{"id":1806,"date":"2015-12-04T12:21:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T12:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/?p=1806"},"modified":"2015-12-07T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T12:22:30","slug":"5-reasons-your-business-plan-sucks-and-how-you-can-change-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/5-reasons-your-business-plan-sucks-and-how-you-can-change-it\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons Your Business Plan Sucks and How You Can Change It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"5<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Tallat<\/a><\/p>\n
TALLAT MAHMOOD<\/div>\n
CONTRIBUTOR<\/div>\n
Founder and Managing Director of SkyPanther Capital<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Image credit: Jeffrey Betts | StockSnap.io<\/a><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Most of you will have a business plan for your startup, as this document acts as the blueprint and roadmap\u00a0for your company.\u00a0Whether it is to share with management to help with strategy or present to investors for funding, the business plan will provide the basis for future decisions.<\/p>\n

However, despite its importance, your business plan probably sucks. It fails to achieve its objective and ends up misrepresenting your business to the detriment of decision makers.<\/p>\n

Here are the five biggest reasons your business plan is failing and how to overcome these roadblocks.<\/p>\n

1. You don\u2019t write with your audience in mind.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Using one business plan for everyone will makes your plan irrelevant, as it will never satisfy any audience group. The business plan needs to be written for a specific audience. Only then can it address their concerns and questions.<\/p>\n

Action point<\/strong>: Be clear from the outset who you are writing the business plan for. Next, outline what the key questions are they will want answered and structure the plan with those questions in mind.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0Business Plans: A Step-by-Step Guide<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0You spend too much time discussing the nitty-gritty of your business.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

No one knows your business better than you. As such you will at times\u00a0end up prevaricating to show off your knowledge\u00a0more than adding value for the reader.<\/p>\n

This is a good way of putting off any reader and will detract from your most relevant points.<\/p>\n

Action point<\/strong>: Write just enough to answer the key questions from point one. You can determine which section you need to include in the plan by acknowledging who you are writing for. If the plan is for your team, for example, you may not need to go into lots of detail around the product section, as they will have familiarity with this.<\/p>\n

Always re-read and edit your plan to delete excess words and sections that are adding nothing for the reader. It is also a good idea to get others to read the plan before finalizing it.<\/p>\n

3. You can\u2019t articulate your market.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Too many entrepreneur\u2019s do a \u201ccopy and paste\u201d exercise on the market section by using vaguely relevant material they get off the Internet. In my time as an investor, this was often the most disappointing section.<\/p>\n

A well thought through market section however, stands out. Attention to detail and being succinct is required.<\/p>\n

Action point<\/strong>: Break down your market to identify exactly what and who\u00a0is relevant. For example, in the tech and software space, citing the whole software market is useless if your company operates in the big\u00a0data\u00a0space. Think of where your end customer sits and explain the characteristics of that specific market.<\/p>\n

4. You don\u2019t explain your financials.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Many entrepreneurs are the\u00a0most uncertain about\u00a0the financials section in their business plan — perhaps\u00a0because of the\u00a0perceived complexity and unfamiliarity.\u00a0But it doesn’t need to be that\u00a0difficult.\u00a0Like the other parts\u00a0of your business plan, tell\u00a0a story.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a05 Ways to Hack a Business Plan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Action point<\/strong>: Clearly explain assumptions in your financials. For example, if you have assumed 10 percent revenue growth and a 60 percent\u00a0gross profit margin, what is this based on? When you talk through the financials section make sure to explain what the numbers are\u00a0telling<\/em>\u00a0you in simple language. This approach is more useful than mechanically stating numbers. The\u00a0relevance<\/em>\u00a0of what the data shows allows for tangible dialogue with your audience.<\/p>\n

5. You don\u2019t explain what\u2019s next.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A lot of business plans rattle through sections in the business plan like a tick-box exercise with the purpose of completing it. They don\u2019t explain what\u2019s next. Just as it is important to set the context at the outset by identifying your audience, it is important to conclude on where you expect to go with the business in the short and medium term.\u00a0Any business plan would be lost without this.<\/p>\n

Action point<\/strong>:\u00a0 Spend time distilling key points from the plan you have developed to present what you want your audience to do with the plan. If your audience is your team, you want to present a view on strategy that you can discuss with them. For an investor, articulate your funding requirements, milestones and have\u00a0a high-level deal structure for them to work with.<\/p>\n

Ultimately a business plan will never be final, as it will continue to change as the business grows and you respond to threats and opportunities in your market. However, adhering to the evergreen points above will ensure your plan is built on strong foundations, so that your decision-making is well thought through.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0The Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TALLAT MAHMOOD CONTRIBUTOR Founder and Managing Director of SkyPanther Capital Image credit: Jeffrey Betts | StockSnap.io December 04, 2015 Most of you will have a business plan for your startup, as this document acts as the blueprint and roadmap\u00a0for your company.\u00a0Whether it is to share with management to help with strategy or present to investors … Continue reading 5 Reasons Your Business Plan Sucks and How You Can Change It<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-startups","pmpro-has-access"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4MGMb-t8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1807,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions\/1807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}