Business Plan - Business Description

Now this sounds like the obvious but ask yourself this question:

What business am I in?

This question will ultimately lead you to the main sections of your business description What, How and where.

• What is your business, products and services
• how is your business unique
• where will you conduct business

So lets dicuss each of these in a little more detail.

This is a fairly simple section as long as you have done your research and know your business. You need to list the following

1. Type of company (sole trader, partnership, ltd, social venture, charity or any other)
2. Any licenses you will require, time frames and named individuals who will need these.
3. Any specific Health and safety, confidentiality or employment laws you will need to follow.

With point 3 obviously we are all bound by employment law so you don't need to state any of the general laws, only those which will impact your business directly, for example if you are going to keep a database of customers credit card details you will need to show how you will keep this data protected. If you are dealing with live electrical equipment, how you will meet the H& laws specific to dealing with high voltage equipment etc.

This is basically an overview of your business type, be it manufacturing, service etc.

1. Is it a new business or a franchise?
2. Why will it be profitalble, what are the growth opportunities?
3. When will your business' hours of operation?
4. You research about the industry you are going into.

In this section of the business description you need to be specific about the products and or services that you will be offering your customers. You will need to highlight the gap in the market and how you are going to fill that niche.

You need to think about your product from your potential customers point of view. A good product/service knows what the customers and delivers or preferably exceeds those expectations.

Focus on the benefit to the customer and how your product will fill the customers needs, this will show the reader that you understand the market and have identified a need for your product/service.

What is unique about your product, this is easy if it is a newly invented product, but what about if you are venturing into a already saturated market? for example what if your product was a new bottle of water, what would make you unique? Content of the water, price, colour, target market? You need to understand your customer base and products!

Finally will your product bring a steady flow of cash? Is it seasonal? Will it peak then steadily decline?

Location is quite possibly the section of business description I get questioned about most often especially as many start-ups are home based. But it is important to understand why this section is important.

Basically this will decide with your products whether your business is a success or a failure! Your business location needs to be based around your customers, so if you are a shop then a good location with lot's of foot traffic, if you are a service the ability to travel to your customers or having a specific service that customers will travel for. If you are an online merchant, then where will you advertise, how easy will it be for potential customers to find your goods.

So this section needs to be business type specific, if you are going to need shop floor space you need to think about.

1. What are your location needs?
2. What kind of space will you need?
3. Why is the area desirable? the building desirable?
4. Is it easily accessible? Is public transportation available? Is street lighting adequate?
5. Are market shifts or demographic shifts occurring?

If you are an online service you need to think about the domain name, driving traffic to your site, remember this is YOUR location, how will you make people buy? "A call to act"

If you are a luxury service e.g. a spa, how far will people travel, what are your major transport links, will you supply a service to bring people to and from your premises.

If you are a home based estate agent, what is the area you will cover? How saturated with estate agents is it? How long will it take you to travel? How many properties are their in said area?

The questions you ask are unique and depend upon your business? just use this section as a guide and apply the questions which are appropriate to you.