Writing a business plan allows you the opportunity to:

• Think clearly and specifically about your business, what it does, and its niche in the market place.

• Put on paper what your business is all about.

• Allows you to organize the work you have completed in developing and planning your business in the prior modules.

• Provide a written description of your business for others.

• Give yourself a road map of where you have started your business and where you plan to take it.

• It sets up specific goals for you to achieve through your business.

• Finally, it is a means to create focus and accountability for yourself regarding your business.

I have provided a business outline you may use to create and write your business plan. As you do so, you will find yourself thinking rather hard about your business, sometimes feeling stumped. Do not worry, that is normal. What matters is that you work these issues through to come up with solid ideas and plans of action. So, you can start here, Business Plan Outline:

The Business Plan

The outline below is a basic business plan to help you to put on paper what your business is and where you are taking it. If you have a plan you would prefer to use that at least covers these areas feel free to use that.

Remember, this is a start. You can always come back and make changes to your plan as you see fit. In any case, when you have completed your business plan, email it to your coach.

Business Plan Outline- Part One

1. Cover Sheet

• Your Business Name

• The Owner/Owners

• Address

• Telephone number and 1-800 number

• Fax Number

• E-mail Address

• Web-site address (add later if necessary)

2. Statement of Purpose

• Statement of the purpose of writing this business plan. Usually for internal purposes only.

3. Mission Statement

• Write what the mission of the company is.

• Write the core values of the company with a brief explanation of each value.

4. Vision Statement

• Write statements as to where you see your company in the next six months, one year, two years, three years, four years, and five years.

5. Statement of your Business

• What is the actual activity of your business to create profit for the company?

• Why do you believe this will be a profitable venture?

• What are the keys for your business becoming successful?

6. Products

• List each of your products and give a brief but adequate explanation of each.

• Explain the benefits of each product to your clients/customers.

7. Customers

• Describe each marketing segment for your products in terms of their simple demographics, i.e., age, income, interests and activities, general lifestyles, etc.

8. General Marketing Plans

• Describe in general terms, the types of Internet advertising you plan to use to market and direct traffic to your web site.

• List other ways traditional marketing, i.e., newspaper ads, business cards, etc., you plan to market your products. (A full explanation is not necessary here. A fuller marketing plan will be detailed later.)

9. Financial

• Make a projection of your gross sales over the next two years, giving best, worst and medium cases. Do this in three month increments, for a total of 6 projections for each product and/or service.

If you choose, you can make a simple chart showing the cost of your products and/or services as compared to gross profits (a total of the money made through sales) and net-gross (money left after paying for product and/or service costs).

• Show the indicated projected gross-profits from each case cited above.

• List additional estimated costs (besides product costs) for running your business over the next two years, providing break down for three months at a time.

• Show estimated net-profits for each of the cases cited above (best, worst, and medium) in three month increments.

(This exercise can be carried out to five years if you choose.)

For Additional Helps

• Check out the Small Business Administration, for ideas and helps.

• For a great online help, click on www.bplans.com. They provide lots of great information as well as “mini tools” to help you with your business plan.

• To find more information about business plans, use the search engines. Key word phrases you might use are (without the quotes) “business plans,” "business planning,” and “how to write a business plan.”

• Download information you find helpful.

More – Business Plan Links

• BizCoach

• Business Plans

• Small Business

• Biz PlanIt

The above outline and links can be very beneficial to you as you build your business plan for your Internet Business. It will take time and revising, nevertheless, nothing can replace a well thought out and written business plan. You have what you need here.

If You Want to Simplify This Process...

If you are looking for some tools that can help you in tremendous and serious ways put together...

• Your Business Plan

• Marketing Plan (we'll get to this later)

• and provide a clarifying focus on the creation and marketing of your website.

I am telling you, these tools do it and are worth your time to check out!

First, here are Sample Business Plans created from these business tools for you to review and study.

Next, there are some Mini Tools that you can use now to help you start to put together a focused and effective business plan for your web business.

If you've like what you've and read and used, then these tools will be of great benefit to you. I know they have helped me in huge ways I would not have thought possible before using them.

The simple act of clarifying the mind (and you know, clarifying in the mind is a big deal to me) is the first real step to progress and achievement. These tools have been significant in that help for my planning and execution of web business. The BPlans Tools, and Business Plan Pro are tools that will help you simplify the process of creating a great business plan to build a profitable and successful business.

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