Seven Sections of a Small Business Plan

A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney

First Three Sections of a Small Business Plan

If you are one of the thousands of small businesses in America today looking for a small business bank loan, the best way to secure one is to have a business plan. What should a business plan consist of? Well, you should have a cover page with the name, address, web site, logo, and contact numbers of your business. Then you should have a table of contents page. The third page of your small business plan begins the meat of the matter and is called section one.

Section one is the Executive Summary, which is a condensed narrative of your entire business plan from start to finish. This section can be as short as a few paragraphs or as long as a few pages.

Section two of your small business plan should be your Business Description. This section should specify which type of legal entity you have structured your small business as (sole proprietor, partnership, corporation, etc.), it should detail the pertinent work history and skills relative to the business for each of the founding members, and it should describe the history of the business up to this date, including how and when the business idea was conceived, how the business was originally started, and how the business has grown from inception to the current day.

Section three of your small business plan should be your Offerings, whether they be goods or services. Describe what you are offering as a business, to whom you are offering it, how it will be manufactured or provided, what it will cost you and what it will cost the customer, and how your business can make a profit off of it.

Sections Four Through Six of Your Small Business Plan

Section four of your small business plan should be your marketing strategy. First you should detail what kinds of marketing research you've been able to conduct and what ramifications your research conclusions entail. Next you should describe in detail how you plan to advertise your product or service, including prices and time spans, and you should leave space after each one so that you can come back when the campaign is complete and detail the results.

Section five of your small business plan should be your expenses, including your fixed expenses such as computers and peripherals, business office furniture, and accounting software, and also including your variable expenses, such as the costs involved in producing your product or providing your service.

Section six of your small business plan should be about financing. How do you plan to finance your small business until the time where it begins to make a profit? Will you take out a small business loan from the bank? Will you use your personal credit cards? Will you borrow money from your friends and family? However you plan to get the money, you should also detail a specific plan on how you will be able to pay it back, and include a time line.

Section Seven of Your Small Business Plan

This section is the nitty gritty of your business: profit and loss statements and cash flow projections. The first details hard facts from your business' past history, and the second details future potentials based on those past facts. If accounting isn't your strong suit, you may need to hire a professional accountant for help on this one. Once you have all seven of these sections in your small business plan, you're done!