Business Plan for a Startup Business is a comprehensive 32 page document to take you through the many considerations when planning a business startup. Taking the time to plan for a successful business and this thinking applies to all businesses.
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The business plan consists of a narrative and several financial worksheets. The
narrative template is the body of the business plan. It contains more than 150
questions divided into several sections. Work through the sections in any order
that you like, except for the Executive Summary, which should be done last. Skip
any questions that do not apply to your type of business. When you are finished
writing your first draft, you’ll have a collection of small essays on the various
topics of the business plan. Then you’ll want to edit them into a smooth‐flowing
narrative.
The real value of creating a business plan is not in having the finished product in
hand; rather, the value lies in the process of researching and thinking about your
business in a systematic way. The act of planning helps you to think things
through thoroughly, study and research if you are not sure of the facts, and look
at your ideas critically. It takes time now, but avoids costly, perhaps disastrous,
mistakes later.
This business plan is a generic model suitable for all types of businesses.
However, you should modify it to suit your particular circumstances. Before you
begin, review the section titled Refining the Plan, found at the end. It suggests
emphasizing certain areas depending upon your type of business
(manufacturing, retail, service, etc.). It also has tips for fine‐tuning your plan to
make an effective presentation to investors or bankers. If this is why you’re
creating your plan, pay particular attention to your writing style. You will be
judged by the quality and appearance of your work as well as by your ideas.
It typically takes several weeks to complete a good plan. Most of that time is
spent in research and re‐thinking your ideas and assumptions. But then, that’s
the value of the process. So make time to do the job properly. Those who do
never regret the effort. And finally, be sure to keep detailed notes on your
sources of information and on the assumptions underlying your financial data.
If you need assistance with your business plan, contact the SCORE office in your
area to set up a business counseling appointment with a SCORE volunteer or
send your plan for review to a SCORE counselor at www.score.org. Call 1‐800‐
634‐0245 to get the contact information for the SCORE office closest to you.
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Business Plan
OWNERS
Your Business Name
Address Line 1
Address Line 2
City, ST ZIP Code
Telephone
Fax
E‐Mail
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I. Table of Contents
I. Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………………… 3
II. Executive Summary………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
III. General Company Description …………………………………………………………………. 5
IV. Products and Services……………………………………………………………………………….. 6
V. Marketing Plan …………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
VI. Operational Plan …………………………………………………………………………………….. 16
VII. Management and Organization………………………………………………………………. 21
VIII. Personal Financial Statement ………………………………………………………………….. 22
IX. Startup Expenses and Capitalization ………………………………………………………. 23
X. Financial Plan …………………………………………………………………………………………. 24
XI. Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
XII. Refining the Plan…………………………………………………………………………………….. 28
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II. Executive Summary
Write this section last.
We suggest that you make it two pages or fewer.
Include everything that you would cover in a five‐minute interview.
Explain the fundamentals of the proposed business: What will your product be?
Who will your customers be? Who are the owners? What do you think the future
holds for your business and your industry?
Make it enthusiastic, professional, complete, and concise.
If applying for a loan, state clearly how much you want, precisely how you are
going to use it, and how the money will make your business more profitable,
thereby ensuring repayment.
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III. General Company Description
What business will you be in? What will you do?
Mission Statement: Many companies have a brief mission statement, usually in
30 words or fewer, explaining their reason for being and their guiding principles.
If you want to draft a mission statement, this is a good place to put it in the plan,
followed by:
Company Goals and Objectives: Goals are destinations—where you want your
business to be. Objectives are progress markers along the way to goal
achievement. For example, a goal might be to have a healthy, successful
company that is a leader in customer service and that has a loyal customer
following. Objectives might be annual sales targets and some specific measures
of customer satisfaction.
Business Philosophy: What is important to you in business?
To whom will you market your products? (State it briefly here—you will do a
more thorough explanation in the Marketing Plan section).
Describe your industry. Is it a growth industry? What changes do you foresee in
the industry, short term and long term? How will your company be poised to
take advantage of them?
Describe your most important company strengths and core competencies. What
factors will make the company succeed? What do you think your major
competitive strengths will be? What background experience, skills, and strengths
do you personally bring to this new venture?
Legal form of ownership: Sole proprietor, Partnership, Corporation, Limited
liability corporation (LLC)? Why have you selected this form?
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IV. Products and Services
Describe in depth your products or services (technical specifications, drawings,
photos, sales brochures, and other bulky items belong in Appendices).
What factors will give you competitive advantages or disadvantages? Examples
include level of quality or unique or proprietary features.
What are the pricing, fee, or leasing structures of your products or services?
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V. Marketing Plan
Market research – Why?
No matter how good your product and your service, the venture cannot succeed
without effective marketing. And this begins with careful, systematic research. It
is very dangerous to assume that you already know about your intended market.
You need to do market research to make sure you’re on track. Use the business
planning process as your opportunity to uncover data and to question your
marketing efforts. Your time will be well spent.
Market research – How?
There are two kinds of market research: primary and secondary.
Secondary research means using published information such as industry profiles,
trade journals, newspapers, magazines, census data, and demographic profiles.
This type of information is available in public libraries, industry associations,
chambers of commerce, from vendors who sell to your industry, and from
government agencies.
Start with your local library. Most librarians are pleased to guide you through
their business data collection. You will be amazed at what is there. There are
more online sources than you could possibly use. Your chamber of commerce
has good information on the local area. Trade associations and trade publications
often have excellent industry‐specific data.
Primary research means gathering your own data. For example, you could do
your own traffic count at a proposed location, use the yellow pages to identify
competitors, and do surveys or focus‐group interviews to learn about consumer
preferences. Professional market research can be very costly, but there are many
books that show small business owners how to do effective research themselves.
In your marketing plan, be as specific as possible; give statistics, numbers, and
sources. The marketing plan will be the basis, later on, of the all‐important sales
projection.
Economics
Facts about your industry:
• What is the total size of your market?
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• What percent share of the market will you have? (This is important only if
you think you will be a major factor in the market.)
• Current demand in target market.
• Trends in target market—growth trends, trends in consumer preferences,
and trends in product development.
• Growth potential and opportunity for a business of your size.
• What barriers to entry do you face in entering this market with your new
company? Some typical barriers are:
o High capital costs
o High production costs
o High marketing costs
o Consumer acceptance and brand recognition
o Training and skills
o Unique technology and patents
o Unions
o Shipping costs
o Tariff barriers and quotas
• And of course, how will you overcome the barriers?
• How could the following affect your company?
o Change in technology
o Change in government regulations
o Change in the economy
o Change in your industry
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Product
In the Products and Services section, you described your products and services as
you see them. Now describe them from your customers’ point of view.
Features and Benefits
List all of your major products or services.
For each product or service:
• Describe the most important features. What is special about it?
• Describe the benefits. That is, what will the product do for the customer?
Note the difference between features and benefits, and think about them. For
example, a house that gives shelter and lasts a long time is made with certain
materials and to a certain design; those are its features. Its benefits include pride
of ownership, financial security, providing for the family, and inclusion in a
neighborhood. You build features into your product so that you can sell the
benefits.
What after‐sale services will you give? Some examples are delivery, warranty,
service contracts, support, follow‐up, and refund policy.
Customers
Identify your targeted customers, their characteristics, and their geographic
locations, otherwise known as their demographics.
The description will be completely different depending on whether you plan to
sell to other businesses or directly to consumers. If you sell a consumer product,
but sell it through a channel of distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, you must
carefully analyze both the end consumer and the middleman businesses to which
you sell.
You may have more than one customer group. Identify the most important
groups. Then, for each customer group, construct what is called a demographic
profile:
• Age
• Gender
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• Location
• Income level
• Social class and occupation
• Education
• Other (specific to your industry)
• Other (specific to your industry)
For business customers, the demographic factors might be:
• Industry (or portion of an industry)
• Location
• Size of firm
• Quality, technology, and price preferences
• Other (specific to your industry)
• Other (specific to your industry)
Competition
What products and companies will compete with you?
List your major competitors:
(Names and addresses)
Will they compete with you across the board, or just for certain products, certain
customers, or in certain locations?
Will you have important indirect competitors? (For example, video rental stores
compete with theaters, although they are different types of businesses.)
How will your products or services compare with the competition?
Use the Competitive Analysis table below to compare your company with your
two most important competitors. In the first column are key competitive factors.
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Since these vary from one industry to another, you may want to customize the
list of factors.
In the column labeled Me, state how you honestly think you will stack up in
customersʹ minds. Then check whether you think this factor will be a strength or
a weakness for you. Sometimes it is hard to analyze our own weaknesses. Try to
be very honest here. Better yet, get some disinterested strangers to assess you.
This can be a real eye‐opener. And remember that you cannot be all things to all
people. In fact, trying to be causes many business failures because efforts become
scattered and diluted. You want an honest assessment of your firmʹs strong and
weak points.
Now analyze each major competitor. In a few words, state how you think they
compare.
In the final column, estimate the importance of each competitive factor to the
customer. 1 = critical; 5 = not very important.
Table 1: Competitive Analysis
Factor Me Strength Weakness Competitor A Competitor B Importance to
Customer
Products
Price
Quality
Selection
Service
Reliability
Stability
Expertise
Company
Reputation
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Factor Me Strength Weakness Competitor A Competitor B Importance to
Customer
Location
Appearance
Sales Method
Credit Policies
Advertising
Image
Now, write a short paragraph stating your competitive advantages and
disadvantages.
Niche
Now that you have systematically analyzed your industry, your product, your
customers, and the competition, you should have a clear picture of where your
company fits into the world.
In one short paragraph, define your niche, your unique corner of the market.
Strategy
Now outline a marketing strategy that is consistent with your niche.
Promotion
How will you get the word out to customers?
Advertising: What media, why, and how often? Why this mix and not some
other?
Have you identified low‐cost methods to get the most out of your promotional
budget?
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Will you use methods other than paid advertising, such as trade shows, catalogs,
dealer incentives, word of mouth (how will you stimulate it?), and network of
friends or professionals?
What image do you want to project? How do you want customers to see you?
In addition to advertising, what plans do you have for graphic image support?
This includes things like logo design, cards and letterhead, brochures, signage,
and interior design (if customers come to your place of business).
Should you have a system to identify repeat customers and then systematically
contact them?
Promotional Budget
How much will you spend on the items listed above?
Before startup? (These numbers will go into your startup budget.)
Ongoing? (These numbers will go into your operating plan budget.)
Pricing
Explain your method or methods of setting prices. For most small businesses,
having the lowest price is not a good policy. It robs you of needed profit margin;
customers may not care as much about price as you think; and large competitors
can under price you anyway. Usually you will do better to have average prices
and compete on quality and service.
Does your pricing strategy fit with what was revealed in your competitive
analysis?
Compare your prices with those of the competition. Are they higher, lower, the
same? Why?
How important is price as a competitive factor? Do your intended customers
really make their purchase decisions mostly on price?
What will be your customer service and credit policies?
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Proposed Location
Probably you do not have a precise location picked out yet. This is the time to
think about what you want and need in a location. Many startups run
successfully from home for a while.
You will describe your physical needs later, in the Operational Plan section. Here,
analyze your location criteria as they will affect your customers.
Is your location important to your customers? If yes, how?
If customers come to your place of business:
Is it convenient? Parking? Interior spaces? Not out of the way?
Is it consistent with your image?
Is it what customers want and expect?
Where is the competition located? Is it better for you to be near them (like car
dealers or fast food restaurants) or distant (like convenience food stores)?
Distribution Channels
How do you sell your products or services?
Retail
Direct (mail order, Web, catalog)
Wholesale
Your own sales force
Agents
Independent representatives
Bid on contracts
Sales Forecast
Now that you have described your products, services, customers, markets, and
marketing plans in detail, it’s time to attach some numbers to your plan. Use a
sales forecast spreadsheet to prepare a month‐by‐month projection. The forecast
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should be based on your historical sales, the marketing strategies that you have
just described, your market research, and industry data, if available.
You may want to do two forecasts: 1) a ʺbest guessʺ, which is what you really
expect, and 2) a ʺworst caseʺ low estimate that you are confident you can reach
no matter what happens.
Remember to keep notes on your research and your assumptions as you build
this sales forecast and all subsequent spreadsheets in the plan. This is critical if
you are going to present it to funding sources.
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VI. Operational Plan
Explain the daily operation of the business, its location, equipment, people,
processes, and surrounding environment.
Production
How and where are your products or services produced?
Explain your methods of:
• Production techniques and costs
• Quality control
• Customer service
• Inventory control
• Product development
Location
What qualities do you need in a location? Describe the type of location you’ll
have.
Physical requirements:
• Amount of space
• Type of building
• Zoning
• Power and other utilities
Access:
Is it important that your location be convenient to transportation or to suppliers?
Do you need easy walk‐in access?
What are your requirements for parking and proximity to freeway, airports,
railroads, and shipping centers?
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Include a drawing or layout of your proposed facility if it is important, as it
might be for a manufacturer.
Construction? Most new companies should not sink capital into construction, but
if you are planning to build, costs and specifications will be a big part of your
plan.
Cost: Estimate your occupation expenses, including rent, but also including
maintenance, utilities, insurance, and initial remodeling costs to make the space
suit your needs. These numbers will become part of your financial plan.
What will be your business hours?
Legal Environment
Describe the following:
• Licensing and bonding requirements
• Permits
• Health, workplace, or environmental regulations
• Special regulations covering your industry or profession
• Zoning or building code requirements
• Insurance coverage
• Trademarks, copyrights, or patents (pending, existing, or purchased)
Personnel
• Number of employees
• Type of labor (skilled, unskilled, and professional)
• Where and how will you find the right employees?
• Quality of existing staff
• Pay structure
• Training methods and requirements
• Who does which tasks?
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• Do you have schedules and written procedures prepared?
• Have you drafted job descriptions for employees? If not, take time to write
some. They really help internal communications with employees.
• For certain functions, will you use contract workers in addition to
employees?
Inventory
• What kind of inventory will you keep: raw materials, supplies, finished
goods?
• Average value in stock (i.e., what is your inventory investment)?
• Rate of turnover and how this compares to the industry averages?
• Seasonal buildups?
• Lead‐time for ordering?
Suppliers
Identify key suppliers:
• Names and addresses
• Type and amount of inventory furnished
• Credit and delivery policies
• History and reliability
Should you have more than one supplier for critical items (as a backup)?
Do you expect shortages or short‐term delivery problems?
Are supply costs steady or fluctuating? If fluctuating, how would you deal with
changing costs?
Credit Policies
• Do you plan to sell on credit?
• Do you really need to sell on credit? Is it customary in your industry and
expected by your clientele?
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• If yes, what policies will you have about who gets credit and how much?
• How will you check the creditworthiness of new applicants?
• What terms will you offer your customers; that is, how much credit and
when is payment due?
• Will you offer prompt payment discounts? (Hint: Do this only if it is usual
and customary in your industry.)
• Do you know what it will cost you to extend credit? Have you built the
costs into your prices?
Managing Your Accounts Receivable
If you do extend credit, you should do an aging at least monthly to track how
much of your money is tied up in credit given to customers and to alert you to
slow payment problems. A receivables aging looks like the following table:
Total Current 30 Days 60 Days 90 Days Over 90 Days
Accounts
Receivable Aging
You will need a policy for dealing with slow‐paying customers:
• When do you make a phone call?
• When do you send a letter?
• When do you get your attorney to threaten?
Managing Your Accounts Payable
You should also age your accounts payable, what you owe to your suppliers.
This helps you plan whom to pay and when. Paying too early depletes your cash,
but paying late can cost you valuable discounts and can damage your credit.
(Hint: If you know you will be late making a payment, call the creditor before the
due date.)
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Do your proposed vendors offer prompt payment discounts?
A payables aging looks like the following table.
Total Current 30 Days 60 Days 90 Days Over 90 Days
Accounts Payable
Aging
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VII. Management and Organization
Who will manage the business on a day‐to‐day basis? What experience does that
person bring to the business? What special or distinctive competencies? Is there a
plan for continuation of the business if this person is lost or incapacitated?
If you’ll have more than 10 employees, create an organizational chart showing
the management hierarchy and who is responsible for key functions.
Include position descriptions for key employees. If you are seeking loans or
investors, include resumes of owners and key employees.
Professional and Advisory Support
List the following:
• Board of directors
• Management advisory board
• Attorney
• Accountant
• Insurance agent
• Banker
• Consultant or consultants
• Mentors and key advisors
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VIII. Personal Financial Statement
Include personal financial statements for each owner and major stockholder,
showing assets and liabilities held outside the business and personal net worth.
Owners will often have to draw on personal assets to finance the business, and
these statements will show what is available. Bankers and investors usually want
this information as well.
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IX. Startup Expenses and Capitalization
You will have many startup expenses before you even begin operating your
business. It’s important to estimate these expenses accurately and then to plan
where you will get sufficient capital. This is a research project, and the more
thorough your research efforts, the less chance that you will leave out important
expenses or underestimate them.
Even with the best of research, however, opening a new business has a way of
costing more than you anticipate. There are two ways to make allowances for
surprise expenses. The first is to add a little “padding” to each item in the
budget. The problem with that approach, however, is that it destroys the
accuracy of your carefully wrought plan. The second approach is to add a
separate line item, called contingencies, to account for the unforeseeable. This is
the approach we recommend.
Talk to others who have started similar businesses to get a good idea of how
much to allow for contingencies. If you cannot get good information, we
recommend a rule of thumb that contingencies should equal at least 20 percent of
the total of all other start‐up expenses.
Explain your research and how you arrived at your forecasts of expenses. Give
sources, amounts, and terms of proposed loans. Also explain in detail how much
will be contributed by each investor and what percent ownership each will have.
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X. Financial Plan
The financial plan consists of a 12‐month profit and loss projection, a four‐year
profit and loss projection (optional), a cash‐flow projection, a projected balance
sheet, and a break‐even calculation. Together they constitute a reasonable
estimate of your companyʹs financial future. More important, the process of
thinking through the financial plan will improve your insight into the inner
financial workings of your company.
12-Month Profit and Loss Projection
Many business owners think of the 12‐month profit and loss projection as the
centerpiece of their plan. This is where you put it all together in numbers and get
an idea of what it will take to make a profit and be successful.
Your sales projections will come from a sales forecast in which you forecast sales,
cost of goods sold, expenses, and profit month‐by‐month for one year.
Profit projections should be accompanied by a narrative explaining the major
assumptions used to estimate company income and expenses.
Research Notes: Keep careful notes on your research and assumptions, so that
you can explain them later if necessary, and also so that you can go back to your
sources when it’s time to revise your plan.
Four-Year Profit Projection (Optional)
The 12‐month projection is the heart of your financial plan. The Four‐Year Profit
projection is for those who want to carry their forecasts beyond the first year.
Of course, keep notes of your key assumptions, especially about things that you
expect will change dramatically after the first year.
Projected Cash Flow
If the profit projection is the heart of your business plan, cash flow is the blood.
Businesses fail because they cannot pay their bills. Every part of your business
plan is important, but none of it means a thing if you run out of cash.
The point of this worksheet is to plan how much you need before startup, for
preliminary expenses, operating expenses, and reserves. You should keep
updating it and using it afterward. It will enable you to foresee shortages in time
to do something about them—perhaps cut expenses, or perhaps negotiate a loan.
But foremost, you shouldn’t be taken by surprise.
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There is no great trick to preparing it: The cash‐flow projection is just a forward
look at your checking account.
For each item, determine when you actually expect to receive cash (for sales) or
when you will actually have to write a check (for expense items).
You should track essential operating data, which is not necessarily part of cash
flow but allows you to track items that have a heavy impact on cash flow, such as
sales and inventory purchases.
You should also track cash outlays prior to opening in a pre‐startup column. You
should have already researched those for your startup expenses plan.
Your cash flow will show you whether your working capital is adequate. Clearly,
if your projected cash balance ever goes negative, you will need more start‐up
capital. This plan will also predict just when and how much you will need to
borrow.
Explain your major assumptions, especially those that make the cash flow differ
from the Profit and Loss Projection. For example, if you make a sale in month one,
when do you actually collect the cash? When you buy inventory or materials, do
you pay in advance, upon delivery, or much later? How will this affect cash
flow?
Are some expenses payable in advance? When?
Are there irregular expenses, such as quarterly tax payments, maintenance and
repairs, or seasonal inventory buildup, that should be budgeted?
Loan payments, equipment purchases, and ownerʹs draws usually do not show
on profit and loss statements but definitely do take cash out. Be sure to include
them.
And of course, depreciation does not appear in the cash flow at all because you
never write a check for it.
Opening Day Balance Sheet
A balance sheet is one of the fundamental financial reports that any business
needs for reporting and financial management. A balance sheet shows what
items of value are held by the company (assets), and what its debts are
(liabilities). When liabilities are subtracted from assets, the remainder is owners’
equity.
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Use a startup expenses and capitalization spreadsheet as a guide to preparing a
balance sheet as of opening day. Then detail how you calculated the account
balances on your opening day balance sheet.
Optional: Some people want to add a projected balance sheet showing the
estimated financial position of the company at the end of the first year. This is
especially useful when selling your proposal to investors.
Break-Even Analysis
A break‐even analysis predicts the sales volume, at a given price, required to
recover total costs. In other words, it’s the sales level that is the dividing line
between operating at a loss and operating at a profit.
Expressed as a formula, break‐even is:
Break‐Even Sales = Fixed Costs
1‐ Variable Costs
(Where fixed costs are expressed in dollars, but variable costs are expressed as a
percent of total sales.)
Include all assumptions upon which your break‐even calculation is based.
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XI. Appendices
Include details and studies used in your business plan; for example:
• Brochures and advertising materials
• Industry studies
• Blueprints and plans
• Maps and photos of location
• Magazine or other articles
• Detailed lists of equipment owned or to be purchased
• Copies of leases and contracts
• Letters of support from future customers
• Any other materials needed to support the assumptions in this plan
• Market research studies
• List of assets available as collateral for a loan
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XII. Refining the Plan
The generic business plan presented above should be modified to suit your
specific type of business and the audience for which the plan is written.
For Raising Capital
For Bankers
• Bankers want assurance of orderly repayment. If you intend using this
plan to present to lenders, include:
o Amount of loan
o How the funds will be used
o What this will accomplish—how will it make the business
stronger?
o Requested repayment terms (number of years to repay). You will
probably not have much negotiating room on interest rate but may
be able to negotiate a longer repayment term, which will help cash
flow.
o Collateral offered, and a list of all existing liens against collateral
For Investors
• Investors have a different perspective. They are looking for dramatic
growth, and they expect to share in the rewards:
o Funds needed short‐term
o Funds needed in two to five years
o How the company will use the funds, and what this will
accomplish for growth.
o Estimated return on investment
o Exit strategy for investors (buyback, sale, or IPO)
o Percent of ownership that you will give up to investors
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o Milestones or conditions that you will accept
o Financial reporting to be provided
o Involvement of investors on the board or in management
For Type of Business
Manufacturing
• Planned production levels
• Anticipated levels of direct production costs and indirect (overhead)
costs—how do these compare to industry averages (if available)?
• Prices per product line
• Gross profit margin, overall and for each product line
• Production/capacity limits of planned physical plant
• Production/capacity limits of equipment
• Purchasing and inventory management procedures
• New products under development or anticipated to come online after
startup
Service Businesses
• Service businesses sell intangible products. They are usually more flexible
than other types of businesses, but they also have higher labor costs and
generally very little in fixed assets.
• What are the key competitive factors in this industry?
• Your prices
• Methods used to set prices
• System of production management
• Quality control procedures. Standard or accepted industry quality
standards.
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• How will you measure labor productivity?
• Percent of work subcontracted to other firms. Will you make a profit on
subcontracting?
• Credit, payment, and collections policies and procedures
• Strategy for keeping client base
High Technology Companies
• Economic outlook for the industry
• Will the company have information systems in place to manage rapidly
changing prices, costs, and markets?
• Will you be on the cutting edge with your products and services?
• What is the status of research and development? And what is required to:
o Bring product/service to market?
o Keep the company competitive?
• How does the company:
o Protect intellectual property?
o Avoid technological obsolescence?
o Supply necessary capital?
o Retain key personnel?
High‐tech companies sometimes have to operate for a long time without profits
and sometimes even without sales. If this fits your situation, a banker probably
will not want to lend to you. Venture capitalists may invest, but your story must
be very good. You must do longer‐term financial forecasts to show when profit
take‐off is expected to occur. And your assumptions must be well documented
and well argued.
Retail Business
• Company image
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• Pricing:
o Explain markup policies.
o Prices should be profitable, competitive, and in accordance with
company image.
• Inventory:
o Selection and price should be consistent with company image.
o Inventory level: Find industry average numbers for annual
inventory turnover rate (available in RMA book). Multiply your
initial inventory investment by the average turnover rate. The
result should be at least equal to your projected first yearʹs cost of
goods sold. If it is not, you may not have enough budgeted for
startup inventory.
• Customer service policies: These should be competitive and in accord with
company image.
• Location: Does it give the exposure that you need? Is it convenient for
customers? Is it consistent with company image?
• Promotion: Methods used, cost. Does it project a consistent company
image?
• Credit: Do you extend credit to customers? If yes, do you really need to,
and do you factor the cost into prices?