Getting a enterprise off the ground calls for loads of education and studies. Even if the enterprise begins small, it’s far vital to evaluate the market, determine preliminary capital and develop increase techniques. Therefore, understanding what a business plan is in entrepreneurship is the first step in getting ready to start a business.
Regardless of size, branches or vicinity of operation, companies need a marketing strategy to base their decisions on. This plan may be divided into quick, medium and long time, and via it, every vicinity develops its personal dreams, constantly focusing on what became deliberate.
Of course, in business, as in personal life, things don’t always go as planned or the direction changes along the way. But having a plan helps you make strategic decisions, define the steps needed to achieve your goals, and identify which areas to invest in and how much resources to use.
Therefore, even a small company like an MEI must create a business plan, after all, every entrepreneur wants to see their work prosper and their company grow.
What is entrepreneurship?
Before understanding what a business plan is, it is necessary to understand what entrepreneurship is and its main characteristics. Entrepreneurship means finding an opportunity or solution for the market or end consumers, with the purpose of facilitating processes and innovating.
From there, the entrepreneur creates a product, service or system and creates a company to offer it to the market. Understand the main characteristics of entrepreneurship:
Innovation
It is possible for a person to open a company and offer “more of the same”, but in terms of strategy, this will hardly turn into a successful business, since other companies already provide such a solution.
Therefore, the basis for undertaking is to find an innovative proposal, which allows customers to access something new.
Risks
An idea, no matter how good it is, may not be well received by the public, or may not find the right niche. In addition, changes in the market or economic scenario or other types of unforeseen events may affect the results.
The entrepreneur will only know if he takes risks. This, however, does not mean doing something without thinking, but rather finding the best way to take risks and having tools to deal with these variables.
Leadership
A business can start in a garage, without any employees, and still become a success. Much of this depends on the entrepreneur’s ability to persist in their goals and use their knowledge to develop the organization.
Being a leader involves encouraging the team to give their best, but also serving as an example, inspiring other professionals to have autonomy and develop the sense of risk and innovation mentioned above.
Business plan
Developing the aforementioned characteristics will help the entrepreneur to remain firm in his purpose, but having a business plan is what will guide him on this path. It should be seen as a map, a document with the company’s main information, which should be consulted when defining strategies.
The plan is a tool that allows you to have a broad view of the business, the opportunities, numbers related to the market and detailed information about the target audience, among other things. See the step-by-step guide to making a business plan:
1- Summary
Before going into details about the market and organizational structure, the first step is to summarize the company’s information: what it does, its goals, mission, and values. This information is important because it will guide all of the company’s decisions.
This step should contain an overview of the business, what will be offered in terms of product or service, location, structure and names of professionals in leadership positions.
2- Objectives
This stage describes the company’s objectives, which will serve as a basis for everyone’s actions. Therefore, this text must be clear and determine exactly what the company will do and what its plans are.
At this point, it is necessary to be specific and, if possible, use numbers to measure objectives and thus establish goals.
3- Market and competitors
Conducting market research is essential to getting a company off the ground. You need to know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, understand what you have to offer that sets you apart from them, study their best practices and look for ways to innovate and find niches that they don’t serve.
4- Target audience
Knowing who the company’s consumer will be is important for making a series of decisions, from production to marketing. It affects customer service and the sales team, as well as serving as a reference for marketing actions.
This information serves as a basic tool to help you start structuring your business. With well-prepared data in your plan, it becomes easier to visualize the best path to develop marketing campaigns and marketing positioning, for example, or to find the right partners and suppliers.
