have a human connection with you and to be able to help you deliver on your vision.

Another key part of sharing your story is being ready with your elevator speech and core messages. The elevator speech is the main message that you want to convey succinctly to your key stakeholders and audiences. Have your story ready and use it regularly from day one. You may customize this a bit for your various audiences and over time, but there’s power in being consistent overall.

Determining your Elevator Speech as a Leader New in Role

Keep it short and make it conversational. Speak to what your role is and how you’ve been here before in your previous role. Write it out so you’re thoughtful about what you want to convey. This is how many people will first remember you. For example:

Example Elevator Speech 1:

I’ve seen the power of transforming the employee experience and am excited to lead our team as we make it happen here together.

• This says you know employee experience and that you’ve been here before, which speaks to credibility and confidence in the role and where you’re going to take the team.
• This shows that you’re bringing energy and enthusiasm, and that you want to be part of the team because you view yourselves on a common journey aimed at getting results. This is motivating, speaks to a shared end game, and reinforces camaraderie and collaboration.

Example Elevator Speech 2:

Having a child with medical issues, I have immense appreciation for how much work goes into making great healthcare possible . I’m grateful to be part of this team and to partner together with you to improve access to great care for those we serve.

• Self discloses something personal and relatable, and establishes that this is a field of work that the person respects and appreciates.
• Sharing gratitude signals a person with character, humility and heart.
• Speaks to leading the team as colleagues, not subordinates, and that we’re in this together.
• Signals a vision of what’s possible that you want the team to work toward.

For senior-most executives, a best practice is having your own leadership message platform. Much like a “stump speech” for politicians, this is a set of key messages and stories to help you tell your story in a way that connects to your audiences and drives line of sight and engagement. It’s a useful tool for driving message consistency across communications and channels, as well as for saving time preparing for meetings and communications (for both the leader and the communicators who support them).

When leaders are new in role, the method of developing this platform is especially powerful in helping leaders think purposefully about how to articulate their story, their vision and their approach to shaping the strategy.

4. Have a stakeholder engagement and communication plan

The complement to your core messages is an engagement and communication plan. Whether you’re preparing your own, or have the support of your Communications team, this is a must so that you are intentional in your first 100 days (and beyond) about which stakeholders and audiences you are reaching, the best approach to do so and the outcome you want to see.

Take a few minutes to follow this 5-step method to plan your communication:

• OUTCOME: What’s the business goal for your engagement and outreach? As a leader new in role, your business goal may be to keep people focused on the current strategy, while you listen and determine the path forward. Or perhaps you need to stabilize the business and/or team. Whatever the situation, pinpoint what your business outcome is for the first 100 days.
• AUDIENCE: Who are the key audiences you need to engage and where are they coming from? Different audiences will have different perceptions and information needs – and the more you know about each, the more effective you’ll be at connecting with them and ultimately moving them to action. If you discover that you don’t know much about some audiences, it’s a signal you need to go and get to know them more.
• Why (rationale and context)
• What (what’s happening and what to focus on for now)
• When (a sense of timing for what’s happening and what’s to come)
• How (how you’re approaching the coming weeks, how they can help, how you’ll use their insights to develop your action plan)
• Who (who you are, what brings you here, what’s important to you, what they can expect from you and what you expect from them)
• WIIFM (what’s in it for “me” – in other words, what all of this means for them)
• METHOD: What’s the best way to reach them? Map your plan for how to connect with people in ways that foster conversation and the ability to share information freely and candidly. In-person is ideal. Consider where you need one-on-one conversations vs. where small group sessions or larger sessions – such as town halls – can be helpful. Maybe there are feedback channels you want to use or initiate. Consider the mix of methods.
• MEASURE: How do you know if the plan is working? You can learn a lot about what’s working based on the nature of the conversations you’re having, whether you sense people are sharing their views openly and the questions you’re getting. Engage your direct reports and Communications team to share insights and feedback on what they’re hearing. Consider whether informal or formal pulse checks would be useful to get a sense of things as well.

TIP: Having a stakeholder engagement and communication plan is a critical tool beyond your first 100 days, too. The best leaders are always purposeful about how they stay connected with stakeholders and audiences and how they’re showing up regularly through communications.

5. Resist the urge to make change right away

Most leaders are hired to be change agents, so it’s counterintuitive to say don’t come in and change things right away. Even if you think you know what needs to change, try to avoid making big changes in those first 100 days as it can usually cause more harm than help.

Typically, leaders use the first 100 days to listen and formulate an informed strategy, gain key stakeholder buy-in, and then they roll out the strategy in a thoughtful way, so the right audiences are reached at the right time and with the right message. To the greatest extent possible, let others be part of the strategy shaping so it’s the collective plan, not “your” plan alone. WATCH OUT: Without adequate upfront listening in the first 100 days, there’s an assumption that the leader may be uninterested, uninformed or misaligned with the company’s heritage, culture and people. Any which way, it’s a bad look, and it hinders your and the team’s ability to get things done if you come out of the gate with your mind made up about what needs to happen.

There are a few exceptions when making changes in the first 100 days could be the right option. Perhaps there are things you’ve heard and seen that are clearly broken and getting in the way of the employee experience that could be fixed right away and that signal your focus on the people. Or, perhaps something is happening that’s putting the organization at major risk and cannot wait for action. In those cases, immediate change may be the answer to stop the bleeding and/or to signal important and meaningful change right away.

Engage key stakeholders who have institutional perspective in the planning so you’re aware of blind spots or bright spots and leverage your Communications team so what’s communicated is done in the right way and casts a positive light on your approach and intention.

6. Be yourself

All eyes are on you as the new manager or leader, especially those first 100 days, and people are searching for meaning in everything you do (or don’t do). Consider your leadership style and what has served you well and will continue to serve you. Bring that forward with intentionality in how you show up. Check the old habits or ways of working that may not have been as effective at the door. Communicate with purpose.

Lead with heart – knowing that the best leaders today are those who bring authenticity, empathy and humanity to the workplace, so teams can be their best selves and deliver on their mission and goals in the best way.

Empathy is not a “soft” skill

Leaders who practice empathy have more engaged and higher-performing teams, as well as more profitable businesses overall. (Catalyst research study: “The Power of Empathy in Times of Crisis and Beyond,” Sept 2021)

• 79% of US workers agree empathetic leadership decreases employee turnover. (EY Consulting survey, Oct. 2021)
• 85% of employees report that empathetic leadership in the workplace increases productivity. (EY Consulting survey, Oct. 2021)

The Bottom Line

Being an executive leader in a new role comes with big responsibility and a lot of hard work. With the right preparation and thoughtful approach to how you lead and communicate in your first 100 days – and year – you can make your first weeks and months ones that recharge, inspire, motivate and chart the path for great work together to accomplish your goals and strengthen your company’s future.

Don’t feel you need to do this important work on your own. Let those with expertise in these areas partner with you so you can elevate your presence, focus your time where you can have the greatest impact on the business, and achieve the results you want faster and better. If you’d like to discuss ways we can help you get quick wins and plan for long-term impact, contact us today.

—Kate Bushnell

Set the right tone in your new role from the start by being purposeful, organized, and action-oriented with the help of this 100 Day Plan Template. Click the image below to download the 100 Day Plan Template today!

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How to Write a Business Plan in 9 Steps (+ Template and Examples)

Every successful business has one thing in common, a good and well-executed business plan. A business plan is more than a document, it is a complete guide that outlines the goals your business wants to achieve, including its financial goals . It helps you analyze results, make strategic decisions, show your business operations and growth.

If you want to start a business or already have one and need to pitch it to investors for funding, writing a good business plan improves your chances of attracting financiers. As a startup, if you want to secure loans from financial institutions, part of the requirements involve submitting your business plan.

Writing a business plan does not have to be a complicated or time-consuming process. In this article, you will learn the step-by-step process for writing a successful business plan.

You will also learn what you need a business plan for, tips and strategies for writing a convincing business plan, business plan examples and templates that will save you tons of time, and the alternatives to the traditional business plan.

Let’s get started.

What Do You Need A Business Plan For?

Businesses create business plans for different purposes such as to secure funds, monitor business growth, measure your marketing strategies, and measure your business success.

1. Secure Funds

One of the primary reasons for writing a business plan is to secure funds, either from financial institutions/agencies or investors.

For you to effectively acquire funds, your business plan must contain the key elements of your business plan . For example, your business plan should include your growth plans, goals you want to achieve, and milestones you have recorded.

A business plan can also attract new business partners that are willing to contribute financially and intellectually. If you are writing a business plan to a bank, your project must show your traction , that is, the proof that you can pay back any loan borrowed.

Also, if you are writing to an investor, your plan must contain evidence that you can effectively utilize the funds you want them to invest in your business. Here, you are using your business plan to persuade a group or an individual that your business is a source of a good investment.

2. Monitor Business Growth

A business plan can help you track cash flows in your business. It steers your business to greater heights. A business plan capable of tracking business growth should contain:

• The business goals
• Methods to achieve the goals
• Time-frame for attaining those goals

A good business plan should guide you through every step in achieving your goals. It can also track the allocation of assets to every aspect of the business. You can tell when you are spending more than you should on a project.

You can compare a business plan to a written GPS. It helps you manage your business and hints at the right time to expand your business.

3. Measure Business Success

A business plan can help you measure your business success rate. Some small-scale businesses are thriving better than more prominent companies because of their track record of success.

Right from the onset of your business operation, set goals and work towards them. Write a plan to guide you through your procedures. Use your plan to measure how much you have achieved and how much is left to attain.

You can also weigh your success by monitoring the position of your brand relative to competitors. On the other hand, a business plan can also show you why you have not achieved a goal. It can tell if you have elapsed the time frame you set to attain a goal.

4. Document Your Marketing Strategies

You can use a business plan to document your marketing plans. Every business should have an effective marketing plan.

Competition mandates every business owner to go the extraordinary mile to remain relevant in the market. Your business plan should contain your marketing strategies that work. You can measure the success rate of your marketing plans.

In your business plan, your marketing strategy must answer the questions:

• How do you want to reach your target audience?
• How do you plan to retain your customers?
• What is/are your pricing plans?
• What is your budget for marketing?

How to Write a Business Plan Step-by-Step

1. create your executive summary.

The executive summary is a snapshot of your business or a high-level overview of your business purposes and plans . Although the executive summary is the first section in your business plan, most people write it last. The length of the executive summary is not more than two pages.

Generally, there are nine sections in a business plan, the executive summary should condense essential ideas from the other eight sections.

A good executive summary should do the following:

• A Snapshot of Growth Potential. Briefly inform the reader about your company and why it will be successful)
• Contain your Mission Statement which explains what the main objective or focus of your business is.
• Product Description and Differentiation. Brief description of your products or services and why it is different from other solutions in the market.
• The Team. Basic information about your company’s leadership team and employees
• Business Concept. A solid description of what your business does.
• Target Market. The customers you plan to sell to.
• Marketing Strategy. Your plans on reaching and selling to your customers
• Current Financial State. Brief information about what revenue your business currently generates.
• Projected Financial State. Brief information about what you foresee your business revenue to be in the future.

The executive summary is the make-or-break section of your business plan. If your summary cannot in less than two pages cannot clearly describe how your business will solve a particular problem of your target audience and make a profit, your business plan is set on a faulty foundation.

Avoid using the executive summary to hype your business, instead, focus on helping the reader understand the what and how of your plan.

View the executive summary as an opportunity to introduce your vision for your company. You know your executive summary is powerful when it can answer these key questions:

• Who is your target audience?
• What sector or industry are you in?
• What are your products and services?
• What is the future of your industry?
• Is your company scaleable?
• Who are the owners and leaders of your company? What are their backgrounds and experience levels?
• What is the motivation for starting your company?
• What are the next steps?

Writing the executive summary last although it is the most important section of your business plan is an excellent idea. The reason why is because it is a high-level overview of your business plan. It is the section that determines whether potential investors and lenders will read further or not.

The executive summary can be a stand-alone document that covers everything in your business plan. It is not uncommon for investors to request only the executive summary when evaluating your business. If the information in the executive summary impresses them, they will ask for the complete business plan.

If you are writing your business plan for your planning purposes, you do not need to write the executive summary.

2. Add Your Company Overview

The company overview or description is the next section in your business plan after the executive summary. It describes what your business does.

Adding your company overview can be tricky especially when your business is still in the planning stages. Existing businesses can easily summarize their current operations but may encounter difficulties trying to explain what they plan to become.

Your company overview should contain the following:

• What products and services you will provide
• Geographical markets and locations your company have a presence
• What you need to run your business
• Who your target audience or customers are
• Who will service your customers
• Your company’s purpose, mission, and vision
• Information about your company’s founders
• Who the founders are
• Notable achievements of your company so far

When creating a company overview, you have to focus on three basics: identifying your industry, identifying your customer, and explaining the problem you solve.

If you are stuck when creating your company overview, try to answer some of these questions that pertain to you.

• Who are you targeting? (The answer is not everyone)
• What pain point does your product or service solve for your customers that they will be willing to spend money on resolving?
• How does your product or service overcome that pain point?
• Where is the location of your business?
• What products, equipment, and services do you need to run your business?
• How is your company’s product or service different from your competition in the eyes of your customers?
• How many employees do you need and what skills do you require them to have?

After answering some or all of these questions, you will get more than enough information you need to write your company overview or description section. When writing this section, describe what your company does for your customers.

The company description or overview section contains three elements: mission statement, history, and objectives.

• Mission Statement

The mission statement refers to the reason why your business or company is existing. It goes beyond what you do or sell, it is about the ‘why’. A good mission statement should be emotional and inspirational.

Your mission statement should follow the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). For example, Shopify’s mission statement is “Make commerce better for everyone.”

When describing your company’s history, make it simple and avoid the temptation of tying it to a defensive narrative. Write it in the manner you would a profile. Your company’s history should include the following information:

• Founding Date
• Major Milestones
• Location(s)
• Flagship Products or Services
• Number of Employees
• Executive Leadership Roles

When you fill in this information, you use it to write one or two paragraphs about your company’s history.

Business Objectives

Your business objective must be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.) Failure to clearly identify your business objectives does not inspire confidence and makes it hard for your team members to work towards a common purpose.

3. Perform Market and Competitive Analyses to Proof a Big Enough Business Opportunity

The third step in writing a business plan is the market and competitive analysis section. Every business, no matter the size, needs to perform comprehensive market and competitive analyses before it enters into a market.

Performing market and competitive analyses are critical for the success of your business. It helps you avoid entering the right market with the wrong product, or vice versa. Anyone reading your business plans, especially financiers and financial institutions will want to see proof that there is a big enough business opportunity you are targeting.

This section is where you describe the market and industry you want to operate in and show the big opportunities in the market that your business can leverage to make a profit. If you noticed any unique trends when doing your research, show them in this section.

Market analysis alone is not enough, you have to add competitive analysis to strengthen this section. There are already businesses in the industry or market, how do you plan to take a share of the market from them?

You have to clearly illustrate the competitive landscape in your business plan. Are there areas your competitors are doing well? Are there areas where they are not doing so well? Show it.

Make it clear in this section why you are moving into the industry and what weaknesses are present there that you plan to explain. How are your competitors going to react to your market entry? How do you plan to get customers? Do you plan on taking your competitors' competitors, tap into other sources for customers, or both?

Illustrate the competitive landscape as well. What are your competitors doing well and not so well?

Answering these questions and thoughts will aid your market and competitive analysis of the opportunities in your space. Depending on how sophisticated your industry is, or the expectations of your financiers, you may need to carry out a more comprehensive market and competitive analysis to prove that big business opportunity.

Instead of looking at the market and competitive analyses as one entity, separating them will make the research even more comprehensive.

Market Analysis

Market analysis, boarding speaking, refers to research a business carried out on its industry, market, and competitors. It helps businesses gain a good understanding of their target market and the outlook of their industry. Before starting a company, it is vital to carry out market research to find out if the market is viable.

The market analysis section is a key part of the business plan. It is the section where you identify who your best clients or customers are. You cannot omit this section, without it your business plan is incomplete.

A good market analysis will tell your readers how you fit into the existing market and what makes you stand out. This section requires in-depth research, it will probably be the most time-consuming part of the business plan to write.

• Market Research

To create a compelling market analysis that will win over investors and financial institutions, you have to carry out thorough market research . Your market research should be targeted at your primary target market for your products or services. Here is what you want to find out about your target market.

• Your target market’s needs or pain points
• The existing solutions for their pain points
• Geographic Location
• Demographics

The purpose of carrying out a marketing analysis is to get all the information you need to show that you have a solid and thorough understanding of your target audience.

Only after you have fully understood the people you plan to sell your products or services to, can you evaluate correctly if your target market will be interested in your products or services.

You can easily convince interested parties to invest in your business if you can show them you thoroughly understand the market and show them that there is a market for your products or services.

How to Quantify Your Target Market

One of the goals of your marketing research is to understand who your ideal customers are and their purchasing power. To quantify your target market, you have to determine the following:

• Your Potential Customers: They are the people you plan to target. For example, if you sell accounting software for small businesses , then anyone who runs an enterprise or large business is unlikely to be your customers. Also, individuals who do not have a business will most likely not be interested in your product.
• Total Households: If you are selling household products such as heating and air conditioning systems, determining the number of total households is more important than finding out the total population in the area you want to sell to. The logic is simple, people buy the product but it is the household that uses it.
• Median Income: You need to know the median income of your target market. If you target a market that cannot afford to buy your products and services, your business will not last long.
• Income by Demographics: If your potential customers belong to a certain age group or gender, determining income levels by demographics is necessary. For example, if you sell men's clothes, your target audience is men.

What Does a Good Market Analysis Entail?

Your business does not exist on its own, it can only flourish within an industry and alongside competitors. Market analysis takes into consideration your industry, target market, and competitors. Understanding these three entities will drastically improve your company’s chances of success.

You can view your market analysis as an examination of the market you want to break into and an education on the emerging trends and themes in that market. Good market analyses include the following:

• Industry Description. You find out about the history of your industry, the current and future market size, and who the largest players/companies are in your industry.
• Overview of Target Market. You research your target market and its characteristics. Who are you targeting? Note, it cannot be everyone, it has to be a specific group. You also have to find out all information possible about your customers that can help you understand how and why they make buying decisions.
• Size of Target Market: You need to know the size of your target market, how frequently they buy, and the expected quantity they buy so you do not risk overproducing and having lots of bad inventory. Researching the size of your target market will help you determine if it is big enough for sustained business or not.
• Growth Potential: Before picking a target market, you want to be sure there are lots of potential for future growth. You want to avoid going for an industry that is declining slowly or rapidly with almost zero growth potential.
• Market Share Potential: Does your business stand a good chance of taking a good share of the market?
• Market Pricing and Promotional Strategies: Your market analysis should give you an idea of the price point you can expect to charge for your products and services. Researching your target market will also give you ideas of pricing strategies you can implement to break into the market or to enjoy maximum profits.
• Potential Barriers to Entry: One of the biggest benefits of conducting market analysis is that it shows you every potential barrier to entry your business will likely encounter. It is a good idea to discuss potential barriers to entry such as changing technology. It informs readers of your business plan that you understand the market.
• Research on Competitors: You need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how you can exploit them for the benefit of your business. Find patterns and trends among your competitors that make them successful, discover what works and what doesn’t, and see what you can do better.

The market analysis section is not just for talking about your target market, industry, and competitors. You also have to explain how your company can fill the hole you have identified in the market.

Here are some questions you can answer that can help you position your product or service in a positive light to your readers.

• Is your product or service of superior quality?
• What additional features do you offer that your competitors do not offer?
• Are you targeting a ‘new’ market?

Basically, your market analysis should include an analysis of what already exists in the market and an explanation of how your company fits into the market.

Competitive Analysis

In the competitive analysis section, y ou have to understand who your direct and indirect competitions are, and how successful they are in the marketplace. It is the section where you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, the advantage(s) they possess in the market and show the unique features or qualities that make you different from your competitors.

Many businesses do market analysis and competitive analysis together. However, to fully understand what the competitive analysis entails, it is essential to separate it from the market analysis.

Competitive analysis for your business can also include analysis on how to overcome barriers to entry in your target market.

The primary goal of conducting a competitive analysis is to distinguish your business from your competitors. A strong competitive analysis is essential if you want to convince potential funding sources to invest in your business. You have to show potential investors and lenders that your business has what it takes to compete in the marketplace successfully.

Competitive analysis will s how you what the strengths of your competition are and what they are doing to maintain that advantage.

When doing your competitive research, you first have to identify your competitor and then get all the information you can about them. The idea of spending time to identify your competitor and learn everything about them may seem daunting but it is well worth it.

Find answers to the following questions after you have identified who your competitors are.

• What are your successful competitors doing?
• Why is what they are doing working?
• Can your business do it better?
• What are the weaknesses of your successful competitors?
• What are they not doing well?
• Can your business turn its weaknesses into strengths?
• How good is your competitors’ customer service?
• Where do your competitors invest in advertising?
• What sales and pricing strategies are they using?
• What marketing strategies are they using?
• What kind of press coverage do they get?
• What are their customers saying about your competitors (both the positive and negative)?

If your competitors have a website, it is a good idea to visit their websites for more competitors’ research. Check their “About Us” page for more information.

If you are presenting your business plan to investors, you need to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors. Investors can easily tell when you have not properly researched your competitors.

Take time to think about what unique qualities or features set you apart from your competitors. If you do not have any direct competition offering your product to the market, it does not mean you leave out the competitor analysis section blank. Instead research on other companies that are providing a similar product, or whose product is solving the problem your product solves.

The next step is to create a table listing the top competitors you want to include in your business plan. Ensure you list your business as the last and on the right. What you just created is known as the competitor analysis table.

Direct vs Indirect Competition

You cannot know if your product or service will be a fit for your target market if you have not understood your business and the competitive landscape.

There is no market you want to target where you will not encounter competition, even if your product is innovative. Including competitive analysis in your business plan is essential.

If you are entering an established market, you need to explain how you plan to differentiate your products from the available options in the market. Also, include a list of few companies that you view as your direct competitors The competition you face in an established market is your direct competition.

In situations where you are entering a market with no direct competition, it does not mean there is no competition there. Consider your indirect competition that offers substitutes for the products or services you offer.

For example, if you sell an innovative SaaS product, let us say a project management software , a company offering time management software is your indirect competition.

There is an easy way to find out who your indirect competitors are in the absence of no direct competitors. You simply have to research how your potential customers are solving the problems that your product or service seeks to solve. That is your direct competition.

Factors that Differentiate Your Business from the Competition

There are three main factors that any business can use to differentiate itself from its competition. They are cost leadership, product differentiation, and market segmentation.

1. Cost Leadership

A strategy you can impose to maximize your profits and gain an edge over your competitors. It involves offering lower prices than what the majority of your competitors are offering.

A common practice among businesses looking to enter into a market where there are dominant players is to use free trials or pricing to attract as many customers as possible to their offer.

2. Product Differentiation

Your product or service should have a unique selling proposition (USP) that your competitors do not have or do not stress in their marketing.

Part of the marketing strategy should involve making your products unique and different from your competitors. It does not have to be different from your competitors, it can be the addition to a feature or benefit that your competitors do not currently have.

3. Market Segmentation

As a new business seeking to break into an industry, you will gain more success from focusing on a specific niche or target market, and not the whole industry.

If your competitors are focused on a general need or target market, you can differentiate yourself from them by having a small and hyper-targeted audience. For example, if your competitors are selling men’s clothes in their online stores , you can sell hoodies for men.

4. Define Your Business and Management Structure

The next step in your business plan is your business and management structure. It is the section where you describe the legal structure of your business and the team running it.

Your business is only as good as the management team that runs it, while the management team can only strive when there is a proper business and management structure in place.

If your company is a sole proprietor or a limited liability company (LLC), a general or limited partnership, or a C or an S corporation, state it clearly in this section.

Use an organizational chart to show the management structure in your business. Clearly show who is in charge of what area in your company. It is where you show how each key manager or team leader’s unique experience can contribute immensely to the success of your company. You can also opt to add the resumes and CVs of the key players in your company.

The business and management structure section should show who the owner is, and other owners of the businesses (if the business has other owners). For businesses or companies with multiple owners, include the percent ownership of the various owners and clearly show the extent of each others’ involvement in the company.

Investors want to know who is behind the company and the team running it to determine if it has the right management to achieve its set goals.

Management Team

The management team section is where you show that you have the right team in place to successfully execute the business operations and ideas. Take time to create the management structure for your business. Think about all the important roles and responsibilities that you need managers for to grow your business.

Include brief bios of each key team member and ensure you highlight only the relevant information that is needed. If your team members have background industry experience or have held top positions for other companies and achieved success while filling that role, highlight it in this section.

A common mistake that many startups make is assigning C-level titles such as (CMO and CEO) to everyone on their team. It is unrealistic for a small business to have those titles. While it may look good on paper for the ego of your team members, it can prevent investors from investing in your business.

Instead of building an unrealistic management structure that does not fit your business reality, it is best to allow business titles to grow as the business grows. Starting everyone at the top leaves no room for future change or growth, which is bad for productivity.

Your management team does not have to be complete before you start writing your business plan. You can have a complete business plan even when there are managerial positions that are empty and need filling.

If you have management gaps in your team, simply show the gaps and indicate you are searching for the right candidates for the role(s). Investors do not expect you to have a full management team when you are just starting your business.

Key Questions to Answer When Structuring Your Management Team

• Who are the key leaders?
• What experiences, skills, and educational backgrounds do you expect your key leaders to have?
• Do your key leaders have industry experience?
• What positions will they fill and what duties will they perform in those positions?
• What level of authority do the key leaders have and what are their responsibilities?
• What is the salary for the various management positions that will attract the ideal candidates?

Additional Tips for Writing the Management Structure Section

1. Avoid Adding ‘Ghost’ Names to Your Management Team

There is always that temptation to include a ‘ghost’ name to your management team to attract and influence investors to invest in your business. Although the presence of these celebrity management team members may attract the attention of investors, it can cause your business to lose any credibility if you get found out.

Seasoned investors will investigate further the members of your management team before committing fully to your business If they find out that the celebrity name used does not play any actual role in your business, they will not invest and may write you off as dishonest.

2. Focus on Credentials But Pay Extra Attention to the Roles

Investors want to know the experience that your key team members have to determine if they can successfully reach the company’s growth and financial goals.

While it is an excellent boost for your key management team to have the right credentials, you also want to pay extra attention to the roles they will play in your company.

Organizational Chart

Adding an organizational chart in this section of your business plan is not necessary, you can do it in your business plan’s appendix.

If you are exploring funding options, it is not uncommon to get asked for your organizational chart. The function of an organizational chart goes beyond raising money, you can also use it as a useful planning tool for your business.

An organizational chart can help you identify how best to structure your management team for maximum productivity and point you towards key roles you need to fill in the future.

You can use the organizational chart to show your company’s internal management structure such as the roles and responsibilities of your management team, and relationships that exist between them.

5. Describe Your Product and Service Offering

In your business plan, you have to describe what you sell or the service you plan to offer. It is the next step after defining your business and management structure. The products and services section is where you sell the benefits of your business.

Here you have to explain how your product or service will benefit your customers and describe your product lifecycle. It is also the section where you write down your plans for intellectual property like patent filings and copyrighting.

The research and development that you are undertaking for your product or service need to be explained in detail in this section. However, do not get too technical, sell the general idea and its benefits.

If you have any diagrams or intricate designs of your product or service, do not include them in the products and services section. Instead, leave them for the addendum page. Also, if you are leaving out diagrams or designs for the addendum, ensure you add this phrase “For more detail, visit the addendum Page #.”

Your product and service section in your business plan should include the following:

• A detailed explanation that clearly shows how your product or service works.
• The pricing model for your product or service.
• Your business’ sales and distribution strategy.
• The ideal customers that want your product or service.
• The benefits of your products and services.
• Reason(s) why your product or service is a better alternative to what your competitors are currently offering in the market.
• Plans for filling the orders you receive
• If you have current or pending patents, copyrights, and trademarks for your product or service, you can also discuss them in this section.

What to Focus On When Describing the Benefits, Lifecycle, and Production Process of Your Products or Services

In the products and services section, you have to distill the benefits, lifecycle, and production process of your products and services.

When describing the benefits of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

• Unique features
• Translating the unique features into benefits
• The emotional, psychological, and practical payoffs to attract customers
• Intellectual property rights or any patents

When describing the product life cycle of your products or services, here are some key factors to focus on.

• Upsells, cross-sells, and down-sells
• Time between purchases
• Plans for research and development.

When describing the production process for your products or services, you need to think about the following:

• The creation of new or existing products and services.
• The sources for the raw materials or components you need for production.
• Assembling the products
• Maintaining quality control
• Supply-chain logistics (receiving the raw materials and delivering the finished products)
• The day-to-day management of the production processes, bookkeeping, and inventory.

Tips for Writing the Products or Services Section of Your Business Plan

1. Avoid Technical Descriptions and Industry Buzzwords

The products and services section of your business plan should clearly describe the products and services that your company provides. However, it is not a section to include technical jargons that anyone outside your industry will not understand.

A good practice is to remove highly detailed or technical descriptions in favor of simple terms. Industry buzzwords are not necessary, if there are simpler terms you can use, then use them. If you plan to use your business plan to source funds, making the product or service section so technical will do you no favors.

2. Describe How Your Products or Services Differ from Your Competitors

When potential investors look at your business plan, they want to know how the products and services you are offering differ from that of your competition. Differentiating your products or services from your competition in a way that makes your solution more attractive is critical.

If you are going the innovative path and there is no market currently for your product or service, you need to describe in this section why the market needs your product or service.

For example, overnight delivery was a niche business that only a few companies were participating in. Federal Express (FedEx) had to show in its business plan that there was a large opportunity for that service and they justified why the market needed that service.

3. Long or Short Products or Services Section

Should your products or services section be short? Does the long products or services section attract more investors?

There are no straightforward answers to these questions. Whether your products or services section should be long or relatively short depends on the nature of your business.

If your business is product-focused, then automatically you need to use more space to describe the details of your products. However, if the product your business sells is a commodity item that relies on competitive pricing or other pricing strategies, you do not have to use up so much space to provide significant details about the product.

Likewise, if you are selling a commodity that is available in numerous outlets, then you do not have to spend time on writing a long products or services section.

The key to the success of your business is most likely the effectiveness of your marketing strategies compared to your competitors. Use more space to address that section.

If you are creating a new product or service that the market does not know about, your products or services section can be lengthy. The reason why is because you need to explain everything about the product or service such as the nature of the product, its use case, and values.

A short products or services section for an innovative product or service will not give the readers enough information to properly evaluate your business.

4. Describe Your Relationships with Vendors or Suppliers

Your business will rely on vendors or suppliers to supply raw materials or the components needed to make your products. In your products and services section, describe your relationships with your vendors and suppliers fully.

Avoid the mistake of relying on only one supplier or vendor. If that supplier or vendor fails to supply or goes out of business, you can easily face supply problems and struggle to meet your demands. Plan to set up multiple vendor or supplier relationships for better business stability.

5. Your Primary Goal Is to Convince Your Readers

The primary goal of your business plan is to convince your readers that your business is viable and to create a guide for your business to follow. It applies to the products and services section.

When drafting this section, think like the reader. See your reader as someone who has no idea about your products and services. You are using the products and services section to provide the needed information to help your reader understand your products and services. As a result, you have to be clear and to the point.

While you want to educate your readers about your products or services, you also do not want to bore them with lots of technical details. Show your products and services and not your fancy choice of words.

Your products and services section should provide the answer to the “what” question for your business. You and your management team may run the business, but it is your products and services that are the lifeblood of the business.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing your Products and Services Section

Answering these questions can help you write your products and services section quickly and in a way that will appeal to your readers.

• Are your products existing on the market or are they still in the development stage?
• What is your timeline for adding new products and services to the market?
• What are the positives that make your products and services different from your competitors?
• Do your products and services have any competitive advantage that your competitors’ products and services do not currently have?
• Do your products or services have any competitive disadvantages that you need to overcome to compete with your competitors? If your answer is yes, state how you plan to overcome them,
• How much does it cost to produce your products or services? How much do you plan to sell it for?
• What is the price for your products and services compared to your competitors? Is pricing an issue?
• What are your operating costs and will it be low enough for you to compete with your competitors and still take home a reasonable profit margin?
• What is your plan for acquiring your products? Are you involved in the production of your products or services?
• Are you the manufacturer and produce all the components you need to create your products? Do you assemble your products by using components supplied by other manufacturers? Do you purchase your products directly from suppliers or wholesalers?
• Do you have a steady supply of products that you need to start your business? (If your business is yet to kick-off)
• How do you plan to distribute your products or services to the market?

You can also hint at the marketing or promotion plans you have for your products or services such as how you plan to build awareness or retain customers. The next section is where you can go fully into details about your business’s marketing and sales plan.

6. Show and Explain Your Marketing and Sales Plan

Providing great products and services is wonderful, but it means nothing if you do not have a marketing and sales plan to inform your customers about them. Your marketing and sales plan is critical to the success of your business.

The sales and marketing section is where you show and offer a detailed explanation of your marketing and sales plan and how you plan to execute it. It covers your pricing plan, proposed advertising and promotion activities, activities and partnerships you need to make your business a success, and the benefits of your products and services.

There are several ways you can approach your marketing and sales strategy. Ideally, your marketing and sales strategy has to fit the unique needs of your business.

In this section, you describe how the plans your business has for attracting and retaining customers, and the exact process for making a sale happen. It is essential to thoroughly describe your complete marketing and sales plans because you are still going to reference this section when you are making financial projections for your business.

Outline Your Business’ Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The sales and marketing section is where you outline your business’s unique selling proposition (USP). When you are developing your unique selling proposition, think about the strongest reasons why people should buy from you over your competition. That reason(s) is most likely a good fit to serve as your unique selling proposition (USP).

Target Market and Target Audience

Plans on how to get your products or services to your target market and how to get your target audience to buy them go into this section. You also highlight the strengths of your business here, particularly what sets them apart from your competition.

Before you start writing your marketing and sales plan, you need to have properly defined your target audience and fleshed out your buyer persona. If you do not first understand the individual you are marketing to, your marketing and sales plan will lack any substance and easily fall.

Creating a Smart Marketing and Sales Plan

Marketing your products and services is an investment that requires you to spend money. Like any other investment, you have to generate a good return on investment (ROI) to justify using that marketing and sales plan. Good marketing and sales plans bring in high sales and profits to your company.

Avoid spending money on unproductive marketing channels. Do your research and find out the best marketing and sales plan that works best for your company.

Your marketing and sales plan can be broken into different parts: your positioning statement, pricing, promotion, packaging, advertising, public relations, content marketing, social media, and strategic alliances.

Your Positioning Statement

Your positioning statement is the first part of your marketing and sales plan. It refers to the way you present your company to your customers.

Are you the premium solution, the low-price solution, or are you the intermediary between the two extremes in the market? What do you offer that your competitors do not that can give you leverage in the market?

Before you start writing your positioning statement, you need to spend some time evaluating the current market conditions. Here are some questions that can help you to evaluate the market

• What are the unique features or benefits that you offer that your competitors lack?
• What are your customers’ primary needs and wants?
• Why should a customer choose you over your competition? How do you plan to differentiate yourself from the competition?
• How does your company’s solution compare with other solutions in the market?

After answering these questions, then you can start writing your positioning statement. Your positioning statement does not have to be in-depth or too long.

All you need to explain with your positioning statement are two focus areas. The first is the position of your company within the competitive landscape. The other focus area is the core value proposition that sets your company apart from other alternatives that your ideal customer might consider.

Here is a simple template you can use to develop a positioning statement.

For [description of target market] who [need of target market], [product or service] [how it meets the need]. Unlike [top competition], it [most essential distinguishing feature].

For example, let’s create the positioning statement for fictional accounting software and QuickBooks alternative , TBooks.

“For small business owners who need accounting services, TBooks is an accounting software that helps small businesses handle their small business bookkeeping basics quickly and easily. Unlike Wave, TBooks gives small businesses access to live sessions with top accountants.”

You can edit this positioning statement sample and fill it with your business details.

After writing your positioning statement, the next step is the pricing of your offerings. The overall positioning strategy you set in your positioning statement will often determine how you price your products or services.

Pricing is a powerful tool that sends a strong message to your customers. Failure to get your pricing strategy right can make or mar your business. If you are targeting a low-income audience, setting a premium price can result in low sales.

You can use pricing to communicate your positioning to your customers. For example, if you are offering a product at a premium price, you are sending a message to your customers that the product belongs to the premium category.

Basic Rules to Follow When Pricing Your Offering

Setting a price for your offering involves more than just putting a price tag on it. Deciding on the right pricing for your offering requires following some basic rules. They include covering your costs, primary and secondary profit center pricing, and matching the market rate.

• Covering Your Costs: The price you set for your products or service should be more than it costs you to produce and deliver them. Every business has the same goal, to make a profit. Depending on the strategy you want to use, there are exceptions to this rule. However, the vast majority of businesses follow this rule.
• Primary and Secondary Profit Center Pricing: When a company sets its price above the cost of production, it is making that product its primary profit center. A company can also decide not to make its initial price its primary profit center by selling below or at even with its production cost. It rather depends on the support product or even maintenance that is associated with the initial purchase to make its profit. The initial price thus became its secondary profit center.
• Matching the Market Rate: A good rule to follow when pricing your products or services is to match your pricing with consumer demand and expectations. If you price your products or services beyond the price your customer perceives as the ideal price range, you may end up with no customers. Pricing your products too low below what your customer perceives as the ideal price range may lead to them undervaluing your offering.

Pricing Strategy

Your pricing strategy influences the price of your offering. There are several pricing strategies available for you to choose from when examining the right pricing strategy for your business. They include cost-plus pricing, market-based pricing, value pricing, and more.

• Cost-plus Pricing: This strategy is one of the simplest and oldest pricing strategies. Here you consider the cost of producing a unit of your product and then add a profit to it to arrive at your market price. It is an effective pricing strategy for manufacturers because it helps them cover their initial costs. Another name for the cost-plus pricing strategy is the markup pricing strategy.
• Market-based Pricing: This pricing strategy analyses the market including competitors’ pricing and then sets a price based on what the market is expecting. With this pricing strategy, you can either set your price at the low-end or high-end of the market.
• Value Pricing: This pricing strategy involves setting a price based on the value you are providing to your customer. When adopting a value-based pricing strategy, you have to set a price that your customers are willing to pay. Service-based businesses such as small business insurance providers , luxury goods sellers, and the fashion industry use this pricing strategy.

After carefully sorting out your positioning statement and pricing, the next item to look at is your promotional strategy. Your promotional strategy explains how you plan on communicating with your customers and prospects.

As a business, you must measure all your costs, including the cost of your promotions. You also want to measure how much sales your promotions bring for your business to determine its usefulness. Promotional strategies or programs that do not lead to profit need to be removed.

There are different types of promotional strategies you can adopt for your business, they include advertising, public relations, and content marketing.

Advertising

Your business plan should include your advertising plan which can be found in the marketing and sales plan section. You need to include an overview of your advertising plans such as the areas you plan to spend money on to advertise your business and offers.

Ensure that you make it clear in this section if your business will be advertising online or using the more traditional offline media, or the combination of both online and offline media. You can also include the advertising medium you want to use to raise awareness about your business and offers.

Some common online advertising mediums you can use include social media ads, landing pages, sales pages, SEO, Pay-Per-Click, emails, Google Ads, and others. Some common traditional and offline advertising mediums include word of mouth, radios, direct mail, televisions, flyers, billboards, posters, and others.

A key component of your advertising strategy is how you plan to measure the effectiveness and success of your advertising campaign. There is no point in sticking with an advertising plan or medium that does not produce results for your business in the long run.

Public Relations

A great way to reach your customers is to get the media to cover your business or product. Publicity, especially good ones, should be a part of your marketing and sales plan. In this section, show your plans for getting prominent reviews of your product from reputable publications and sources.

Your business needs that exposure to grow. If public relations is a crucial part of your promotional strategy, provide details about your public relations plan here.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular promotional strategy used by businesses to inform and attract their customers. It is about teaching and educating your prospects on various topics of interest in your niche, it does not just involve informing them about the benefits and features of the products and services you have,

Businesses publish content usually for free where they provide useful information, tips, and advice so that their target market can be made aware of the importance of their products and services. Content marketing strategies seek to nurture prospects into buyers over time by simply providing value.

Your company can create a blog where it will be publishing content for its target market. You will need to use the best website builder such as Wix and Squarespace and the best web hosting services such as Bluehost, Hostinger, and other Bluehost alternatives to create a functional blog or website.

If content marketing is a crucial part of your promotional strategy (as it should be), detail your plans under promotions.

Including high-quality images of the packaging of your product in your business plan is a lovely idea. You can add the images of the packaging of that product in the marketing and sales plan section. If you are not selling a product, then you do not need to include any worry about the physical packaging of your product.

When organizing the packaging section of your business plan, you can answer the following questions to make maximum use of this section.

• Is your choice of packaging consistent with your positioning strategy?
• What key value proposition does your packaging communicate? (It should reflect the key value proposition of your business)
• How does your packaging compare to that of your competitors?

Social Media

Your 21st-century business needs to have a good social media presence. Not having one is leaving out opportunities for growth and reaching out to your prospect.

You do not have to join the thousands of social media platforms out there. What you need to do is join the ones that your customers are active on and be active there.

Businesses use social media to provide information about their products such as promotions, discounts, the benefits of their products, and content on their blogs.

Social media is also a platform for engaging with your customers and getting feedback about your products or services. Make no mistake, more and more of your prospects are using social media channels to find more information about companies.

You need to consider the social media channels you want to prioritize your business (prioritize the ones your customers are active in) and your branding plans in this section.

Strategic Alliances

If your company plans to work closely with other companies as part of your sales and marketing plan, include it in this section. Prove details about those partnerships in your business plan if you have already established them.

Strategic alliances can be beneficial for all parties involved including your company. Working closely with another company in the form of a partnership can provide access to a different target market segment for your company.

The company you are partnering with may also gain access to your target market or simply offer a new product or service (that of your company) to its customers.

Mutually beneficial partnerships can cover the weaknesses of one company with the strength of another. You should consider strategic alliances with companies that sell complimentary products to yours. For example, if you provide printers, you can partner with a company that produces ink since the customers that buy printers from you will also need inks for printing.

Steps Involved in Creating a Marketing and Sales Plan

1. Focus on Your Target Market

Identify who your customers are, the market you want to target. Then determine the best ways to get your products or services to your potential customers.

2. Evaluate Your Competition

One of the goals of having a marketing plan is to distinguish yourself from your competition. You cannot stand out from them without first knowing them in and out.

You can know your competitors by gathering information about their products, pricing, service, and advertising campaigns.

These questions can help you know your competition.

• What makes your competition successful?
• What are their weaknesses?
• What are customers saying about your competition?

3. Consider Your Brand

Customers' perception of your brand has a strong impact on your sales. Your marketing and sales plan should seek to bolster the image of your brand. Before you start marketing your business, think about the message you want to pass across about your business and your products and services.

4. Focus on Benefits

The majority of your customers do not view your product in terms of features, what they want to know is the benefits and solutions your product offers. Think about the problems your product solves and the benefits it delivers, and use it to create the right sales and marketing message.

Your marketing plan should focus on what you want your customer to get instead of what you provide. Identify those benefits in your marketing and sales plan.

5. Focus on Differentiation

Your marketing and sales plan should look for a unique angle they can take that differentiates your business from the competition, even if the products offered are similar. Some good areas of differentiation you can use are your benefits, pricing, and features.

Key Questions to Answer When Writing Your Marketing and Sales Plan

• What is your company’s budget for sales and marketing campaigns?
• What key metrics will you use to determine if your marketing plans are successful?
• What are your alternatives if your initial marketing efforts do not succeed?
• Who are the sales representatives you need to promote your products or services?
• What are the marketing and sales channels you plan to use? How do you plan to get your products in front of your ideal customers?
• Where will you sell your products?

You may want to include samples of marketing materials you plan to use such as print ads, website descriptions, and social media ads. While it is not compulsory to include these samples, it can help you better communicate your marketing and sales plan and objectives.

The purpose of the marketing and sales section is to answer this question “How will you reach your customers?” If you cannot convincingly provide an answer to this question, you need to rework your marketing and sales section.

7. Clearly Show Your Funding Request

If you are writing your business plan to ask for funding from investors or financial institutions, the funding request section is where you will outline your funding requirements. The funding request section should answer the question ‘How much money will your business need in the near future (3 to 5 years)?’

A good funding request section will clearly outline and explain the amount of funding your business needs over the next five years. You need to know the amount of money your business needs to make an accurate funding request.

Also, when writing your funding request, provide details of how the funds will be used over the period. Specify if you want to use the funds to buy raw materials or machinery, pay salaries, pay for advertisements, and cover specific bills such as rent and electricity.

In addition to explaining what you want to use the funds requested for, you need to clearly state the projected return on investment (ROI) . Investors and creditors want to know if your business can generate profit for them if they put funds into it.

Ensure you do not inflate the figures and stay as realistic as possible. Investors and financial institutions you are seeking funds from will do their research before investing money in your business.

If you are not sure of an exact number to request from, you can use some range of numbers as rough estimates. Add a best-case scenario and a work-case scenario to your funding request. Also, include a description of your strategic future financial plans such as selling your business or paying off debts.

Funding Request: Debt or Equity?

When making your funding request, specify the type of funding you want. Do you want debt or equity? Draw out the terms that will be applicable for the funding, and the length of time the funding request will cover.

Case for Equity

If your new business has not yet started generating profits, you are most likely preparing to sell equity in your business to raise capital at the early stage. Equity here refers to ownership. In this case, you are selling a portion of your company to raise capital.

Although this method of raising capital for your business does not put your business in debt, keep in mind that an equity owner may expect to play a key role in company decisions even if he does not hold a major stake in the company.

Most equity sales for startups are usually private transactions . If you are making a funding request by offering equity in exchange for funding, let the investor know that they will be paid a dividend (a share of the company’s profit). Also, let the investor know the process for selling their equity in your business.

Case for Debt

You may decide not to offer equity in exchange for funds, instead, you make a funding request with the promise to pay back the money borrowed at the agreed time frame.

When making a funding request with an agreement to pay back, note that you will have to repay your creditors both the principal amount borrowed and the interest on it. Financial institutions offer this type of funding for businesses.

Large companies combine both equity and debt in their capital structure. When drafting your business plan, decide if you want to offer both or one over the other.

Before you sell equity in exchange for funding in your business, consider if you are willing to accept not being in total control of your business. Also, before you seek loans in your funding request section, ensure that the terms of repayment are favorable.

You should set a clear timeline in your funding request so that potential investors and creditors can know what you are expecting. Some investors and creditors may agree to your funding request and then delay payment for longer than 30 days, meanwhile, your business needs an immediate cash injection to operate efficiently.

Additional Tips for Writing the Funding Request Section of your Business Plan

The funding request section is not necessary for every business, it is only needed by businesses who plan to use their business plan to secure funding.

If you are adding the funding request section to your business plan, provide an itemized summary of how you plan to use the funds requested. Hiring a lawyer, accountant, or other professionals may be necessary for the proper development of this section.

You should also gather and use financial statements that add credibility and support to your funding requests. Ensure that the financial statements you use should include your projected financial data such as projected cash flows, forecast statements, and expenditure budgets.

If you are an existing business, include all historical financial statements such as cash flow statements, balance sheets and income statements .

Provide monthly and quarterly financial statements for a year. If your business has records that date back beyond the one-year mark, add the yearly statements of those years. These documents are for the appendix section of your business plan.

8. Detail Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projections

If you used the funding request section in your business plan, supplement it with a financial plan, metrics, and projections. This section paints a picture of the past performance of your business and then goes ahead to make an informed projection about its future.

The goal of this section is to convince readers that your business is going to be a financial success. It outlines your business plan to generate enough profit to repay the loan (with interest if applicable) and to generate a decent return on investment for investors.

If you have an existing business already in operation, use this section to demonstrate stability through finance. This section should include your cash flow statements, balance sheets, and income statements covering the last three to five years. If your business has some acceptable collateral that you can use to acquire loans, list it in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

Apart from current financial statements, this section should also contain a prospective financial outlook that spans the next five years. Include forecasted income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and capital expenditure budget.

If your business is new and is not yet generating profit, use clear and realistic projections to show the potentials of your business.

When drafting this section, research industry norms and the performance of comparable businesses. Your financial projections should cover at least five years. State the logic behind your financial projections. Remember you can always make adjustments to this section as the variables change.

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section create a baseline which your business can either exceed or fail to reach. If your business fails to reach your projections in this section, you need to understand why it failed.

Investors and loan managers spend a lot of time going through the financial plan, metrics, and projection section compared to other parts of the business plan. Ensure you spend time creating credible financial analyses for your business in this section.

Many entrepreneurs find this section daunting to write. You do not need a business degree to create a solid financial forecast for your business. Business finances, especially for startups, are not as complicated as they seem. There are several online tools and templates that make writing this section so much easier.

Use Graphs and Charts

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section is a great place to use graphs and charts to tell the financial story of your business. Charts and images make it easier to communicate your finances.

Accuracy in this section is key, ensure you carefully analyze your past financial statements properly before making financial projects.

Address the Risk Factors and Show Realistic Financial Projections

Keep your financial plan, metrics, and projection realistic. It is okay to be optimistic in your financial projection, however, you have to justify it.

You should also address the various risk factors associated with your business in this section. Investors want to know the potential risks involved, show them. You should also show your plans for mitigating those risks.

What You Should In The Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection Section of Your Business Plan

The financial plan, metrics, and projection section of your business plan should have monthly sales and revenue forecasts for the first year. It should also include annual projections that cover 3 to 5 years.

A three-year projection is a basic requirement to have in your business plan. However, some investors may request a five-year forecast.

Your business plan should include the following financial statements: sales forecast, personnel plan, income statement, income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet, and an exit strategy.

1. Sales Forecast

Sales forecast refers to your projections about the number of sales your business is going to record over the next few years. It is typically broken into several rows, with each row assigned to a core product or service that your business is offering.

One common mistake people make in their business plan is to break down the sales forecast section into long details. A sales forecast should forecast the high-level details.

For example, if you are forecasting sales for a payroll software provider, you could break down your forecast into target market segments or subscription categories.

Your sales forecast section should also have a corresponding row for each sales row to cover the direct cost or Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). The objective of these rows is to show the expenses that your business incurs in making and delivering your product or service.

Note that your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) should only cover those direct costs incurred when making your products. Other indirect expenses such as insurance, salaries, payroll tax, and rent should not be included.

For example, the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for a restaurant is the cost of ingredients while for a consulting company it will be the cost of paper and other presentation materials.

2. Personnel Plan

The personnel plan section is where you provide details about the payment plan for your employees. For a small business, you can easily list every position in your company and how much you plan to pay in the personnel plan.

However, for larger businesses, you have to break the personnel plan into functional groups such as sales and marketing.

The personnel plan will also include the cost of an employee beyond salary, commonly referred to as the employee burden. These costs include insurance, payroll taxes , and other essential costs incurred monthly as a result of having employees on your payroll.

3. Income Statement

The income statement section shows if your business is making a profit or taking a loss. Another name for the income statement is the profit and loss (P&L). It takes data from your sales forecast and personnel plan and adds other ongoing expenses you incur while running your business.

Every business plan should have an income statement. It subtracts your business expenses from its earnings to show if your business is generating profit or incurring losses.

The income statement has the following items: sales, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), gross margin, operating expenses, total operating expenses, operating income , total expenses, and net profit.

• Sales refer to the revenue your business generates from selling its products or services. Other names for sales are income or revenue.
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) refers to the total cost of selling your products. Other names for COGS are direct costs or cost of sales. Manufacturing businesses use the Costs of Goods Manufactured (COGM) .
• Gross Margin is the figure you get when you subtract your COGS from your sales. In your income statement, you can express it as a percentage of total sales (Gross margin / Sales = Gross Margin Percent).
• Operating Expenses refer to all the expenses you incur from running your business. It exempts the COGS because it stands alone as a core part of your income statement. You also have to exclude taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Your operating expenses include salaries, marketing expenses, research and development (R&D) expenses, and other expenses.
• Total Operating Expenses refers to the sum of all your operating expenses including those exemptions named above under operating expenses.
• Operating Income refers to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is simply known as the acronym EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). Calculating your operating income is simple, all you need to do is to subtract your COGS and total operating expenses from your sales.
• Total Expenses refer to the sum of your operating expenses and your business’ interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
• Net profit shows whether your business has made a profit or taken a loss during a given timeframe.

4. Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement tracks the money you have in the bank at any given point. It is often confused with the income statement or the profit and loss statement. They are both different types of financial statements. The income statement calculates your profits and losses while the cash flow statement shows you how much you have in the bank.

5. Balance Sheet

The balance sheet is a financial statement that provides an overview of the financial health of your business. It contains information about the assets and liabilities of your company, and owner’s or shareholders’ equity.

You can get the net worth of your company by subtracting your company’s liabilities from its assets.

6. Exit Strategy

The exit strategy refers to a probable plan for selling your business either to the public in an IPO or to another company. It is the last thing you include in the financial plan, metrics, and projection section.

You can choose to omit the exit strategy from your business plan if you plan to maintain full ownership of your business and do not plan on seeking angel investment or virtual capitalist (VC) funding.

Investors may want to know what your exit plan is. They invest in your business to get a good return on investment.

Your exit strategy does not have to include long and boring details. Ensure you identify some interested parties who may be interested in buying the company if it becomes a success.

Key Questions to Answer with Your Financial Plan, Metrics, and Projection

Your financial plan, metrics, and projection section helps investors, creditors, or your internal managers to understand what your expenses are, the amount of cash you need, and what it takes to make your company profitable. It also shows what you will be doing with any funding.

You do not need to show actual financial data if you do not have one. Adding forecasts and projections to your financial statements is added proof that your strategy is feasible and shows investors you have planned properly.

Here are some key questions to answer to help you develop this section.

• What is your sales forecast for the next year?
• When will your company achieve a positive cash flow?
• What are the core expenses you need to operate?
• How much money do you need upfront to operate or grow your company?
• How will you use the loans or investments?

9. Add an Appendix to Your Business Plan

Adding an appendix to your business plan is optional. It is a useful place to put any charts, tables, legal notes, definitions, permits, résumés, and other critical information that do not fit into other sections of your business plan.

The appendix section is where you would want to include details of a patent or patent-pending if you have one. You can always add illustrations or images of your products here. It is the last section of your business plan.

When writing your business plan, there are details you cut short or remove to prevent the entire section from becoming too lengthy. There are also details you want to include in the business plan but are not a good fit for any of the previous sections. You can add that additional information to the appendix section.

Businesses also use the appendix section to include supporting documents or other materials specially requested by investors or lenders.

You can include just about any information that supports the assumptions and statements you made in the business plan under the appendix. It is the one place in the business plan where unrelated data and information can coexist amicably.

If your appendix section is lengthy, try organizing it by adding a table of contents at the beginning of the appendix section. It is also advisable to group similar information to make it easier for the reader to access them.

A well-organized appendix section makes it easier to share your information clearly and concisely. Add footnotes throughout the rest of the business plan or make references in the plan to the documents in the appendix.

The appendix section is usually only necessary if you are seeking funding from investors or lenders, or hoping to attract partners.

People reading business plans do not want to spend time going through a heap of backup information, numbers, and charts. Keep these documents or information in the Appendix section in case the reader wants to dig deeper.

Common Items to Include in the Appendix Section of Your Business Plan

The appendix section includes documents that supplement or support the information or claims given in other sections of the business plans. Common items you can include in the appendix section include:

• Additional data about the process of manufacturing or creation
• Additional description of products or services such as product schematics
• Additional financial documents or projections
• Articles of incorporation and status
• Backup for market research or competitive analysis
• Bank statements
• Business registries
• Client testimonials (if your business is already running)
• Copies of insurances
• Credit histories (personal or/and business)
• Deeds and permits
• Equipment leases
• Examples of marketing and advertising collateral
• Industry associations and memberships
• Images of product
• Intellectual property
• Key customer contracts
• Legal documents and other contracts
• Letters of reference
• Links to references
• Market research data
• Organizational charts
• Photographs of potential facilities
• Professional licenses pertaining to your legal structure or type of business
• Purchase orders
• Resumes of the founder(s) and key managers
• State and federal identification numbers or codes
• Trademarks or patents’ registrations

Avoid using the appendix section as a place to dump any document or information you feel like adding. Only add documents or information that you support or increase the credibility of your business plan.

Tips and Strategies for Writing a Convincing Business Plan

To achieve a perfect business plan, you need to consider some key tips and strategies. These tips will raise the efficiency of your business plan above average.

1. Know Your Audience

When writing a business plan, you need to know your audience . Business owners write business plans for different reasons. Your business plan has to be specific. For example, you can write business plans to potential investors, banks, and even fellow board members of the company.

The audience you are writing to determines the structure of the business plan. As a business owner, you have to know your audience. Not everyone will be your audience. Knowing your audience will help you to narrow the scope of your business plan.

Consider what your audience wants to see in your projects, the likely questions they might ask, and what interests them.

• A business plan used to address a company's board members will center on its employment schemes, internal affairs, projects, stakeholders, etc.
• A business plan for financial institutions will talk about the size of your market and the chances for you to pay back any loans you demand.
• A business plan for investors will show proof that you can return the investment capital within a specific time. In addition, it discusses your financial projections, tractions, and market size.

2. Get Inspiration from People

Writing a business plan from scratch as an entrepreneur can be daunting. That is why you need the right inspiration to push you to write one. You can gain inspiration from the successful business plans of other businesses. Look at their business plans, the style they use, the structure of the project, etc.

To make your business plan easier to create, search companies related to your business to get an exact copy of what you need to create an effective business plan. You can also make references while citing examples in your business plans.

When drafting your business plan, get as much help from others as you possibly can. By getting inspiration from people, you can create something better than what they have.

3. Avoid Being Over Optimistic

Many business owners make use of strong adjectives to qualify their content. One of the big mistakes entrepreneurs make when preparing a business plan is promising too much.

The use of superlatives and over-optimistic claims can prepare the audience for more than you can offer. In the end, you disappoint the confidence they have in you.

In most cases, the best option is to be realistic with your claims and statistics. Most of the investors can sense a bit of incompetency from the overuse of superlatives. As a new entrepreneur, do not be tempted to over-promise to get the interests of investors.

The concept of entrepreneurship centers on risks, nothing is certain when you make future analyses. What separates the best is the ability to do careful research and work towards achieving that, not promising more than you can achieve.

To make an excellent first impression as an entrepreneur, replace superlatives with compelling data-driven content. In this way, you are more specific than someone promising a huge ROI from an investment.

4. Keep it Simple and Short

When writing business plans, ensure you keep them simple throughout. Irrespective of the purpose of the business plan, your goal is to convince the audience.

One way to achieve this goal is to make them understand your proposal. Therefore, it would be best if you avoid the use of complex grammar to express yourself. It would be a huge turn-off if the people you want to convince are not familiar with your use of words.

Another thing to note is the length of your business plan. It would be best if you made it as brief as possible.

You hardly see investors or agencies that read through an extremely long document. In that case, if your first few pages can’t convince them, then you have lost it. The more pages you write, the higher the chances of you derailing from the essential contents.

To ensure your business plan has a high conversion rate, you need to dispose of every unnecessary information. For example, if you have a strategy that you are not sure of, it would be best to leave it out of the plan.

5. Make an Outline and Follow Through

A perfect business plan must have touched every part needed to convince the audience. Business owners get easily tempted to concentrate more on their products than on other sections. Doing this can be detrimental to the efficiency of the business plan.

For example, imagine you talking about a product but omitting or providing very little information about the target audience. You will leave your clients confused.

To ensure that your business plan communicates your full business model to readers, you have to input all the necessary information in it. One of the best ways to achieve this is to design a structure and stick to it.

This structure is what guides you throughout the writing. To make your work easier, you can assign an estimated word count or page limit to every section to avoid making it too bulky for easy reading. As a guide, the necessary things your business plan must contain are:

• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Product or service description
• Target audience
• Market size
• Competition analysis
• Financial projections

Some specific businesses can include some other essential sections, but these are the key sections that must be in every business plan.

6. Ask a Professional to Proofread

When writing a business plan, you must tie all loose ends to get a perfect result. When you are done with writing, call a professional to go through the document for you. You are bound to make mistakes, and the way to correct them is to get external help.

You should get a professional in your field who can relate to every section of your business plan. It would be easier for the professional to notice the inner flaws in the document than an editor with no knowledge of your business.

In addition to getting a professional to proofread, get an editor to proofread and edit your document. The editor will help you identify grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and inappropriate writing styles.

Writing a business plan can be daunting, but you can surmount that obstacle and get the best out of it with these tips.

Business Plan Examples and Templates That’ll Save You Tons of Time

1. hubspot's one-page business plan.

The one-page business plan template by HubSpot is the perfect guide for businesses of any size, irrespective of their business strategy. Although the template is condensed into a page, your final business plan should not be a page long! The template is designed to ask helpful questions that can help you develop your business plan.

Hubspot’s one-page business plan template is divided into nine fields:

• Business opportunity
• Company description
• Industry analysis
• Target market
• Implementation timeline
• Marketing plan
• Financial summary
• Funding required

2. Bplan’s Free Business Plan Template

Bplans' free business plan template is investor-approved. It is a rich template used by prestigious educational institutions such as Babson College and Princeton University to teach entrepreneurs how to create a business plan.

The template has six sections: the executive summary, opportunity, execution, company, financial plan, and appendix. There is a step-by-step guide for writing every little detail in the business plan. Follow the instructions each step of the way and you will create a business plan that impresses investors or lenders easily.

3. HubSpot's Downloadable Business Plan Template

HubSpot’s downloadable business plan template is a more comprehensive option compared to the one-page business template by HubSpot. This free and downloadable business plan template is designed for entrepreneurs.

The template is a comprehensive guide and checklist for business owners just starting their businesses. It tells you everything you need to fill in each section of the business plan and how to do it.

There are nine sections in this business plan template: an executive summary, company and business description, product and services line, market analysis, marketing plan, sales plan, legal notes, financial considerations, and appendix.

4. Business Plan by My Own Business Institute

My Own Business Institute (MOBI) which is a part of Santa Clara University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship offers a free business plan template. You can either copy the free business template from the link provided above or download it as a Word document.

The comprehensive template consists of a whopping 15 sections.

• The Business Profile
• The Vision and the People
• Home-Based Business and Freelance Business Opportunities
• Organization
• Licenses and Permits
• Business Insurance
• Communication Tools
• Acquisitions
• Location and Leasing
• Accounting and Cash Flow
• Opening and Marketing
• Managing Employees
• Expanding and Handling Problems

There are lots of helpful tips on how to fill each section in the free business plan template by MOBI.

5. Score's Business Plan Template for Startups

Score is an American nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs build successful companies. This business plan template for startups by Score is available for free download. The business plan template asks a whooping 150 generic questions that help entrepreneurs from different fields to set up the perfect business plan.

The business plan template for startups contains clear instructions and worksheets, all you have to do is answer the questions and fill the worksheets.

There are nine sections in the business plan template: executive summary, company description, products and services, marketing plan, operational plan, management and organization, startup expenses and capitalization, financial plan, and appendices.

The ‘refining the plan’ resource contains instructions that help you modify your business plan to suit your specific needs, industry, and target audience. After you have completed Score’s business plan template, you can work with a SCORE mentor for expert advice in business planning.

6. Minimalist Architecture Business Plan Template by Venngage

The minimalist architecture business plan template is a simple template by Venngage that you can customize to suit your business needs .

There are five sections in the template: an executive summary, statement of problem, approach and methodology, qualifications, and schedule and benchmark. The business plan template has instructions that guide users on what to fill in each section.

7. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers two free business plan templates, filled with practical real-life examples that you can model to create your business plan. Both free business plan templates are written by fictional business owners: Rebecca who owns a consulting firm, and Andrew who owns a toy company.

There are five sections in the two SBA’s free business plan templates.

• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Service Line
• Marketing and Sales

8. The $100 Startup's One-Page Business Plan

The one-page business plan by the $100 startup is a simple business plan template for entrepreneurs who do not want to create a long and complicated plan . You can include more details in the appendices for funders who want more information beyond what you can put in the one-page business plan.

There are five sections in the one-page business plan such as overview, ka-ching, hustling, success, and obstacles or challenges or open questions. You can answer all the questions using one or two sentences.

9. PandaDoc’s Free Business Plan Template

The free business plan template by PandaDoc is a comprehensive 15-page document that describes the information you should include in every section.

There are 11 sections in PandaDoc’s free business plan template.

• Executive summary
• Business description
• Products and services
• Operations plan
• Management organization
• Financial plan
• Conclusion / Call to action
• Confidentiality statement

You have to sign up for its 14-day free trial to access the template. You will find different business plan templates on PandaDoc once you sign up (including templates for general businesses and specific businesses such as bakeries, startups, restaurants, salons, hotels, and coffee shops)

PandaDoc allows you to customize its business plan templates to fit the needs of your business. After editing the template, you can send it to interested parties and track opens and views through PandaDoc.

10. Invoiceberry Templates for Word, Open Office, Excel, or PPT

InvoiceBerry is a U.K based online invoicing and tracking platform that offers free business plan templates in .docx, .odt, .xlsx, and .pptx formats for freelancers and small businesses.

Before you can download the free business plan template, it will ask you to give it your email address. After you complete the little task, it will send the download link to your inbox for you to download. It also provides a business plan checklist in .xlsx file format that ensures you add the right information to the business plan.

Alternatives to the Traditional Business Plan

A business plan is very important in mapping out how one expects their business to grow over a set number of years, particularly when they need external investment in their business. However, many investors do not have the time to watch you present your business plan. It is a long and boring read.

Luckily, there are three alternatives to the traditional business plan (the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck). These alternatives are less laborious and easier and quicker to present to investors.

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

The business model canvas is a business tool used to present all the important components of setting up a business, such as customers, route to market, value proposition, and finance in a single sheet. It provides a very focused blueprint that defines your business initially which you can later expand on if needed.

The sheet is divided mainly into company, industry, and consumer models that are interconnected in how they find problems and proffer solutions.

Segments of the Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas was developed by founder Alexander Osterwalder to answer important business questions. It contains nine segments.

• Key Partners: Who will be occupying important executive positions in your business? What do they bring to the table? Will there be a third party involved with the company?
• Key Activities: What important activities will production entail? What activities will be carried out to ensure the smooth running of the company?
• The Product’s Value Propositions: What does your product do? How will it be different from other products?
• Customer Segments: What demography of consumers are you targeting? What are the habits of these consumers? Who are the MVPs of your target consumers?
• Customer Relationships: How will the team support and work with its customer base? How do you intend to build and maintain trust with the customer?
• Key Resources: What type of personnel and tools will be needed? What size of the budget will they need access to?
• Channels: How do you plan to create awareness of your products? How do you intend to transport your product to the customer?
• Cost Structure: What is the estimated cost of production? How much will distribution cost?
• Revenue Streams: For what value are customers willing to pay? How do they prefer to pay for the product? Are there any external revenues attached apart from the main source? How do the revenue streams contribute to the overall revenue?

Lean Canvas

The lean canvas is a problem-oriented alternative to the standard business model canvas. It was proposed by Ash Maurya, creator of Lean Stack as a development of the business model generation. It uses a more problem-focused approach and it majorly targets entrepreneurs and startup businesses.

Lean Canvas uses the same 9 blocks concept as the business model canvas, however, they have been modified slightly to suit the needs and purpose of a small startup. The key partners, key activities, customer relationships, and key resources are replaced by new segments which are:

• Problem: Simple and straightforward number of problems you have identified, ideally three.
• Solution: The solutions to each problem.
• Unfair Advantage: Something you possess that can't be easily bought or replicated.
• Key Metrics: Important numbers that will tell how your business is doing.

Startup Pitch Deck

While the business model canvas compresses into a factual sheet, startup pitch decks expand flamboyantly.

Pitch decks, through slides, convey your business plan, often through graphs and images used to emphasize estimations and observations in your presentation. Entrepreneurs often use pitch decks to fully convince their target audience of their plans before discussing funding arrangements.

Considering the likelihood of it being used in a small time frame, a good startup pitch deck should ideally contain 20 slides or less to have enough time to answer questions from the audience.

Unlike the standard and lean business model canvases, a pitch deck doesn't have a set template on how to present your business plan but there are still important components to it. These components often mirror those of the business model canvas except that they are in slide form and contain more details.

Using Airbnb (one of the most successful start-ups in recent history) for reference, the important components of a good slide are listed below.

• Cover/Introduction Slide: Here, you should include your company's name and mission statement. Your mission statement should be a very catchy tagline. Also, include personal information and contact details to provide an easy link for potential investors.
• Problem Slide: This slide requires you to create a connection with the audience or the investor that you are pitching. For example in their pitch, Airbnb summarized the most important problems it would solve in three brief points – pricing of hotels, disconnection from city culture, and connection problems for local bookings.
• Solution Slide: This slide includes your core value proposition. List simple and direct solutions to the problems you have mentioned
• Customer Analysis: Here you will provide information on the customers you will be offering your service to. The identity of your customers plays an important part in fundraising as well as the long-run viability of the business.
• Market Validation: Use competitive analysis to show numbers that prove the presence of a market for your product, industry behavior in the present and the long run, as well as the percentage of the market you aim to attract. It shows that you understand your competitors and customers and convinces investors of the opportunities presented in the market.
• Business Model: Your business model is the hook of your presentation. It may vary in complexity but it should generally include a pricing system informed by your market analysis. The goal of the slide is to confirm your business model is easy to implement.
• Marketing Strategy: This slide should summarize a few customer acquisition methods that you plan to use to grow the business.
• Competitive Advantage: What this slide will do is provide information on what will set you apart and make you a more attractive option to customers. It could be the possession of technology that is not widely known in the market.
• Team Slide: Here you will give a brief description of your team. Include your key management personnel here and their specific roles in the company. Include their educational background, job history, and skillsets. Also, talk about their accomplishments in their careers so far to build investors' confidence in members of your team.
• Traction Slide: This validates the company’s business model by showing growth through early sales and support. The slide aims to reduce any lingering fears in potential investors by showing realistic periodic milestones and profit margins. It can include current sales, growth, valuable customers, pre-orders, or data from surveys outlining current consumer interest.
• Funding Slide: This slide is popularly referred to as ‘the ask'. Here you will include important details like how much is needed to get your business off the ground and how the funding will be spent to help the company reach its goals.
• Appendix Slides: Your pitch deck appendix should always be included alongside a standard pitch presentation. It consists of additional slides you could not show in the pitch deck but you need to complement your presentation.

It is important to support your calculations with pictorial renditions. Infographics, such as pie charts or bar graphs, will be more effective in presenting the information than just listing numbers. For example, a six-month graph that shows rising profit margins will easily look more impressive than merely writing it.

Lastly, since a pitch deck is primarily used to secure meetings and you may be sharing your pitch with several investors, it is advisable to keep a separate public version that doesn't include financials. Only disclose the one with projections once you have secured a link with an investor.

Advantages of the Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, and Startup Pitch Deck over the Traditional Business Plan

• Time-Saving: Writing a detailed traditional business plan could take weeks or months. On the other hand, all three alternatives can be done in a few days or even one night of brainstorming if you have a comprehensive understanding of your business.
• Easier to Understand: Since the information presented is almost entirely factual, it puts focus on what is most important in running the business. They cut away the excess pages of fillers in a traditional business plan and allow investors to see what is driving the business and what is getting in the way.
• Easy to Update: Businesses typically present their business plans to many potential investors before they secure funding. What this means is that you may regularly have to amend your presentation to update statistics or adjust to audience-specific needs. For a traditional business plan, this could mean rewriting a whole section of your plan. For the three alternatives, updating is much easier because they are not voluminous.
• Guide for a More In-depth Business Plan: All three alternatives have the added benefit of being able to double as a sketch of your business plan if the need to create one arises in the future.

Business Plan FAQ

Business plans are important for any entrepreneur who is looking for a framework to run their company over some time or seeking external support. Although they are essential for new businesses, every company should ideally have a business plan to track their growth from time to time.  They can be used by startups seeking investments or loans to convey their business ideas or an employee to convince his boss of the feasibility of starting a new project. They can also be used by companies seeking to recruit high-profile employee targets into key positions or trying to secure partnerships with other firms.

Business plans often vary depending on your target audience, the scope, and the goals for the plan. Startup plans are the most common among the different types of business plans.  A start-up plan is used by a new business to present all the necessary information to help get the business up and running. They are usually used by entrepreneurs who are seeking funding from investors or bank loans. The established company alternative to a start-up plan is a feasibility plan. A feasibility plan is often used by an established company looking for new business opportunities. They are used to show the upsides of creating a new product for a consumer base. Because the audience is usually company people, it requires less company analysis. The third type of business plan is the lean business plan. A lean business plan is a brief, straight-to-the-point breakdown of your ideas and analysis for your business. It does not contain details of your proposal and can be written on one page. Finally, you have the what-if plan. As it implies, a what-if plan is a preparation for the worst-case scenario. You must always be prepared for the possibility of your original plan being rejected. A good what-if plan will serve as a good plan B to the original.

A good business plan has 10 key components. They include an executive plan, product analysis, desired customer base, company analysis, industry analysis, marketing strategy, sales strategy, financial projection, funding, and appendix. Executive Plan Your business should begin with your executive plan. An executive plan will provide early insight into what you are planning to achieve with your business. It should include your mission statement and highlight some of the important points which you will explain later. Product Analysis The next component of your business plan is your product analysis. A key part of this section is explaining the type of item or service you are going to offer as well as the market problems your product will solve. Desired Consumer Base Your product analysis should be supplemented with a detailed breakdown of your desired consumer base. Investors are always interested in knowing the economic power of your market as well as potential MVP customers. Company Analysis The next component of your business plan is your company analysis. Here, you explain how you want to run your business. It will include your operational strategy, an insight into the workforce needed to keep the company running, and important executive positions. It will also provide a calculation of expected operational costs.  Industry Analysis A good business plan should also contain well laid out industry analysis. It is important to convince potential investors you know the companies you will be competing with, as well as your plans to gain an edge on the competition. Marketing Strategy Your business plan should also include your marketing strategy. This is how you intend to spread awareness of your product. It should include a detailed explanation of the company brand as well as your advertising methods. Sales Strategy Your sales strategy comes after the market strategy. Here you give an overview of your company's pricing strategy and how you aim to maximize profits. You can also explain how your prices will adapt to market behaviors. Financial Projection The financial projection is the next component of your business plan. It explains your company's expected running cost and revenue earned during the tenure of the business plan. Financial projection gives a clear idea of how your company will develop in the future. Funding The next component of your business plan is funding. You have to detail how much external investment you need to get your business idea off the ground here. Appendix The last component of your plan is the appendix. This is where you put licenses, graphs, or key information that does not fit in any of the other components.

The business model canvas is a business management tool used to quickly define your business idea and model. It is often used when investors need you to pitch your business idea during a brief window.

A pitch deck is similar to a business model canvas except that it makes use of slides in its presentation. A pitch is not primarily used to secure funding, rather its main purpose is to entice potential investors by selling a very optimistic outlook on the business.

Business plan competitions help you evaluate the strength of your business plan. By participating in business plan competitions, you are improving your experience. The experience provides you with a degree of validation while practicing important skills. The main motivation for entering into the competitions is often to secure funding by finishing in podium positions. There is also the chance that you may catch the eye of a casual observer outside of the competition. These competitions also provide good networking opportunities. You could meet mentors who will take a keen interest in guiding you in your business journey. You also have the opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs whose ideas can complement yours.

Exlore Further

• 12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)
• 13 Sources of Business Finance For Companies & Sole Traders
• 5 Common Types of Business Structures (+ Pros & Cons)
• How to Buy a Business in 8 Steps (+ Due Diligence Checklist)

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Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

How to Write a Business Case for a New Position?

Are you considering about adding more team members in your team?

The first step towards this is to craft a compelling business case for a new position.

Because it’s not just about finding room for an extra chair—it’s about strategically aligning your team for success.

In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the art of advocating for a new position within your organization.

Whether you’re amidst an expansion phase, facing evolving industry demands, or simply striving for better efficiency, this step-by-step guide will help you build a solid case that speaks the language of decision-makers and positions your team for the win.

Let’s embark on the journey of how to write a business case for a new position.

What is a business case?

A business case is a comprehensive document that outlines the justification for initiating a new project, making a significant business decision, or undertaking a specific action within an organization.

It serves as a tool to present a structured argument, providing key information and analysis to support decision-makers in understanding the potential benefits, costs, risks, and strategic alignment of a proposed initiative.

Read in detail: How to write a good business case

Why it is important to write a business case for a new position? 

Writing a business case for a new position is essential for several reasons:

Clarity of Purpose

A business case defines the need for the new position and its purpose within the organization. If the new role and responsibilities are clearly articulated and aligned with the organizational goals then there are high chances that the case for new position will get approval of managment.

Strategic Alignment

Management and decision makers often question about need of a new position. One of the logical way is to tell them how a new position is aligned with overall strategic direction of the organization and how the new position will contribute to the long-term success and growth of the business. And the best way to present this information and rationale in a form of a business case.

Resource Justification

Management and other stakeholders also need to know what a new position cost their organization. A good business case for a new position also provides a detailed breakdown of the costs associated with the new position. It surely helps justify the allocation of resources, including budget, personnel, and time.

Risk Assessment

There are always some form of risks associated with every new position in an organisation. A good business case for a new position also identifies potential risks and challenges associated with the new position. And it also briefly outlines strategies for mitigating risks and addressing challenges.

Quantifiable Benefits

Like any other business idea, management is always interested in knowing benefit of a new position in comparison to the cost incurred against new position. So if a business case presents a cost-benefit analysis to showcase the expected return on investment, then it would be easier for management to take an informed decision.

Accountability and Evaluation

A well-crafted business case is also important because it establishes clear key performance indicators (KPIs) for the new position. If these KPIs are developed on very onset then it is quite helpful for both an employer and an employee to track progress and performance. So a business case provides a roadmap of how accountability and assessment for a new position will be conducted.

Features of Business Case for a New Position

Here are some key features of such business case that would be helpful for any business manager who is supposed to write a business case for a new position.

1. Analysis of Current Organizational Structure

The first step to write a business case for a new position is to identify gaps in the current organizational structure. This section serves as a foundation of the business case and rationale behind proposing a new position.

Below are some key areas that should be included in this analysis section:

Current Workload Assessment

Evaluate the existing workload within the organization. Identify departments, teams, or individuals that may be overburdened or struggling to meet their goals due to excessive tasks.

Capacity Analysis

Understand the capacity of the current workforce to handle the workload. Are teams stretched thin? Are there consistent bottlenecks in certain processes? Assess the overall efficiency and productivity levels.

Impact on Organizational Goal

Relate the workload analysis to the achievement of organizational goals. Determine if the current staffing levels are hindering the organization’s ability to meet targets, deadlines, or deliver quality products/services.

Assessment of Skill Gaps

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of team members in relation to the organization’s strategic objective. Anticipate the skills that will be crucial for the organization’s future success. This involves considering industry trends, technological advancements, and changes in customer demands. Are there emerging skills that the current workforce lacks?

2. Emerging Industry Trends

This information is vital for making the case for a new position, as it demonstrates a forward-thinking approach to adaptability and positions the organization to thrive in a dynamic business environment. When writing the business case, be sure to clearly articulate how the proposed new position directly addresses these emerging challenges and positions the organization for sustained success.

Market Analysis

In this section, a crisp analysis of the current state of the industry is presented. All the major shifts in market dynamics, customer preferences, and technological advancements need to be highlighted here and what are those emerging trends that could impact the organization.

Competitor Analysis

A brief analysis of competitor will also help to understand that how competitors are addressing those challenge. Assess their strategies and developments happening in the industry. Identify areas where competitors are gaining a competitive advantage or where the organization may be falling behind.

Regulatory Changes

A paragraph or so on regulatory framework is also helpful to build the context. It is important to mention the latest changes in regulations that could impact the industry. Identify what are those compliance with new regulations that may require additional roles or skills within the organization.

3. Job Role and Responsibilities

After setting up the context and rationale for a new position, now it is turn to define exact job title, core duties and responsibilities.

Choose a job title that clearly communicates the role and is relevant within the industry and organizational context. The title should resonate with industry standards and be easily understood by both internal and external stakeholders.

Hierarchy and Positioning

Consider the hierarchical positioning of the new role within the organization. Ensure that the job title accurately reflects the level of responsibility and authority associated with the position.

Job Description

Provide a detailed description of the core duties and responsibilities associated with the new position. Clearly outline the day-to-day tasks and the role’s overarching purpose within the organization.

Connect the core duties to the broader objectives of the organization. Explain how the responsibilities of the new position contribute to the achievement of strategic goals and address current challenges.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Define measurable KPIs that will be used to assess the performance of the new position. These indicators should align with the overall goals of the organization and provide a basis for evaluating the success of the role.

4. Desired Qualifications

Clearly defining the desired qualifications helps in creating a profile for the ideal candidate. This section not only assists in the recruitment process but also reinforces the strategic alignment of the new position by ensuring that the candidate possesses the necessary skills and knowledge to contribute effectively to the organization’s objectives.

Skills and Competencies

Specify the technical skills required for the position. This could include proficiency in specific software, languages, or tools relevant to the role.

Identify essential soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, and adaptability. These skills are often as important as technical expertise in contributing to a positive work environment and effective job performance.

If there are skills specific to the industry or niche, outline them clearly. This ensures that the candidate not only has a general skill set but also possesses industry-specific knowledge.

Educational Background

Define the minimum educational requirements for the position, such as a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant field. Be specific about the type of degree required.

 If there are preferred qualifications or certifications that would enhance a candidate’s suitability for the role, list them. This could include professional certifications, specialized training, or additional degrees.

Explain how the educational background is directly relevant to the responsibilities of the new position. For example, certain roles may require a background in a specific field to ensure a deep understanding of industry intricacies.

5. Cost-Benefit Analysis

When projecting costs related to salary and benefits, it’s important to not only consider the immediate financial impact but also to emphasize the long-term value that the organization will gain from investing in a qualified and motivated professional. This section of the business case provides decision-makers with a transparent view of the financial commitment required for the successful implementation of the new position.

Projecting Costs

Clearly outline the anticipated base salary for the new position. This should be competitive within the industry and commensurate with the level of responsibility associated with the role.

Detail the benefits that will be provided to the employee, including health insurance, retirement plans, bonuses, and any other perks or allowances. The benefits package is a crucial component of the overall compensation offered.

If applicable, include any variable or performance-based compensation elements, such as bonuses or commissions. Specify the criteria for earning these variable components.

Provide a comprehensive view of the total compensation package, combining the base salary and benefits. This gives decision-makers a clear understanding of the financial commitment associated with the new position

Anticipated Benefits

Explain how the new position will help in distributing the workload more effectively across the team or department. This can prevent burnout and ensure that tasks are completed with a higher level of attention and quality.

Highlight how the skills and expertise brought by the new hire will lead to specialized contributions, potentially accelerating project timelines and improving overall team output.

Discuss how the introduction of the new position is expected to save time for existing team members, allowing them to focus on more strategic or complex task.

6. Timeline and Implementation Plan

By providing a detailed timeline and implementation plan, you demonstrate a thoughtful approach to the integration of the new position into the organization. This section helps decision-makers understand the practical aspects of bringing the proposed role to fruition and ensures a well-managed and efficient process from approval to successful onboarding.

Recruitment Process

Clearly state the expected timeline for obtaining approval for the new position. This could involve meetings with stakeholders, discussions with the leadership team, and the formal approval process.

Specify the anticipated duration for creating and posting the job opening. Discuss the recruitment strategy, including where the position will be advertised and the methods for sourcing candidates.

Outline the time allocated for reviewing applications, shortlisting candidates, and conducting initial screenings. This phase may involve collaboration with HR and hiring managers.

Onboarding and Training

Detail the expected timeline for extending a job offer to the selected candidate and the subsequent acceptance period. This includes negotiations, if any, related to compensation and benefits.

If the selected candidate is currently employed elsewhere, factor in the notice period and any transitional activities. Plan for a smooth handover if needed.

Present the onboarding plan, including the orientation process, introduction to team members, and initial training sessions. Consider any department-specific or role-specific onboarding requirements.

Outline the training schedule for the new hire, including any skills development, software training, or industry-specific training. Specify who will be responsible for conducting the training sessions.

7. Setting up Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 

Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is a critical step in ensuring that the success and impact of the new position can be measured effectively. Here’s how you can structure this section of the business case:

Identify Relevant KPIs

Determine specific, measurable metrics that directly align with the objectives of the new position. For example, if the goal is to enhance customer satisfaction, a relevant KPI could be the percentage increase in positive customer feedback.

Ensure that the selected KPIs are directly tied to the strategic goals and objectives outlined in the business case. This alignment reinforces the contribution of the new position to the overall success of the organization.

Define Performance Targets

Set realistic and achievable performance targets for each identified KPI. Consider historical data, industry standards, or organizational benchmarks to establish a baseline for comparison.

Specify the timeframe within which these performance targets are expected to be achieved. This could include short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.

Continuous Improvement Mechanism

Incorporate feedback mechanisms to gather insights from team members, supervisors, and other stakeholders. This information can be valuable in adjusting strategies and optimizing the performance of the new position.

Acknowledge that KPIs and performance targets may need adjustments based on evolving organizational needs, changes in the business environment, or unforeseen challenges

Final Words 

A well-articulated business case for a new position is a strategic document for organizations seeking growth and adaptability. Business leaders need all the rationale and information related to new position to make an informed decision. From identifying gaps in the current organizational structure to outlining the anticipated benefits and establishing key performance indicators, each step in process helps to write an effective business case for a new position.

About The Author

Tahir Abbas

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Business Plan: What It Is, What's Included, and How to Write One

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Understanding Business Plans

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

How to Write a Business Plan

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

Common Elements of a Business Plan

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How Often Should a Business Plan Be Updated?

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

The Bottom Line

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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Interviewing – how to write a business plan for a future employer

Simon Roderick February 18, 2020 Jobseeking and interview process , Resources for candidates

At some point in your career you will probably be asked to complete a business plan, as part of a recruitment process. Candidates are often surprised, or worried that their good ideas will be implemented without them being hired (this doesn’t happen in my experience). However, they can cause alarm, as some people are good at their job, which doesn’t involve writing plans, and if the task is expected to be delivered in person it can cause some people to get very stressed. So below we’ve tried to outline so practical steps you can take, as there’s no need to miss out on a dream job just because you don’t know where to start with a business plan.

• Ask the hirer what they expect Firms are happy to give guidelines and so ask them what format they prefer and the how long they expect the business plan to be. Will you be presenting the plan, will you be expected to leave it behind, or most likely is it just a discussion document? Feel free to ask what IT support will be provided if you’re expected to give a powerpoint presentation.
• Make the presentation visually attractive You need to engage the reader
• Spell check It’s so easy to forget to spell check your plan
• Ask someone you trust to review your business plan, or ask them if they would mind you running through your presentation
• Arrive early so you aren’t stressed Aim to arrive 30 minutes early and have a coffee nearby, but don’t go to the interviewer’s office until 10 minutes before. Arriving very early can sometimes be as irritating as someone who arrives late.

What should a business plan contain?

Everyone has their own thoughts on this, but some of the better business plans contain:

i. An executive summary – this summarises the applicant’s experience, career aims, and business aims if hired An example of this would be: “Simon has 20 years recruitment experience, much of it gained in management roles. His aim is to grow Fram over the next 3 years to xxx (you need to be realistic and specific with this aim)

ii. A description of the business you want to create, i.e. clients to be targeted and services offered with a target revenue

iii. A guide to how you plan to build this business, i.e. from your existing client base, from introductions from professional intermediaries, from the firm’s own sources of new business (this is often a client’s least favourite thing to see in the current climate).

iv. A guide to the activities required to achieve the above, i.e. not only what intermediaries you will target and how many relationships you have etc, but how many cold calls and appointments you will make. How often you will need to meet a client on average to get them to invest

v. Why the firm you are interviewing with could help you achieve this. What are the key selling points and differentiators.

vi. What support you will need. Will you need an assistant, additional training, or access to cold calling support?

vii. Financials – a breakdown of year 1, 2, and 3 revenues and the business mix, i.e. investments vs. lending if you are a private banker

viii. Referees – you list former colleagues etc, but only do this if you’re happy for them to be contacted. It demonstrates confidence and transparency

ix. Summary – reaffirming the skills of the candidate

We recommend sending a polite email after the meeting if the interviewer has given you their contacts details. It’s always nice to thank them for your time and it’s a chance to reaffirm your interest (if you are indeed interested in the role).

If you’re successful in the interview process, firms will expect you to implement the plan and so it needs to be realistic. It’s a nightmare for all parties concerned when someone over promises and under delivers. Whilst the firm will refine your plan once you have full knowledge of their aims and offering, it can often form the basis of your first 12 months.

Good luck and if we can assist, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01525 864 372.

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How to Create an Action Plan for a New Job

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Your alarm goes off on another Monday, and you drag yourself out of bed. After several huge sighs, you begin the process of getting ready for work. It appears that the time has come when no number of "Dilbert" cartoons adorning your cubicle walls is enough to stave off the discontent you have with your job. It's finally time to look further afield and find that perfect job. But where do you begin? With all of the jobs out there, and all of the jobseekers, it can be a tough run if you're not careful. If you're ready to move out and up, then it's time to create an action plan for finding some fresh, new employment.

What exactly is an action plan, though? Ultimately, a solid action plan will serve two main purposes: It can help you organize yourself in terms of research, and it helps you stay focused and motivated.

And when should you begin your action plan? Well, there's really no time like the present to begin creating your plan. Whether you're currently employed or actively looking for work, you can start some forward progress by beginning your search right away.

The first step in your action plan should be to take a good look at your current situation. What sort of goals do you have for yourself and for a new job? What are you really good at, and where might you be able to improve? Also, what is your value in your current position? Knowing what you want in a job will help you narrow down your potential employers. Also, being able to sell yourself effectively, while also noting the areas you can improve, will ensure that you're presenting yourself in a great light. Finally, if you're able to go into a job interview with a realistic idea of what you're worth, you'll be able to negotiate with more confidence.

The second step is to really research your overall goals for your career. Look for the potential growth within a company or industry, as you'll want to work for a place that allows you some upward movement. Also, take a hard look at the actual company and how it's different from other companies within the same industry. Knowing what makes an organization stand out against others will help you decide if it's a good fit for you. [source: UC Berkley ].

Once you've figured out what you want and where you stand, it's time to move to solidifying your action plan. Read on for more great tips for finding you that ideal job.

Effective Action Plans for Getting a New Job

So, your resume is in tip-top shape, and you've sold yourself perfectly on the application. You've gotten the call for an interview. Now, it's time to move into the second phase of your action plan: the research.

Prior to actually sitting down with your interviewer, you want to make sure that you have as much information about the company as possible. That way, when you're actually participating in the interview, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to answer any of the questions he or she might throw at you.

Begin with gathering some basic information about the company -- this information can be anything from its global reach to the basic mission of the organization. Also, you'll want to have as much information about the specific job you're applying for so you can speak to specific skills and qualifications. Having this vital information will mean that you can make a show of going point for point with your skills versus the listed qualifications. Also, the ability to speak to specific aspects of the job will show the interviewer that you've done your homework [source: University of Ottawa ].

Once you've gotten all of your research done, it's a good idea to know what you're walking into. Being able to answer standard questions about your background and work experience in a confident manner will help tremendously in your interview. Having some answers prepared and rehearsed will allow you to present yourself in the best possible light [source: UC Berkley ].

Finally, you'll want to be engaged throughout the interview, and that means asking questions. It's a good idea prepare some questions of your own prior to your interview. These questions can be specific ones about the position you're applying for, or they can be more general questions about the organization as a whole.

While looking for a job can be a stressful activity, having laid out your values, goals and research in an organized action plan will help relieve some of that stress.

Now is also the time to brush up on your resume. Make sure your contact information is correct, and that all of your relevant skills and jobs are up-to-date.

Lots More Information

Related articles.

• 10 Job Interview Tips
• Should I write a job interview thank you email?
• 5 Tips for Finding a Job You Love
• How to Find Unadvertised Jobs
• University of California, Berkley. "6 Steps to a Job Action Plan." 2012. (March 25, 2012) http://alumni.berkeley.edu/services/career-services/resources/articles/job-search/6-steps-job-seach-action-plan
• University of Ottawa. "Job Search Tools." 2012. (March 25, 2012) http://www.sass.uottawa.ca/careers/tools/interview.php

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Mitsubishi's Ambitious Plan To Save Itself In America Might Just Work

Mitsubishi's American operations haven't been healthy for some time, but a new five-year plan aims to turn that around with a slew of new cars.

Key Takeaways

• Mitsubishi's new five-year business plan (Momentum 2030) aims to overhaul its lineup with one new model every year from 2026.
• The plan focuses on electrification, product lineup expansion, modernized sales, and dealer network enhancements.
• Mitsubishi plans to introduce new models, including a plug-in hybrid crossover and an adventure-focused passenger van.
• Small pickup truck not ruled out.
• Production in the USA will leverage Nissan facilities.

A year or so ago, I didn't see Mitsubishi surviving past 2030 in the US market without drastic changes. In my op-ed, I labeled it "just another Lancia waiting to die." Clearly, Mitsubishi was aware of the pickle it found itself in for the American market, as it's now announced a new five-year business plan to rescue the brand before the decade's end. Dubbed Momentum 2030, this ambitious five-year business plan will overhaul the Japanese automaker's current lineup, with one new or completely refreshed model to be launched every year between 2026 and 2030.

Mitsubishi is a Japanese automaker founded in1870 and is part of the Mitsubishi Group and broader Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Mitsubishi Motors officially started producing passenger vehicles in 1917, the Mitsubishi Model-A, before building a legacy as the manufacturer of off-roaders like the Pajero. Mitsubishi established a strong presence in motorsport, with models like the Lancer Evolution competing in WRC and the Pajero Evolution taking multiple wins in the Dakar Rally. Its best ever sales year in the USA was in 2002, when it sold 345,915 cars.

"Mitsubishi Motors is at a pivotal point in North America, charting a bold, clear and attainable plan for our future success in the United States."

- Mark Chaffin, MMNA president and CEO

The plan is built around four core pillars:

• Electrification
• A renewed and expanded product lineup
• Modernized retail sales
• An expanded dealer network and sales growth

Tell Me About The New Cars...

As is often the case with these plans, Mitsubishi didn't spill the beans on the exact models we can expect, but did say that the lineup will be nearly doubled by 2030. At present, the brand sells just four models in the US: Outlander , Outlander Sport, Mirage, and Eclipse Cross. The Outlander Sport will soon become defunct - a replacement has already been announced in Europe as a rebadged Renault that won't come to the US - and the subcompact Mirage will end production in late 2024, with a surplus of model production seeing it through the 2025 model year.

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According to Automotive News , a new plug-in hybrid small crossover will launch in late 2025 as a de facto replacement for the Mirage, as confirmed by a dealer who attended the presentation of the new business plan. That's not the only model in the pipeline, though.

Leaning Into The Spirit Of Adventure

A passenger van is also expected, with a focus on outdoor adventure. It's believed this will be a production version of the D:X Concept - a six-seater plug-in hybrid minivan that launched at last year's Japan Mobility Show. This concept also appears in the shadowy teaser image accompanying Mitsubishi's announcement. The automaker will lean into the adventure theme and is planning a lifted Outlander Rugged Edition described as "Subaru Outback-like" in the same vein as the Outback Wilderness.

According to AN, there is also the potential for a small pickup truck. This won't be the Mitsubishi Triton/L200 available in other markets, however, as Mitsubishi is eyeing - but won't confirm - the potential of a compact, battery-electric pickup for the US market. Brand CEO Takao Kato previously said, "There is demand for environmentally friendly pickups with shorter driving range [...] so we would like to consider such a possibility as well."

Chaffin confirmed that Mitsubishi will debut two all-new vehicles in "segments in which the company does not currently compete." If one of these is the D:X minivan, then the other may well be a pickup. Whichever segments they fit into, they'll be a welcome addition to an aging lineup with ailing sales figures.

Multiple Steps To Electrification

Mitsubishi is one brand that has lagged behind the EV trend despite its ties to Renault and Nissan, both of which have several EVs already in production. While this might not be the worst thing, as EV adoption plateaus, the Japanese brand wants to embrace electrification beyond just the Outlander Plug-In Hybrid. It says the new onslaught of models will "advance with a blend of powertrains - hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric." In addition to the production D:X, we expect PHEVs to form a major part of this strategy, as this is an area where Mitsubishi has always been ahead of the curve. Standard hybrid powertrains will likely make up the bulk of its mass-market sales. But non-hybrid derivatives may still have a place in the lineup, described by Mitsubishi as "advanced-technology internal combustion engines" alongside the electrified options.

Mitsubishi Is The Big Winner In New Renault-Nissan Alliance

Nissan factories play a vital role in mitsubishi's future.

The Momentum 2030 plan will invest in North America by expanding the dealer network, but also by producing vehicles locally through Alliance assets. Those Alliance assets are courtesy of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, which means we can expect Mitsubishi vehicles to be produced at local Nissan plants. The likely candidate is Nissan's Smyrna Vehicle Assembly Plant in Tennessee, which already produces the Nissan Pathfinder, Rogue, Murano, Leaf, and Infiniti QX60. Production of the Rogue is reportedly moving to Japan for the next generation in 2026, and the Leaf may move to the UK , leaving capacity at Smyrna for a crossover and a battery-electric vehicle to be produced. The latter is massively important, as it would mean plug-in and electric Mitsubishis may be eligible for the $7,500 tax credit.

"The next 10 years will be great for this brand. MMC is making a significant investment to ensure our collective future. Momentum 2030 will drive more sales, more service, more Mitsubishi vehicles on the road and more Mitsubishi dealer partners around the country. Yes, this is our time, Team Mitsubishi."

Sources: Mitsubishi, Automotive News

I moved to the US for a tech job. Here's 3 observations I have about America's work culture.

• Yaroslav Zubko moved to New York in 2017 after building up his tech career in Ukraine. 
• He's noticed key differences in the US and Ukraine tech work culture. 
• Zubko said people in the US overwork more and place more emphasis on idea generation.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with 34-year-old Yaroslav Zubko, who lives in New York, about his experience moving to the US for a tech job. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2015, I traveled to New York for a two-week business trip. It was the first time I'd ever left Ukraine , where I grew up. I looked at all the huge buildings in the city and couldn't believe my eyes. New York was even more impressive than it seemed in the movies.

I made a promise to myself that I was going to move to New York .

In 2016, I was offered a role as a director of product design at a New York tech startup called UpTop. I hadn't been actively applying for US jobs at the time. They supported me in getting a visa, and I moved to NYC in June 2017.

Moving to America has been the biggest adventure of my life. But the tech culture is very different in the US than in Ukraine. I've had to navigate these differences and assimilate into the work culture.

How I got a job at a New York tech startup

I studied business law at college in Ukraine but decided I wanted to follow my passion and become a designer. I started studying graphic design online and taught myself how to use design tools. I landed my first job as a web designer in 2012, working for a sporting goods website.

I worked at three other companies in Ukraine before moving to the US, doing UX and product design. I felt that every role I had added to my arsenal of skills. My last role before moving was as a product designer for SoftServe, a tech giant in the country.

When UpTop gave me an offer, we discussed visa options for my move to the US. Because I didn't have a formal education in the tech field, I wasn't eligible for a H1-B visa . The company decided to apply for an O-1 visa for "extraordinary" professionals on my behalf.

They hired an immigration attorney who talked me through the documents I'd need for the process. I gathered proof of my professional competency, including awards, media interviews, and letters from previous managers. I launched my own design project, Interaction Library, in 2016, which had already gotten attention online. I think this also helped me secure the visa.

I worked at UpTop for around a year and then moved to Tinder in 2018 as a lead product designer. I left in September 2019 and started focusing on my own design agency, Zubko Studio.

People are more attached to their work in the US

The US is a great place to work with many opportunities. I love that it's progressive and more culturally diverse than Ukraine. When I arrived, I wanted to immerse myself in the community and get a feel for living here.

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In Ukraine, the tech sector is more consultancy-based. Money comes from overseas, from companies who outsource their IT needs to us. In the US, I feel that big companies are developing original ideas and patents, while in Ukraine, the biggest tech companies provide consultancy services.

I feel that people are much more attached to their work in the US because they are working on their ideas. In Ukraine, I worked with overseas clients, executing tasks for other companies and people.

At SoftServe, I was placed on a project for Deloitte. They had established brand guidelines, which presented limitations for me as a designer. I couldn't create many new user interface elements from scratch and had to use the ones from the guide. I felt less ownership over the work.

Meanwhile, I've worked on projects and products I've felt more ownership of in the US. As a product design director at UpTop, I could choose which features to research and test and decide how a certain feature would be implemented.

I loved the responsibility, but it's been much more challenging not to take my work home. There were nights when I couldn't fall asleep because I was thinking about ideas for the product.

In the US, ideas and pitching are prioritized over execution

In Ukraine, my work was about execution. Because my work was in consulting, ideas came from our clients, and I focused on implementing them.

In the US, ideation is more important than execution in the startup world, particularly because the tech scene is more saturated. Big ideas sell. They're how you sell to investors and raise funds. I think this is a positive difference — a great product should start with an idea, which you test over and over to make sure it's worth investing in.

At Tinder, most of my time was spent on idea generation and testing. I animated and presented over 20 versions of Tinder's app, and used A/B testing methods to understand what ideas were worth implementing. I worked on several products that made the user experience more seamless, including Tinder U, Tinder Gold Home, and Super Boost.

People skills are highly valued in US companies. Having spoken in Russian and Ukrainian at my previous jobs in Ukraine, I struggled with self-expression and making jokes in English when I moved to New York .

I initially found it challenging to think about structuring my thoughts when selling my ideas. It would take me a while to think of the right combination of words and I felt people around me didn't have the time to think through my convoluted explanations.

People overwork in the US

In general, I think efficiency is put on a pedestal in American culture. People value working as much as possible and making as much money as possible.

When I first joined Tinder, I would stay late in the office to finish some of my work. I witnessed people staying until 9 or 10 p.m. to finish their commitments. In Ukraine, there were times when the office would be empty at 4 or 5 p.m. Sticking to my hours and going home whenever I wanted felt easier. But the projects were more fun in the US, so I was more motivated to work longer hours.

I plan to live between the US and Ukraine when the war is over

Ukraine will always be my home, but I'm staying in the US for the foreseeable future. I wasn't in Ukraine when Russia's invasion happened in 2022. Growing up, I had nightmares about war, but I was still taken aback when it happened.

After the war, I see myself returning to Ukraine and living between the US and Ukraine. I'd like to use my skills to help rebuild the country, like a phoenix coming from the ashes.

Watch: Russian and Ukrainian restaurants in New York City get tangled in the war

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Federal judge hears challenges to nyc’s fee for drivers into manhattan.

Philip Marcelo

Associated Press

NEW YORK – New York’s first-in-the-nation plan to levy a hefty toll on drivers entering much of traffic-choked Manhattan was the focus of a legal battle that played out in federal court Friday.

A Manhattan judge heard arguments in lawsuits brought by unionized public school teachers and other New Yorkers seeking to put the brakes on the plan set to launch June 30 .

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But U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman didn’t issue any decisions following the daylong hearing, where the central question was whether transportation officials have sufficiently thoroughly studied — and come up sufficient plans to address — the negative health and environmental effects of the toll.

Most drivers in private cars, locals and tourists alike, heading into Manhattan south of Central Park should expect to pay about $15 during the daytime, with higher tolls for larger vehicles and lower rates for motorcycles and late-night entries into the city, according to the proposal finalized in March . Those who aren’t enrolled in a regional toll collection program will pay $22.50.

Alan Klinger, a lawyer representing lower Manhattan residents, said the toll amounts to a “cash grab” by transit officials looking to pump billions of dollars into the region’s creaky subway, trains and buses.

“There’s a desperate need to put funds into mass transit, and that is their overriding issue,” he said.

Lawyers for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency overseeing the congestion fee plan, didn't dispute that the toll will provide a critical cash infusion of around $1 billion annually for the system, which carries about 4 million riders daily.

But they also argued that the toll will help reduce traffic and improve regional air quality by discouraging driving into Manhattan. The MTA also maintains it conducted extensive environmental reviews that found no significant effects to local communities that could not be addressed by focused mitigation efforts.

Klinger and other lawyers representing Manhattan residents argued Friday that the tolling scheme was given the green light by federal transportation officials without proper scrutiny.

Among other things, they noted that the Federal Highway Administration’s review was complete even before New York officials approved the toll’s final structure.

Toll opponents want the court to order transit officials to conduct a more comprehensive environmental study before rolling out the plan.

“This is supposed to be an all-encompassing process, and it has been anything but,” Klinger said.

Lawyers for the highway administration countered that New York transit officials had thoroughly analyzed the plan’s consequences and presented sufficient details for how they would address any harmful effects.

“None of these challenges have any merit,” said Zachary Bannon, a highway administration lawyer.

While the toll is expected to lead to an overall decline in traffic across greater New York City, some areas will see a “small degree” of increased congestion, acknowledged Elizabeth Knauer, an MTA lawyer.

The agency, she said, has committed to investing about $155 million over five years to offset those effects, including installing more roadside plants, parks, school air-filtration systems and more electric vehicle charging stations.

Other lawsuits argued Friday contend that low-income and minority communities already dealing with poor air quality will be particularly hard hit by the health effects of increased traffic through their streets.

They also argue drivers from other city boroughs and suburbs that lack adequate mass transit will take a disproportionate financial hit. Additionally, they claim, small businesses in the congestion zone will face higher operating costs and fewer customers.

“We have been clear that this current MTA plan moves pollution and congestion out of Manhattan and sends it into the other boroughs and neighborhoods already dealing with environmental hazards,” Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers that’s among the groups challenging the plan, said in a statement. “It is not fair, and we are asking the courts to tell the MTA to come up with a better plan.”

Many of the claims in Friday’s lawsuits echo arguments made last month during a two-day hearing in a New Jersey federal court, where New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich have each filed lawsuits.

Judge Leo Gordon, who is weighing those legal challenges, has said he plans to issue a written decision before the toll takes effect.

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo .

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Disruptions Loom as 17 Air Traffic Controllers Balk at Job Relocation

The F.A.A. is clashing with workers over efforts to relocate them from New York to Philadelphia. Senator Chuck Schumer has denounced the plan.

By Kate Kelly

Reporting from Washington and Westbury, N.Y.

By late July, 17 air traffic controllers will be expected to trade in their headsets, walk out of their aging workplace on Long Island and report to a new office in Philadelphia, part of a plan to address a long-running problem with recruiting enough controllers to manage the skies around New York.

Despite the hefty incentives they have been offered to go along, the workers — unwilling to uproot themselves and their families — are balking at the move, and some powerful members of Congress are helping them fight back.

In a blistering letter sent to the Federal Aviation Administration last week, a group of New York lawmakers, including Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and the majority leader, demanded that the agency abandon plans to force the employees’ relocation this summer.

The move places undue hardship on those workers, legislators argued. The “forced reassignments” by the F.A.A., Mr. Schumer and his colleagues wrote, are “both confusing and outrageous.” The controllers say their family lives would be disrupted, citing new marriages, disabled children and elderly parents they care for.

The fact that the Senate’s most powerful legislator would complain so loudly about a tiny group of workers underscores the power of the controllers’ nerve center in Westbury, N.Y. — an intense workplace whose formidable responsibilities, high-stress environment and strong personalities inspired a magazine story and the 1999 movie “Pushing Tin.”

The anger of the controllers and their supporters is clashing with the desperate effort by the F.A.A. to find and train enough employees willing to tackle the demands of ensuring the smooth and safe flow of aircraft in and out of the New York airspace — its most complex, by all accounts.

The New York hub has for years struggled with chronic vacancies, placing its recent staffing levels at some of the lowest levels in the nation. The F.A.A. hopes that shifting some of the responsibility for the work out of New York to a more affordable place to live will make it easier over time to recruit more controllers, leading to higher levels of staffing and, with that, increased air safety and efficiency.

But the agency’s plan also risks losing some of its more experienced controllers who are resistant to moving, which, perversely, could add to the staffing problems.

The relocations, which are scheduled for July 28, are necessary “to improve efficiency and ensure safety in this region,” Bridgett Frey, an F.A.A. spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The group targeted for the move handles the airspace around Newark Liberty International Airport, which in the view of the F.A.A. can be done just as well from Philadelphia as from Long Island. That is because this group of controllers uses radar scopes, instead of guiding planes from a runway tower overlooking takeoffs and landings.

F.A.A. figures show that staffing gaps last year at the Long Island building affected 4 percent of the 541,136 takeoffs and landings that occurred at New York’s major airports last summer. The agency expects the summer flying season, which begins later this month, to be its busiest since 2010.

The air traffic controllers say they, too, are fighting with safety in mind. They say they need to be in the same room with their New York colleagues, as they are now, to communicate quickly with them in a crisis.

“This is an extremely stressful job,” said Joe Segretto, the controller who is president of the local chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representing the New York airspace hub. For controllers, he added, being forced by the F.A.A. to relocate away from spouses and children “is going to add a tremendous amount of pressure.”

As moving day draws closer, the fight looms larger. The F.A.A. already put in place a 10 percent reduction in flight volume in the New York area to cope with lower staffing levels at its New York Terminal Radar Approach Control building in Westbury, known internally as N90. But any further staffing issues could mean there simply are not enough controllers to manage the increased volume planned for summer, forcing delays.

The fate of this handful of employees in a work force of more than 14,000 has gotten the attention of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, even as his workload strains under the demands of tackling jetliner assembly problems at Boeing, investigating the cause of recent train derailments and leading the battle against what the Biden Administration says are “junk fees” charged by airlines.

“The complexity of N90 is more complex than many countries’ entire airspaces,” Mr. Buttigieg said in an interview with The New York Times in December.

Given the low staffing levels at N90, he added, “we know there needs to be more attention there.” Just 59 percent of available controller roles in the building are filled, according to March figures from the F.A.A.

Last June, the F.A.A. was chastised by the inspector general’s office at the Transportation Department, its parent agency, for doing too little to address yearslong shortfalls in controller staffing. Days after those findings were published, United Airlines delayed and canceled flights that affected 150,000 passengers. Scott Kirby, United’s chief executive, blamed the F.A.A. for controller shortages that he said exacerbated a situation in which his pilots were already contending with bad weather in the New York area.

Controllers working at N90, which is housed in a squat, windowless building in suburban Long Island, are responsible for overseeing the early ascent and descent of hundreds of thousands of flights at John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports each year — equating to at least 60 per hour in and out of Newark alone on a typical day or evening shift, according to F.A.A. data. N90 is second to Southern California’s airspace in size but is arguably a more critical cog in the overall system, affecting the punctuality and well-being of hundreds of thousands of passengers each day.

The F.A.A. has battled controller shortages nationwide since the pandemic, which forced pauses in training at both its Oklahoma City academy and on-site at air traffic control hubs around the United States. But N90’s low staffing has been particularly urgent.

The controllers’ jobs are so demanding and specialized that years of experience are customarily required to do them, including 18 to 24 months of hands-on training at N90 after working assignments at less-busy locations. Westbury’s short staffing in recent years has meant that some controllers have earned close to $400,000 a year because of extra pay, according to F.A.A. documents reviewed by The New York Times. At $183,000, the head of the F.A.A., Michael Whitaker, makes much less.

The agency over the years has tried a variety of strategies for filling the vacant jobs at N90, including offering raises and bonuses and using new recruitment tactics. (One hiring effort that targeted candidates with no relevant experience — referred to by some N90 controllers as “off-the-street” hires — was tried, controllers say, without much success.)

The washout rate has remained stubbornly high. Just 32 percent of N90 trainees achieved certification as fully qualified, according to F.A.A. statistics from March, a far lower rate than at comparable facilities. The Transportation Department’s report last year showed that N90 had the fewest supervisors of any Terminal Radar Approach Control, or Tracon, building in the nation, with only eight in place out of 30 authorized slots.

The F.A.A. has been working to relocate some of N90’s controllers to Philadelphia since at least 2020, only to be stymied by both the controllers’ union and New York legislators.

Its most recent effort to negotiate a move with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association began late last year. The two sides came to terms in March, according to documents reviewed by The Times, with a package that included an initial 15 percent incentive bonus and a $75,000 payout for those who moved to Philadelphia permanently. But, lacking an adequate number of volunteers to make the Philadelphia transfer work, the F.A.A. took a tougher stance about six weeks later, according to an April 29 memorandum that was reviewed by The Times: It notified more than a dozen N90 controllers that they would be involuntarily reassigned.

Under urging from the union, Representative Anthony D’Esposito, whose district includes N90, put together the May 7 letter demanding that the F.A.A. rescind its reassignments. In addition to Mr. Schumer, it was signed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and four other members of Congress from the region in and around Long Island. Three of them were Republicans, including Mr. D’Esposito.

“You have people who actually have strong, solid jobs, and they’re not moving because they want to — they’re moving because we’re telling them to,” Mr. D’Esposito said in an interview. “It’s not a good situation.”

Some controllers who do not move may be reassigned to new roles at N90. But getting a new role is dependent upon proving to the F.A.A. that a move would create undue hardship and would require training for a new post for a year or more.

The F.A.A., which spent $36 million to renovate and upgrade the Philadelphia Tracon building, has recently tried again to make the relocation attractive. In the April 29 memo in which it mandated the 17 staff moves, the agency raised to $100,000 its incentive bonuses for controllers who relocated to Philadelphia, either temporarily or permanently.

Yet Mr. Segretto, the union chapter president, and many of his members are unwavering.

“We are completely against it,” he said. “It’s forcing air traffic controllers to choose between their career and leave their families, or to resign from their job.”

Mark Walker contributed reporting from Washington.

Kate Kelly covers money, policy and influence for The Times. More about Kate Kelly

Converse to cut jobs as part of Nike's cost-savings plan

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Reporting by Juveria Tabassum, additional reporting by Savyata Mishra and Ananya Mariam Rajesh; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri

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Nestle India shareholders vote against increase in royalty to Swiss parent

Shareholders in Nestle India have rejected a company proposal to increase royalty payments to its Swiss parent Nestle , the company said late on Friday.