why do business owners turn into diamonds because they're always under pressure how to write a
business plan let's go ahead and talk about it now of course creating a business plan is very
important because well it can help you get funding it can also help you establish a concrete timeline
but most importantly it can actually help you be successful in business and listen okay i get it i
get it because when i first started my business i probably had the same thoughts that you have
right now like man i don't need a business plan i got all my thoughts and all my ideas and my plan
right here let's do it but honestly not having a thorough business plan was probably one of my
biggest mistakes when i started my first business so in this video what i want to do is help
you think through how to write a business plan that is suited for you step by step stay tuned
hey there and welcome back to our channel i'm sean with life accounting the accounting company
that saves people from high taxes and low profits and today we're going to focus on the profit part
because today is all about business planning okay let's go ahead and get into it now i'm sure most
of you already understand number one what is a business plan but let me briefly very briefly
touch on it so a business plan basically is simply that right it is a plan for your business
typically there are seven components of a business plan first you have your executive summary which
basically summarize the overall business plan then you have your company description
you have the market analysis you have your service and product lines you have your sales and your
marketing strategy you have your management plan and lastly you typically have your financial
projections now what most people do is they tell you about these seven components of a business
plan and heck they may even give you a tip to write your executive summary last but i'm gonna
do something a little bit different okay i'm gonna get a little bit deeper and actually break down
where you need to start step by step and exactly why and along the way i'll also share additional
tips from my experience when it comes to launching a new business as well all right so let's go ahead
and get started with step number zero that's right step zero like before you even write a
business plan you need to really think about okay who you are because the truth is whether or not
your business is going to be successful depends on how passionate you are about the business so i'll
tell you a quick story to help illustrate this okay so i used to do marketing and one day i had
back-to-back meetings with two of my clients my first meeting was with a client who owned an i.t
company and the bulk of the meeting was pretty monotone with a few glimpses of frustration from
my client like he would often make slight comments like man we should be growing so much faster
than this this is supposed to be a high growth industry and so on okay so then right after that
i had another meeting with one of my clients who owned a dog walking business no joke okay
and the majority of that meeting was high energy with a lot of excitement and overall optimism
about where the marketing campaign was going and throughout my time of working with both companies
the dog walking business went on to make millions of dollars whereas the it company eventually
gave up okay so so what exactly is my point well i believe because my client with the dog walking
business loved and i mean absolutely loved what she did that helped accelerate her success and
too many people get into business only to make money and to try to get to financial freedom
but they don't consider how much they need to learn and how hard the journey will be so step
zero is to learn yourself and find your passion before you get into business all right now once
you get that done let's get into some of the juicy stuff okay so step number one for
writing a business plan is to analyze the market all right that's right analyze the market
so once you have your idea don't rush into trying to figure out your business name or trying to
figure out a catchy slogan or none of that right the first thing you need to do is start actually
analyzing and seeing is if there is a need and demand for your business idea meaning that people
will actually want to buy what you have to offer hey sean look everyone needs my youtube videos
okay kind of like that so how do you know that there is a demand for your business idea
well the first obvious one is are there any other companies that offer what you're offering
right now and if so are they successful so for example if you are thinking about creating a
stylish swimwear company and you see that another company is just completely selling out of this
trendy style of swimwear then obviously there's a demand for that product but that's like a very
comparable situation but maybe your business idea is completely unique right like maybe you
want to create a swimwear that has pockets that are completely water resistant for your devices
like your phone okay well even though your product is very unique and innovative it can still build
off the premise that swimwear is in high demand on the other hand if swimwear wasn't in high demand
don't assume that your product will be able to turn an entire market even if you have a great
business idea okay the next thing you want to ask yourself within your market analysis
is how many other companies are offering this and here you want to get a gauge on how saturated
the market actually is because listen business is like a race and you rather race against 10
other businesses or 10 other people than race against a thousand other people because that
will heighten your chances of winning and lastly when it comes to analyzing the market
ask yourself what is the competition's level of quality and price because listen
you never want to go into a business where you are offering a lower quality product at a higher
price that is a recipe for failure so of course ask yourself realistically can i create a
quality product or service that is just as good or better than what is on the market today and if so
can you offer it at just as good of a price or a better price than what is on the market today
okay going through these three questions will help you quickly understand if you have a viable
business or not especially before you get too deep into writing your business plan because
if you get too deep into writing your business plan then you're going to start being committed
to following a business i did that may not work out at all now once you successfully analyze the
market then you're ready to move on to step number two but really quick before i move into that step
if you are enjoying this video so far all i ask you to do is to hit the like button for the
youtube algorithm it really helps our channel in this video reach more people like you who want to
learn how to write a successful business plan did you do it yeah okay thank you so so much now let's
go ahead and get on with it with step number two and that is to develop your sales and marketing
strategy so again notice i'm not recommending that you try coming up with your company name
or your company description or even trying to build out your products or your services
yet okay the next step here is to figure out how you're actually going to get people
to see your products and your services and exactly how you're going to sell it to them why okay
two reasons number one because doing this forces you to look at things from a different perspective
it forces you to think about who your customers and consumers are so at this point you can start
to build a target audience like what gender are they what's their age what's their educational
background what are their interests what are their financial prowess like their net worth
etc and through this you start to learn more about your business idea so let's go back to
the previous example okay let's say for example you're creating a high-end swimwear company
with waterproof pockets for your devices okay but then your your competency your skill set is in
targeting college students with little money then you probably need to rethink your business idea
because those college students may not be able to afford high-end swimwear right now the second
reason i like starting with marketing and sales is because you can actually start marketing before
your business launches or even before your business plan is complete for example right now
our channel on youtube doesn't really offer or sell anything but in the future we plan to have
products that help people build well faster but right now we are creating content and providing
value to our target market and you can do the same thing whether it's a youtube page starting a blog
starting a social media page that is a themed account and relevant to your future business
and of course i realize those are all digital marketing tactics but of course you can also do
some traditional things like speaking at different events or establishing partnerships with other
companies and while you're actually doing the marketing you will start getting more in tune
with what your potential customers actually want hey sean look our viewers want us to dance more
okay maybe not but moving on to step number three build your management or partner team now i put
this as step number three because unless you are starting a sole proprietorship or a single member
llc then you're going to want your management team to be on the same page with you when it comes to
other aspects of writing your business plan in fact you will likely find that your management
team will have some other really great ideas and energy to contribute to the overall business so
of course you want to think very carefully about who you want on your management team
and why okay ideally your management team will be able to bring something to the table that you
as a business owner cannot whether it's their time or their experience now quran has a really
great video breaking down business partnerships that i definitely recommend that you check out
right after you watch this video in the link above okay step number four build your products and
services okay i know you've been waiting on it and here it is okay now you can go about mapping out
your products and your services but notice i still have this step before selecting your business
name okay why is that because when you're building your products you need to aim to be a little bit
unique right like you don't want to offer the same exact thing as someone else if you want a
successful sustainable business so while you are building your unique value proposition
you may find something is very unique that you can incorporate into your brand name or your company
description okay so we go back again to that swimwear example with the waterproof pockets which
by the way i don't know why i keep going back to that i'm not quite sure if there's a company
out there that actually has waterproof pockets but that sounds like a really good idea to me
but anyway if you're creating that swimwear company and you find that the zippers look like
mermaids or something special then maybe that ties into your brand name right like maybe the name of
the company could be mermaid swimwear also i want to say this especially when it comes to writing
your business plan don't worry about perfecting your product or your service in the plan because
trust me you're going to have multiple iterations of your designs your features and your service the
point of your business plan is just to make it extremely clear what problem or need your
product and service will solve because that is the root of what will make up your business even if
your product changes as you innovate or learn more from your customer feedback the root value of your
business will stay intact okay moving on to step number five financial projections okay this is
where things start to get a little bit interesting right so i want you to focus on your financial
costs your startup costs as they say because you can reasonably project those costs you can
run some google searches make some phone calls talk to other business owners and get a rough
estimate of what it's going to cost you to start your business now that's the easy part the hard
part of course is projecting the revenue and i've had people come up to me and say sean i
got a business plan and it's in a huge industry and i'm projecting that i'm going to make one
million dollars in my first year i just need some capital now i'm always like whoa whoa whoa okay
one million dollars in your first year of business is definitely possible but does not happen often
i mean even breaking six figures in the first year is hard for a new business to do so when
it comes to projecting revenue be as realistic as possible especially especially especially
if you want to attract investors because if your projections are enormous you may think that
impresses an investor but actually that investor will think you're a little bit crazy because many
investors have real experience and they know how difficult it is for startups to drive profitable
revenue in year one so here are some quick tips when it comes to financial projections
if you have a product just assume that in year one you're going to spend majority of your time
your money and your resources developing the product and actually getting it to the market
that means you'll likely lose money in your one and maybe if you're good start breaking even
in year two and you should project faster growth going into year three and year four on the other
hand if you have a service assume that in year one you will be profitable but you will not be able to
scale quickly because you need human capital which takes time so that means you need to recruit you
need to hire you need to train people which takes time so you should project slow growth
now of course these tips mainly apply to people who are getting in business for the first time
or have little business experience but if you have successfully built a startup then you
can be a little bit more aggressive with your financial projections okay step number six you
can finally create your business description your business name your business mission your business
values etc now of course you can name your business whatever you want but if you want
to heighten your levels of success then i do have a few tips for you number one make your business
name identifiable with what your business is okay let me say that again make your business
name identifiable with what your business actually is have you ever heard a business name and off the
top of your head you had no idea what it could be well that's exactly what you don't want right like
in the case of business you want it to be as clear as possible if we just had to name life people
would be like okay what is life but when you hear the name life accounting people automatically
understand that it's a group of accountants right or if it was life cleaners that would
be pretty obvious or life fitness that would be pretty obvious so that's first when someone hears
your business name they should immediately be able to understand what you do tip number two make your
business name searchable okay at some point you're going to want to market your business online
okay that means being on social media being on youtube being on google having a blog etc
and guess what people are already searching for different businesses and brand names online
like literally right now for example one day i was looking for a property management company
for a rental property so of course i went to google and i searched for atlanta property
management company and literally the first company that i found was a website in a business
that is actually named atlanta property management group inc and it was smart that they named their
business that because they knew that people would be searching for it and lastly step number seven
complete your executive summary so once you get through all the first six steps completing your
executive summary is pretty easy okay all you need to do is just summarize everything else
that you have come up with so far so let's take a final look at the typical traditional structure
of a business plan then let's take a look at my process and steps on how to write a business plan
okay and following my steps in my process will give you a strong possibility of creating a
business plan that will actually succeed now if you're past the business plan step
and you're ready to actually launch your business then make sure you check out my
video on how to start a business step by step coming up next or you can check out
one of our other popular videos coming up next as well and i'll see you over there
you