One of the stages in the technology of starting a business from scratch is the creation of a business plan for a project to create a company. Aspiring entrepreneurs who have no experience in developing business plans sometimes try to find what they think is the easier path. One of the options for such an “easy” way is to search for a ready-made business plan on the Internet. Indeed, you can now find a large number of business plans for different types of businesses on the Internet.
There is a feeling that their number is growing at a very large rate (in arithmetic or even geometric progression).
I can say with a 100% chance that most of these business plans are terrible. And this is the most innocuous word for such business plans. I don’t know who makes them, but these business plans are posted on the Internet for commercial purposes. Someone might object, arguing that they are free to download and therefore have no commercial value.
Yes, most of the business plans posted on the Internet are free, but if you look at what sites you can download them from, the commercial component immediately becomes obvious. The owners of sites with a large number of business plans are at least making money from advertising. Or contextual advertising (for example, from Google) or advertising from direct advertisers.
The idea of monetizing such Internet projects is quite simple. You need to create a website with as much traffic as possible, then it will be of interest to potential advertisers. In order to create high traffic on the website, you need to promote it. There are various ways of websites promotion.
One of the most effective ways to promote websites is to maximize growing their content. Therefore, these sites and many others like Write my paper publish as many business plans as possible, so to speak “for the masses.” More content means more visitors, which in turn means that it will be possible to sell advertising on this website at a higher price.
Now you have to ask yourself a simple question. Is it possible to get quality content when pursuing “mass”? The response to this question, I believe, is self-evident. Therefore, I do not in any way recommend using free business plans when setting up your business.
As a result, I strongly do not advise using free business plans when setting up a business.
Besides the huge number of free business plans, you can find paid business plans on the Internet. Again, it is clear how they make money on this, but I do not really understand where these business plans come from. Unlike the previous example, they benefit from the selling of business plans rather than from ads.
Since the level of development of these business plans is undoubtedly higher than those that can be downloaded for free, these business plans are most likely already being developed by professionals. But arises another question, how does this happen?
Only two options come to my mind when a professional business plan can be developed:
- within the framework of a project, that is, on demand (when there is a specific customer who pays money for a business plan that is developed specifically for his project or company);
- a business plan is developed for some business in the hope that it will be sold to someone who is interested in starting such a business.
Professional developers will never sell a business plan that they have made to order. As a rule, confidentiality conditions are clearly specified in contracts for the development of business plans. All consulting companies certainly do not allow themselves to violate the terms of contracts.
Therefore, it is likely that most of the paid business plans are developed according to the second option. Now, let’s again evaluate the quality of such business plans.
When someone develops a business plan for his purposes, he naturally will not deceive himself. Therefore, in this case, the business plan will be of high quality (provided that the developer has the appropriate experience and technology).
When a business plan is developed to order, then in this case the quality will be high, since there is a receiving party. The customer will examine and check everything very carefully because the quality of working out a business plan will determine the success of his investment in creating a new business.
If a business plan is not developed for a specific customer, but for a sale, then in this case there is no receiving party, which means that the likelihood of creating a high-quality business plan is lower. Of course, there are very responsible doers who, regardless of the presence of some kind of control system, do their job very well. But even if the quality of such business plans is really high, is it worth using them?
After all, it turns out that these business plans can be used by several people at once, and maybe dozens or even hundreds. Thus, a large number of competitors will follow exactly the same plan simultaneously. Would you like to be one of those competitors? I don’t think many people would want that for themselves.
I’m not trying to convince beginning entrepreneurs to find someone to write a business plan for them. You can do it on your own. In fact, it’s not that difficult.
Although when you’re already good at something, it doesn’t seem complicated for you, but for those who are inexperienced in solving such problems, it may not seem so simple.
In any case, I do not recommend using ready-made business plans: neither free nor paid. I am convinced that each business project is unique in its own way. And for each business, you need to develop your own unique business plan.
It is extremely important for any entrepreneur to understand how ready he is to implement his ideas. Alas, many beginners sin by wanting to start faster and figure it out during the process. Do everything with a cool head. Especially when it comes to finance.
If you understand what knowledge, skills, resources you lack, you will be able to build a business plan and development scheme more efficiently. To do this, you need to highlight the following:
Advantages
Internal advantages are based on your capabilities. This may be an opportunity to achieve a low cost of the future product due to the fact that you will produce it on your own. Maybe it will be a high-class specialist because that is you or the one with whom you are organizing the business. It may be an innovative idea. Perhaps it will be a packaging design that is effective in attracting customers. It can be anything.
Disadvantages
To disadvantages, we can refer the lack of retail space in the property, or the need to start building brand awareness from scratch. They often begin with external factors, such as the unfavorable economic situation in the region, the purchasing power of the population, etc., and then move on to specific shortcomings of the internal character.
Opportunities
These are the advantages that can arise in the case of certain actions. For example, the possibility of receiving a state grant. Or, for example, to get an additional advertising effect if you use a local folk culture in your package design. And so on and so forth.
Threats
These include both external unfavorable factors, which we described above, and, for example, high customs fees, increased competition in the field. In fact, this approach to identifying strengths and weaknesses has a specific name – SWOT analysis.
There are also professionals who are focused precisely on conducting a SWOT analysis. You can turn to them if you don’t think you can handle it on your own.
The main thing is to do this in advance – to pick out all four sections. This will give you an understanding of where you are now, what needs to be done urgently and will adjust your business plan development.
Keyword suggestion: business plan, business, develop.
Author Bio
Helen Wilson
Helen Wilson is a professional content writer. Her main spheres of specialization are Marketing and Business. She also studies topics about psychology and health, and she is good at compare and contrast essay topics. Follow her on Twitter.
