How To Write A Business Plan Outline

Three of Rohr's favorite areas to focus on right now are: acquisition, e-marketing, and testimonial.With an acquisition, the goal would be to buy a faltering company and turn their phone number or URL into a lead generator for your business.

"And it gives investors and bankers confidence that your plan isn't just to work 23 hours a day to pull off your vision." How to Write a Business Plan Outline: The Top Projects List This is the section where you need to list five projects that will help your new business start moving in the direction of fulfilling its mission and goals, says Rohr.

"The difference between a to-do item and a project is that a project has many to-dos associated with it," she says. Writing an operations manual for how someone can answer the phone at your business is a project.

When the topic of business plans comes up, it tends to polarize people into two separate camps: those that think business plans are worth the effort to put together and those that think that unless you're trying to raise money, writing a business plan is a waste of time.

For Ellen Rohr, a business consultant and founder of Bare Bones Biz, the answer lies somewhere in between.

"The key to goal setting is to find ones big enough to inspire you but not big enough to collapse you," says Rohr. But if you get good at picking ones that [you can] accomplish, and then creating new ones, your confidence will increase." How to Write a Business Plan Outline: Your Elevator Speech Next up: Focusing on your outward message, explaining what problem or frustration your business solves.

"This is where you give the short answer to the question, 'What do you do?

Just as importantly, you also need to set dates that you are going to take all these actions, says Rohr.

"Many business owners would rather just hang their shingle out and hope that customers come calling," she says.

"But you need to take action—especially if you want to land investors.

They want to see how you plan to get potential customers to reach in your direction." How to Write a Business Plan Outline: The Org Chart Even if you plan on running a sole proprietorship, you still won't be able to do everything involved in running your business by yourself, whether that might be setting up your website or preparing for tax season, says Rohr.