By: Muffi Ghadiali
The two key elements in developing your business plan are to gain a good understanding of your overall business and conduct sufficient research to combine all the aspects that go into a business plan. The following are key elements of a well thought out business plan.
1. Business Description:
Describe your business in detail, starting with your experience in the industry and the types of events you are planning to organize. Use these questions to guide your thinking:
- What customer problem are you trying to solve?
- How will you satisfying the customer’s needs?
- Why are you the best event planning company or individual for those types of events?
- What are the different event planning services you plan to offer?
- How will you price your services?
2. Business Operation:
Next, start planning for the operational aspects of your business to make sure you consider all the requirements before starting up your business. Start with these questions:
- What are the legal and operational requirements for you to setup your business (company formation, business license, trademarks, insurance etc)
- How do you plan to register your business entity (Sole Proprietorship, LLC, C-Corporation etc)
- How will you manage ownership percentage, if you have multiple partners or investors?
- Where will you locate your business? Will you start with an office space or just use your home office?
- If you do start with a home office, where do you plan to meet the clients?
- Will you be hiring full time employees or contract workers?
3. Competitive Research:
Understanding your competition is key to your long term success, and make sure you gather the following information:
- Who are the main competitors in your service area?
- How do you plan to differentiate your services from the competition?
- What are the gaps in your competitors’ offerings that you can better satisfy your customers?
- What are the pricing models used by your competition?
4. Marketing and Sales:
Once you gain a good understanding of the competitive landscape, you’ll need to design your Marketing and Sales Plans, which should address all the following areas:
- How much money will you need to invest in marketing and/or advertising to acquire customers?
- How much are your potential customers willing to pay for the services?
- How will you reach your key customers in a cost effective manner?
- Once you have customers, how much will you need to spend to maintain customer relationships and grow your business?
- What are your key marketing tools – newspaper ads, online ads, social media, etc?
5. Financial Analysis:
The final element of your business plan is the financial analysis of your business. Remember, that since you are at the beginning phase of your business, your primary objective is to keep costs low till you start generating revenue. You financial should include:
- All business startup costs that you need to incur before any revenue is accrued
- A simple breakeven analysis to determine a timeline during which the revenue equals the associated cost to earn the revenue.
- Details of all expected expenses, including fixed and variable expenses such as business fees, marketing budget, employee costs etc