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How to Write a Winning Bio for a Business Owner

As a business owner, you know the importance of establishing a strong presence online. one of the most effective ways to do this is by crafting a winning bio that reflects your expertise, personality, and achievements. your bio will be the face of your business on social media, your website, and online networking platforms..

In this article, we'll explore the essential components of a winning bio and share tips on how to write an engaging, compelling bio that will resonate with your audience.

Ultimate Writing Tips for a Compelling Bio

Now that we've explored the essential components of a winning bio let's take a closer look at some writing tips that can help you write a compelling bio.

Start with a strong opening statement

Start your bio with a strong opening statement that captures your unique value proposition. You want to grab your reader's attention and showcase your expertise and personality in the opening lines of your bio.

For example, if you're a freelance writer, you could start your bio with a sentence like, "With over a decade of experience crafting compelling content for businesses across various industries, I'm passionate about helping brands tell their stories through the power of words."

Use storytelling techniques

Another effective technique for writing a compelling bio is to use storytelling techniques. Storytelling can help you humanize your brand, establish a personal connection with your target audience, and create a compelling narrative that showcases your expertise and personality.

Consider sharing a personal anecdote that illustrates your journey to where you are today. For instance, if you're a graphic designer, you could share a story about how you discovered your passion for design and how it has driven your career.

Keep it concise and focused

When writing your bio, it's essential to keep it concise and focused. You want to provide insight into your professional background, personality, and achievements without overwhelming your readers with irrelevant information. Keep your bio lean, clear, and to the point.

One way to ensure that your bio stays focused is to create an outline before you start writing. Identify the key points you want to convey and organize them in a logical order. This will help you stay on track and avoid rambling or repeating information.

Use the third person perspective

Finally, it's best to write your bio in the third person perspective. Writing in the third person can help establish credibility and showcase your professionalism. It can also help you write more objectively, allowing your readers to form their impressions of you without any biases or preconceived notions.

When writing in the third person, use your full name instead of "I" or "me." For example, instead of saying, "I have worked with clients such as X and Y," you could say, "John Smith has worked with clients such as X and Y."

Tailoring Your Bio for Different Platforms

Having a well-crafted bio is essential for establishing your credibility and showcasing your expertise online. However, it's also important to tailor your bio for different platforms where it will appear. Let's explore some tips for tailoring your bio for different platforms:

LinkedIn and professional networking sites

LinkedIn and other professional networking sites are excellent platforms for showcasing your professional experience and expertise. When crafting your bio for these platforms, it's essential to keep it professional, succinct, and focused on your career accomplishments.

Highlighting your education, certifications, and awards can help establish your credibility and improve your profile's visibility online.

In addition, consider including a brief summary of your skills and expertise. This can help potential employers or clients quickly understand what you have to offer. Finally, don't forget to include a professional headshot to help establish your personal brand.

Company website and blog

Your bio on your company website or blog can afford to be slightly more casual and personal than your professional networking site bios. Consider telling your story and providing insight into your values, personality, and creative process.

Discussing your journey as a business owner and your growth as an entrepreneur can help establish a personal connection with your readers and potential clients.

In addition, consider including links to your social media profiles and other relevant websites. This can help drive traffic to your other online platforms and help potential clients or customers learn more about you and your business.

Social media profiles

Social media profiles are often the first point of contact between you and potential clients or customers. When crafting your bio for your social media profiles, it's essential to keep it concise, visually appealing, and to the point.

Consider adding some personality and humor to your bio, but keep it professional and on-brand. You want your profile to stand out and reflect your brand's personality in a positive light.

In addition, consider including links to your website or blog, as well as any relevant hashtags. This can help increase your visibility on social media and help potential clients or customers find you more easily.

Guest posts and author bios

If you are guest posting or writing articles, it's essential to include an author bio to establish your credibility and showcase your expertise. In this type of bio, it's best to focus on your professional experience, education, and accolades.

You may also include a personal anecdote or story, but keep it brief and relevant to the article you are writing.

In addition, consider including links to your website or blog, as well as any relevant social media profiles. This can help readers learn more about you and your business and potentially drive traffic to your other online platforms.

By tailoring your bio for different platforms, you can establish your credibility, showcase your expertise, and connect with potential clients or customers in a more personal way. So take the time to craft a bio that reflects your personal brand and resonates with your target audience.

Understanding the Purpose of a Business Owner's Bio

First and foremost, it's essential to understand the purpose of a business owner's bio. The primary goal is to introduce yourself to potential clients, customers, or collaborators and establish credibility.

Your bio should highlight your expertise, give insight into your personality, and showcase your achievements. By writing a compelling bio, you can help your target audience establish a personal connection with you and your business.

Establishing credibility

One of the most critical components of your bio is establishing credibility. You want to highlight your professional background and experience, showcase your expertise, and provide insight into the value you bring to your clients.

For example, you may want to discuss your education, accreditation, or industry experience. You can also highlight any successes or projects you've completed, demonstrating your mastery of your field.

It's important to remember that establishing credibility is not just about listing your accomplishments. It's also about demonstrating your expertise and how it can benefit your clients.

For instance, if you're a marketing consultant, you may want to discuss how you've helped previous clients increase their revenue or improve their brand awareness. By showcasing the results you've achieved for others, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field and demonstrate the value you bring to the table.

Showcasing your personality

Another essential aspect of your bio is showcasing your personality. People want to do business with people they like and trust, so it's essential to let your personality shine through in your bio.

Tell your story, share your mission statement, and discuss what drives you as a business owner. By humanizing your brand, you can help your target audience establish a personal connection with you and your values.

Sharing personal anecdotes or discussing your hobbies or interests can also help you connect with potential clients on a more personal level.

For example, if you're a graphic designer who loves hiking, you may want to mention how your love of nature inspires your design work. By sharing a bit of your personality, you can help potential clients feel more comfortable working with you and establish a personal connection that goes beyond just business.

Highlighting your achievements

Finally, your bio should highlight your achievements. Providing insight into the awards, recognitions, or testimonials you've received can help establish your expertise and establish credibility.

For example, you may want to discuss any industry awards or recognitions, high-profile projects or collaborations, or glowing references from satisfied clients.

It's important to remember that highlighting your achievements isn't just about bragging. It's about demonstrating the results you've achieved for others and how you can bring that same level of success to your clients.

By showcasing your achievements, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field and demonstrate the value you bring to your clients.

In conclusion, a business owner's bio is a crucial tool for establishing credibility, showcasing your personality, and highlighting your achievements.

By writing a compelling bio that demonstrates your expertise, shares your story, and showcases your successes, you can help potential clients establish a personal connection with you and your business and set yourself up for success.

Essential Components of a Winning Bio

Now that we've explored the purpose of a business owner's bio let's take a closer look at the essential components of a winning bio.

Professional background and experience

One of the most crucial components of your bio is your professional background and experience. You want to give insight into your education, training, and professional background. Highlighting your qualifications is essential to establish credibility and showcase your expertise to potential clients or collaborators.

For example, if you have a degree in business administration, you could mention that you have a strong foundation in finance, marketing, and management. You could also discuss any relevant certifications or training you've completed, such as a project management certification or social media marketing course.

Personal interests and values

While it's essential to highlight your professional experience, it's equally important to humanize your brand and showcase your personality.

You may want to discuss your personal interests, hobbies, or values, demonstrating that you're more than just a businessperson, but a well-rounded individual, which can help establish a personal connection with your target audience.

For instance, if you're an avid traveler, you could mention some of your favorite destinations and how traveling has broadened your perspective. Or, if you're passionate about environmental sustainability, you could discuss how your business practices align with your values and contribute to a better future for the planet.

Business vision and mission

When crafting your bio, it's essential to discuss your business's vision and mission. Providing insight into your values, goals, and objectives can help establish your credibility and showcase the value you bring to your clients. By demonstrating your passion and expertise, you can help position yourself as a leader in your industry.

Essential Tips to Draft a Business Vision and Mission:

• Reflect on your purpose: Consider why your business exists and the impact you aim to make. Think about the core values, beliefs, and aspirations that drive your organization.
• Be future-oriented: Your vision should paint a compelling picture of where you want your business to be in the future. Envision the desired outcome and the unique position you aspire to achieve.
• Keep it concise and memorable: Craft a vision statement that is concise, clear, and easy to remember. Use concise language that captures the essence of your aspirations.
• Focus on differentiation: Highlight what sets your business apart from competitors. Emphasize the unique value you bring to customers and how you aim to surpass expectations.
• Incorporate long-term sustainability: Consider the long-term impact of your business and how it aligns with environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Showcase your commitment to responsible practices.
• Involve stakeholders: Engage key stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and partners, to gain their insights and perspectives. Their involvement can provide valuable input for shaping the vision and mission.
• Stay true to your core values: Ensure that your vision and mission align with your core values. Let your values guide your business decisions and actions, reflecting authenticity and integrity.
• Be aspirational and inspiring: Craft a vision statement that inspires and motivates both your employees and customers. It should be ambitious and challenging, encouraging continuous growth and improvement.
• Consider your target audience: Tailor your vision and mission to resonate with your target audience. Clearly articulate how your business aims to meet their needs and solve their problems.
• Regularly review and revise: Revisit your vision and mission periodically to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with your business's evolving goals and market dynamics. Make revisions as needed to reflect any significant changes in your business strategy or environment.

For example, if you run a marketing agency, you could discuss your commitment to helping businesses achieve their marketing goals through innovative strategies and creative campaigns. You could also mention your focus on building long-term relationships with clients and providing exceptional customer service.

Awards and recognitions

Finally, your bio should highlight any awards, recognitions, or testimonials you've received. This could include any industry awards or recognitions, high-profile projects or collaborations, or glowing references from satisfied clients.

By providing insight into your achievements and successes, you can help establish your expertise and establish credibility with your target audience.

For instance, if you've received an award for your innovative approach to customer service, you could mention how this award has motivated you to continue providing exceptional service to your clients. Or, if you've collaborated with a high-profile brand, you could discuss how this experience has helped you grow your business and expand your network.

Writing a winning bio for a business owner is essential to establishing your credibility, showcasing your expertise and personality, and establishing a personal connection with your target audience. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can craft an engaging, compelling bio that resonates with your readers, establishes your brand, and helps you achieve your business goals.

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5 Tips for Writing a Small Business Owner's Biography

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Alyssa Gregory is an entrepreneur, writer, and marketer with 20 years of experience in the business world. She is the founder of the Small Business Bonfire, a community for entrepreneurs, and has authored more than 2,500 articles for popular small business websites.

Most professionals, small business owners included, can benefit from having a well-written and professional biography. The main goals of a professional biography are to give the reader an accurate sense of who you are and what you do, establish expertise and credibility, and qualify your experience and background. An interesting biography that accomplishes all of these things can help you develop trust in you and your brand, making it a powerful tool for your business.

There are many ways a small business owner can use a biography. Some ideas include:

• Incorporating it into your marketing materials
• Providing it to clients with proposals
• Submitting it with speaking, presenting, and teaching applications
• Posting it on your website and blog
• Including it in any books, e-books, reports, or professional documents you create

While you may have several different versions of your bio that you use in the different outlets listed above, all versions start with one well-written, comprehensive summary of who you are, where you came from and what you do. In fact, you should have three versions of your bio to start — short (one to two sentences), medium (one to two paragraphs) and long (three to four paragraphs).

To get you started, here are some tips for writing a biography that you can use in your small business over and over again.

Include the Basics

One of the great things about a well-written bio is flexibility. You can include as much or as little information as you want. Typically, though, there are some universal elements you will usually want to include in your bio. For example, most bios include:

• Current job, business or professional experience
• Publications or presentations you have completed
• Educational background
• Professional memberships you currently hold
• Awards, honors, and certifications you have received
• Your contact information

Grab the Reader's Attention

Remember that most people who will be reading your bio are strangers who know very little about you. Start by introducing yourself and using an attention-grabber to draw the reader in and make them want to learn more about you. Using a conversational voice throughout will also make it easier for your readers to follow along.

Write It In Third Person

Many professional bios are written in the third person, using "he/she/they" instead of "I." Presenting your bio as if someone else wrote it for you provides a distinction between you and the writer (even if it is understood that it is the same person). The third person also enhances professionalism and makes people more willing to trust what is being said.

Get a Little Personal

Don't be afraid to include some personal or unique information about yourself in your bio. Consider including a headshot of yourself, quotes or testimonials from clients , and links to examples of your work. You may also want to mention whether or not you're married with children and where you reside. Depending on the outlet, you may even want to add a sentence or two about your favorite hobbies or pastimes.

Update It Frequently

Your experience and qualifications change, so your bio should not be viewed as a static document. You should modify and update it periodically to reflect changes and to keep it fresh. And make sure you're using the most recent version whenever you pull a copy to use in your business.

As a small business owner, a bio gives you an opportunity to summarize your qualifications, highlight some interesting facts about yourself, and inject a little of your personality. Start by writing a draft using the tips above, then hand it off to a friend or colleague for review. Use the feedback you receive to fine-tune your bio and create a few different versions. Before you know it, you will have a very powerful tool to use in your small business.

How to write the structure and ownership section of your business plan?

Business planning is vital to the success of any entrepreneur because it helps them secure funding and find competent business partners. The document itself contains a variety of key sections, including the presentation of the legal structure and ownership of the business.

This section details the legal structure of your business and helps interested parties such as lenders and investors understand who they will be doing business with if they decide to go ahead and finance your company.

In this guide, we’ll look at the objective of the structure and ownership section, deepdive into the information you should include, and cover the ideal length. We’ll also assess the tools that can help you write your business plan.

Ready? Let’s get started!

In this guide:

What is the objective of the structure and ownership section of your business plan?

What information should i include when presenting the legal structure and ownership of my company in my business plan.

• How long should the structure and ownership section of your business plan be?
• Example of structure and ownership in a business plan

What tools should I use to write my business plan?

The objective of this section is to provide potential investors, lenders, and strategic partners with a clear and transparent view of your business's legal form, ownership distribution, and registration details. 

It aims to build credibility and trust by showcasing your commitment to openness and compliance with regulations. Let's take a look at some of the key objectives:

Communicate the legal form and registration details

• You should explicitly state your business's legal form. For example, your business might be corporation, sole proprietorship, or limited liability company (LLC). 
• Clearly explaining your chosen legal form helps stakeholders understand your entity's liability, taxation, and management implications.
• It is also essential to disclose where your company is registered. This information is vital as it provides clarity on the jurisdiction under which your business operates. 
• It also helps investors and lenders assess any legal and regulatory implications specific to the location of registration.

Identify shareholders

• Potential investors and lenders need to know who owns the company and the percentage of ownership each party holds. 
• By providing this information, you instill confidence in your business and help identify what needs to be verified as part of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (ALM) checks down the line.

Transparency is the cornerstone of credibility for businesses. By openly presenting the legal structure and ownership, you signal to potential investors that your business operates with integrity and adherence to regulations. 

Notably, anti-money laundering regulations require investors to verify the identity of all shareholders before committing funds. By providing a clear picture of the parties involved, you can facilitate this process and build trust with investors.

Venture capitalists (VC) firms and angel investors in particular, may have specific criteria such as location and ownership mandates governing the companies they can finance. Being transparent about your company's structure and ownership enables potential investors to assess whether your business aligns with their investment preferences and requirements.

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The structure and ownership subsection arrives quite early in your business plan as it is the first part of the company section which is the second section of the document (after the executive summary) if you are following a standard business plan outline .

At this stage, the reader is still in the process of getting familiar with your business, and this section serves as a crucial foundation for potential investors and partners and helps them understand the core aspects of your business’s structure.

Here's what you should include:

Company registration details and registered office address

Provide information about when and where your company was registered and its registration number. This enables readers to understand the jurisdiction under which your business is operating and helps verify its legal existence.

Also, mention the registration date to showcase the company's longevity or recent establishment.

Include the registered office address of your company. This is the official address where the company can be contacted, and legal notices can be served. Providing this address demonstrates your commitment to compliance and transparency.

The information above needs to repeated for each subsidiary or joint venture owned by your business in order to provide a clear map of the coporate structure.

Overview of ownership

Offer a concise overview of the ownership structure of the company. Identify the shareholders, and specify their ownership percentages or shares. 

If there are numerous shareholders, list individuals or entities owning 5% or more, and highlight those with a controlling interest in the company or on the board.

If the business is controlled by another business, such as a holding company for example, it is also useful to explain who controls that business as well.

Roles and responsibilities of shareholders

In case of multiple shareholders, explain their respective roles and responsibilities within the organization. 

Differentiate between passive investors, board members, and executive or non-executive directors. 

Shareholders' agreement (if applicable)

If the business plan is presented for investment purposes, it is useful to clarify if a shareholders' agreement is in place between the existing investors. 

This agreement outlines the rights and obligations of shareholders and adds an extra layer of legal protection for investors and shareholders.

Expertise of co-shareholders

Highlight any shareholders who contribute more than just financial capital to the company. 

If, for instance, a shareholder is an industry expert and brings valuable advice, contacts, and credibility, emphasize this aspect. 

Doing so demonstrates the added value these shareholders bring to the business.

Group or franchise structure

If your company operates as part of a group or franchise, provide this information for each individual company receiving funds. 

Clarify the relationship between the main company and the individual entities within the group and their respective legal structures.

Addressing geographical restrictions

If some investors have geographical restrictions on their investments, clearly indicate whether your company meets their eligibility criteria. 

This helps investors quickly assess whether your business aligns with their investment mandates or not.

How long should the structure and ownership section of your business plan be? 

The length of your business plan's structure and ownership section requires a delicate balance. 

While a general rule of thumb suggests that it should be about 2 to 3 paragraphs, the actual length depends on several factors, including the complexity of your corporate structure and the number of shareholders involved.

The complexity of your corporate structure 

• A concise presentation may be sufficient if your company's legal structure is relatively straightforward, with a single owner or a small number of co-founders. 
• In such cases, aim to provide the necessary information without overwhelming the reader with unnecessary details. A paragraph or two may convey the key points effectively, ensuring clarity and brevity. 
• However, if you have a complex business structure, aim to provide details about members who play a key role in business continuity and profitability. 

The number of shareholders involved

• If your business involves multiple shareholders, each with significant ownership percentages or unique roles, you may need to dedicate more space to this section. 
• Do this by providing a comprehensive breakdown of ownership distribution and outlining each shareholder's contributions. 
• This may take up more space as you need to add additional information. However, if you have a pretty straightforward ownership structure, a paragraph or two will be sufficient enough.

Regardless of the complexity, striking the right balance between providing sufficient detail and avoiding excessive technical jargon is crucial. The structure and ownership section should be reader-friendly, allowing potential investors and stakeholders to understand the core aspects of your company without feeling overwhelmed by intricate legalities.

Repetition can dilute the impact of your message and unnecessarily lengthen the section. Ensure that you don't reiterate information that has already been covered in other parts of the business plan. Instead, focus on providing unique insights and details that enhance the reader's understanding of your corporate structure and ownership.

When crafting this section, prioritize the most critical points that investors or partners need to know about your company's structure and ownership. 

Focus on aspects that directly impact decision-making, such as the majority shareholder's influence, board composition, different classes of shares in issue, or any unique arrangements that set your business apart.

Need inspiration for your business plan?

The Business Plan Shop has dozens of business plan templates that you can use to get a clear idea of what a complete business plan looks like.

Example of structure and ownership section in a business plan 

Below is an example of what the structure and ownership section of your business plan might look like. As you can see, it is part of the overall company section and precedes the location and management team subsections.

The structure and ownership section of a business plan provides a detailed overview of how your company is organized and who holds ownership stakes in the business.

This example was taken from one of  our business plan templates .

In this section, we will review three solutions for creating a business plan for your business: using Word and Excel, hiring a consultant to write the business plan, and utilizing an online business plan software.

Create your business plan using Word and Excel

This is the old-fashioned way of creating a business plan (1990s style) and using Word and Excel has both pros and cons.

On the one hand, using either of these two programs is cheap and they are widely available. 

However, creating an error-free financial forecast with Excel is only possible if you have expertise in accounting and financial modeling.

Because of that investors and lenders might not trust the accuracy of your forecast unless you have a degree in finance or accounting.

Also, writing a business plan using Word means starting from scratch and formatting the document yourself once written - a process that can be quite tedious - especially when the numbers change and you need to manually update all the tables and text.

Ultimately, it's up to the business owner to decide which program is right for them and whether they have the expertise or resources needed to make Excel work. 

Hire a consultant to write your business plan

Outsourcing your business plan to a consultant can be a viable option, but it also presents certain drawbacks. 

On the plus side, consultants are experienced in writing business plans and adept at creating financial forecasts without errors. Furthermore, hiring a consultant can save you time and allow you to focus on the day-to-day operations of your business.

However, hiring consultants is expensive: budget at least £1.5k ($2.0k) for a complete business plan, more if you need to make changes after the initial version (which happens frequently after the first meetings with lenders).

For these reasons, outsourcing the plan to a consultant or accountant should be considered carefully, weighing both the advantages and disadvantages of hiring outside help.

Ultimately, it may be the right decision for some businesses, while others may find it beneficial to write their own business plan using an online software.

Use an online business plan software for your business plan

Another alternative is to use online business plan software .

There are several advantages to using specialized software:

• You are guided through the writing process by detailed instructions and examples for each part of the plan
• You can be inspired by already written business plan templates
• You can easily make your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
• You get a professional document, formatted and ready to be sent to your bank
• The software will enable you to easily track your actual financial performance against your forecast and update your forecast as time goes by

If you're interested in using this type of solution, you can try our software for free by signing up here .

To sum it up, a well-written structure and ownership subsection is key to ensuring that the reader is clear on who controls the business, and whether or not it fits their investment criterias.

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• How to do a market analysis for a business plan
• How to present your management team in your business plan?
• Where to write the conclusion of your business plan?
• Executive Summary - The most crucial part of your business plan
• How to write the location section of your business plan?
• How to present the management team in your business plan?

Know someone who needs help writing-up their business plan? Share this article with them and help them out!

Founder & CEO at The Business Plan Shop Ltd

Guillaume Le Brouster is a seasoned entrepreneur and financier.

Guillaume has been an entrepreneur for more than a decade and has first-hand experience of starting, running, and growing a successful business.

Prior to being a business owner, Guillaume worked in investment banking and private equity, where he spent most of his time creating complex financial forecasts, writing business plans, and analysing financial statements to make financing and investment decisions.

Guillaume holds a Master's Degree in Finance from ESCP Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Business & Management from Paris Dauphine University.

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How to Write a Company Overview for a Business Plan

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When you start a company, you ideally want it to grow. If you’re seeking business funding to scale your business or an initial investment to get your business off the ground, you’re going to need a business plan . Putting together a business plan can be an intimidating process that involves a lot of steps and writing — but breaking it down piece by piece can help you accomplish this seemingly insurmountable task.

One small piece of your business plan is the company overview, so let’s take a look at what that is, exactly, check out some company overview examples and go over how to make a company overview of your very own.

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What is a company overview?

A company overview provides the reader of your business plan with basic background information about your company so they have an understanding of what you do, who the management team is and what customers your business serves.

The company description is the second piece of a business plan, falling right after the executive summary. Similar to the executive summary, your company overview will be short and succinct. Your reader needs to have a grasp on what your business does and who your customers are, even if they have limited time.

Why do I need a company overview?

The company overview is the part of your business plan that gives the basics and background of your business. It’s the foundation on which you will build the rest of your business plan.

If you’re looking to appeal to investors or potential clients, you need a reader to make an informed decision about your company. Before they can do that, they must know what your company does and who your customer is. Lenders in particular need a reason to keep reading, since they see tons of business plans regularly. The company overview provides those answers, and it will help you get a better sense of your business so you can firm up things like your marketing plan.

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What should I include in a company overview?

The exact elements that you need in your company overview will depend upon what details of your business are important, but there are some foundational elements that will be included in every company overview.

Once you’ve covered the basics, you can include any other minor details that will benefit a reader who will need to make an informed decision about your business.

Basic company information

Consider the company overview like an introduction for your business. In the opening paragraph of your company overview, you’ll want to include basic company information. That includes:

Your company name: This should be the official name of your business, exactly as it is written when you registered your business with the state.

Business structure: Your reader will want to know what business entity your company comes in: sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership or corporation.

Location(s): Share where your business is headquartered and other locations the business owns.

Ownership and management team

Break down who owns your business and how each owner is involved with the business. What shares of the company belong to whom? If you have a highly involved management team, share their names and key roles with the company as well.

Company history

Part of what makes your company unique is its history. And, even startups have some history. Don’t put too much focus on this section, but do add some personality and interesting details if possible, especially if they relate to your company culture.

Mission statement

Your company’s mission statement should be included in the company overview. If you don’t yet have a company mission statement, that’s okay. Think of a mission statement as the purpose of your company.

If you don’t have one, you can create one with your team. Or you can simply replace the mission statement with a problem statement. Your business idea should exist to solve a problem or pain point faced by your customers. Share what that problem is and what your business does to solve it. That’s essentially your mission statement.

Product/service and customer

This section of the company overview is where you can share the nitty-gritty details of your business. Talk about what product or service you provide and to whom you provide it. You can share some numbers here, but in general, save the numbers for later in your business plan.

The company overview should give the reader a general understanding of your business, your product or service, and your customer. If they’re interested to know more, they’ll reach out to you for a meeting or take the time to read the rest of your business plan. Keep it simple and straightforward here.

Future goals

While concrete details and facts about your business are important to whoever is reading your company overview, it’s also important to share your dreams and your vision. If you’re writing a business plan for a business that’s already in place, it’s very likely you’re looking for business financing to scale or solve a business problem. If you’re just starting out, though, then it’s likely you’re hoping to find startup funding.

The section on your future business goals should include a brief description of your growth goals for your business. Where you are now tells the reader a lot, but they also want to know where you plan to go.

A company overview is comprised of many small parts. Each part shares just a little bit more about your company with your reader.

Tips for writing a company overview

While a company overview is simply the details of your company written out, it might not be easy to write. Break it down into small steps and use these tips to make putting together your company overview just a little bit easier.

Start with the elevator pitch

If your business is already in operation, then you likely have an elevator pitch. Your company overview can start off with your elevator pitch.

The first paragraph of your company overview should include just a few sentences that explain your business and what you do. The shorter and clearer this is, the more likely your reader will understand and keep reading.

Stick to the basics

It’s tempting to pile on all the details when you’re writing a company overview. Remember, many of the details of your company, including the numbers, will be included in later sections of your business plan.

Your company overview should include only the most basic details about your company that the reader needs to know.

Be passionate

When you share the history, mission statement, and vision for the future of your company, it’s okay to show your passion. You wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t love what you do.

Your excitement for your business could spark interest for the reader and keep them engaged with your company overview and business plan.

Keep it succinct

When you’re passionate about something, it’s easy to get carried away. Remember that you’ve got plenty of space for details in your business plan. The company overview should be just the most basic information someone needs to understand your business.

It’s OK if your first draft of your company overview is long. Simply go through and edit it to be shorter, removing unnecessary details and words each time you read through it. Clear, concise descriptions are more likely to be read and to keep the reader reading to other sections of your business plan.

Have structure

Your company overview is just one piece of a multi-tiered business plan. Creating a clear structure for your business plan makes it easier to read. The same is true for your company overview.

Your business plan should have chapters, one of which is the company overview. Then, you can further break down the content for easy skimming and reading by adding sub-chapters. You can denote these breaks in content with bold headers.

While you can break down each section of the company overview with bold headers based on the above suggestions, you can also interweave some information together, such as the company structure and leadership structure. Each section should be only a few sentences long.

Write it later

If you’re struggling to write your company overview, come back to it. Write the rest of your business plan first and then write your company overview.

While this might seem like the opposite way of doing things, knowing what will be contained in the rest of your business plan can help you to focus in on the very most essential details in the company overview and to leave everything else out.

Get a test reader

If you’re struggling to edit down your company overview, get a test reader. Ideally, you’ll want to ask someone who doesn’t know a lot about your business. They’ll help you understand whether or not you’ve clearly communicated your message.

Proofreading is the final step in editing something you’ve written. This type of editing looks for typos, misspellings and grammatical errors that have been missed. Many of these small errors can be difficult to spot in our own writing, so be sure to ask someone who hasn’t seen multiple drafts of your company overview.

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Company overview examples

If you don’t want to shell out for business planning software, but would still like some company overview examples to get you started, there are many places online you can look to for help getting started, like the Small Business Administration and SCORE.

Many successful companies also have some version of their company overview made public as their company profile page online. There are some variations from the company overview steps we’ve listed above, of course, but you can use the language and style of these company overview examples for inspiration:

Starbucks company profile .

Puma company page .

TaskRabbit About page .

Peloton company page .

Nestlé About page .

If you’re still feeling stuck, or want more company overview examples, try searching the websites of your favorite companies for more information. You might be surprised what you find — the Nestlé page, for example, has more information about their strategy and business principles.

On a similar note...

Profile of a Successful Small Business Owner

The Internet has battered down many of the traditional barriers to starting a successful small business. And the advent of crowdfunding has made getting your idea off the ground easier than ever.

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), micro-industries accounted for 99.3% of all private-sector businesses in 2017. Indeed, 99.9% were small or medium-sized (SMEs) operations.

The FSB also reports that SMEs employed 16.1 million people last year, which accounted for 60% of all private-sector employment in the UK. The combined annual turnover of SMEs was £1.9 trillion. That’s 51% of all the country’s private-sector income.

So, if you’re tempted to strike out on your own, what qualities will you need to create a successful small business?

What’s the profile of a successful small-business owner?

We could discuss drive, leadership and vision until the cows come home. They’re all vital qualities for a small-business success story. But this is 2018. In the second decade of the 21st century, almost nothing is more important than a willingness to harness new technology.

Embracing new technology

You’ve got a lovely, shiny website. But are you checking and analysing traffic trends? No? You need Google Analytics . Integrated with your website, Analytics will tell you the journey your prospects take through your website and how long they read each piece of content. Best of all, it’s free.

What about email? G-Suite not only provides professional business email but also access to Google Docs, Slides, Drive and other productivity-boosting apps.

Then there’s MailChimp . These days, regular communication with customers and prospects through an email list is the way to go. Like water dripping on a stone, persistence pays off. MailChimp can help you build personalised marketing campaigns.

Need some automated project management? You need Trello . Accounting software that integrates with thousands of other platforms? It’s Quickbooks . An app that automatically tracks and records your mileage in the background as you drive your car for business? That’ll be MileIQ .

Strategic business planning skills

It’s vital that your business follows a plan. That means doing a strategic audit and writing a business plan should be your starting point.

A business plan is a brief description of your business that outlines your objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts. If you’re approaching a bank for a business loan, you’ll need one that sets out your long and short-term goals and measures your progress against them.

Business plans don’t have to be complex and shouldn’t be packed with jargon. They’re just a useful summary of your business that sells your idea to potential customers and investors. Planning like this will help you think strategically and develop ever-bigger goals.

A collection of education and marketing material, produced in Cardiff by the Health Promotion Authority for Wales (HPA), primarily for the Heartbeat Wales Project, 1987-1993.

Marketing skills

You won’t get far without a marketing plan. Without marketing, you won’t find new customers, and without new customers, your business will starve. As might you.

These days, the marketing waters have been muddied by the need to be savvy online and to master inbound promotion: digital marketing is a new ball game requiring new skills. The need to stay on top of social media and the emergence of fresh disciplines such as email marketing and digital sales funnels have created a new breed of marketer.

Whatever the media, one constant is that marketing-led businesses tend to buck the trend and drive more revenue than businesses with less focus on marketing. Cut your marketing teeth on one of the many excellent books on the subject, or by investigating training courses run by the Institute of Marketing .

Sales skills

Hand in hand with marketing is sales. Face-to-face selling is quite an art form, one that requires subtle negotiation skills. From initial contact to wrapping up a transaction, the selling journey is a six-step process:

• Prospecting for leads
• Making initial contact
• Using sales materials to persuade the prospect
• Dealing with objections
• Closing the sale
• Following up

You can get more information on techniques with a simple Google search, and there’s no shortage of sales training videos to be found on YouTube. Always remember to ‘ask for the order’: accomplished sales professionals generally leave a meeting with an order or, at very least, the promise of further negotiations.

Financial skills

If you can’t manage your cashflow effectively, you run the risk of losing disgruntled employees or not being able to pay suppliers.

Nobody’s suggesting that you should take a degree in accountancy, but knowing the financial basics about your business is a minimum requirement. That means being aware of the selling price and cost price of each product, and therefore the margin.

A crash course in financial terminology will also serve you well: terms such as gross profit margin , net profit, fixed assets , profit and loss, and balance sheet should roll off your tongue. Knowing the figures attached to these phrases might also be helpful – especially if you plan on making an appearance in front of Peter Jones and friends .

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Risk taking

Small-business owners tend to have a high-risk tolerance. Setting up a business means moving away from the safe, predictable world of the pay cheque to live or die by your own decisions, with very little security involved. You’ll need to learn how to minimise and manage risk with every decision.

So what personality do you need for a successful small business?

But what about personality? What kind of person do you need to be to run a highly profitable small business?

A large study by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute looked at over 1,100 companies employing between two and 99 staff. The institute asked bosses what mattered most when starting a business. Six key personality traits stood out.

1. Collaborative

If you’ve got fewer than 100 employees, knowing how to work together with your colleagues turned out to be the single most important trait. Delegation, forging strong relationships and creating motivational opportunities were all vital.

2. Curiosity

You should be open to learning about how other businesses are run. Actively seek best practice in management, innovation and finding the best employees.

3. Self-fulfilment

Successful small-business owners are big on personal fulfilment. They relish being their own boss and the respect that comes with it. They enjoy having control over their income and net worth. ‘Creating something of value’ was also a popular response.

4. Future-focused

Planning for the short- and long-term also characterises successful small business owners. They focus on cash flow and have a carefully considered plan to run the business for many years.

5. Tech-savvy

Successful small-business startups tend to be run by people with more than a trace of geek in their blood. They value the company website and are more likely to ‘rely a great deal on technology to help make our business more effective and more efficient’.

6. Action-oriented

Successful small-business owners are proactive in building their businesses. They want to have something to sell when they retire and don’t worry about the overall state of the economy.

What are the most successful companies in 2018?

So, you have the drive, the vision and the skills to make it on your own. But do you have the Big Idea?

What’s big in 2018? Here are five areas that are bang on trend. But be aware that plugging into fashionable sectors might be a business plan that needs to adapt when fashions change.

According to this year’s Waitrose Food and Drink Report , the ‘fourth meal’ is gaining popularity. This is a response to busy Brits eating around their lifestyles.

Eating at a non-traditional meal time might involve a mid-afternoon snack if you’re hitting the gym after work or grabbing a light bite before bedtime if dinner has been unusually early.

How can you respond to this? How about opening a late-night deli or café? Maybe tapping into the growing demand for street food? Or perhaps a health-food business?

If you’re interested in grabbing a slice of a large market, you could do worse than the cleaning sector. In the UK, the market’s worth around £5.6 billion. You could clean up in mobile car washing or valeting, windows or carpets.

Nostalgia is big this year (although not what it used to be). Consider fashion. Nineties tartan is back at Burberry, and Miu Miu has a grunge obsession. Stella McCartney, meanwhile, is big on acid-washed, bad-taste denim.

The X Files is back on the telly, Friends is running wall-to-wall on Netflix, and vinyl and cassette tapes are having a resurgence.

With this in mind, a vintage fashion shop, gaming bar or retro sweet shop could thrive.

More and more people are working from home. That means that they’re better able to look after pets, dogs in particular. That’s reflected in figures for the financial year to 2017 that show average weekly spending on pets and pet food rose by £0.80 to £5.40.

Business ideas here include dog walking, pet grooming or a pet shop.

So, all it takes is drive and determination allied to a great, niche idea. What are you waiting for?

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Small Business Owners: How to Write Your Business Plan [+ Editable Templates]

By Krystle Wong , Apr 03, 2023

As a small business owner, it can be tempting to jump right into launching your business and skip the step of creating a business plan. However, having a well-written business plan is essential to the success and growth of your business. 

A business plan serves as a roadmap for your business, outlining your goals, strategies, and action plans. It helps you stay on track and focused, ensuring that every decision you make is aligned with your overall business objectives.

While creating a business plan may seem daunting, it’s worth the time and effort to ensure the long-term success of your business. In this article, I’ll dive into the insights on how a business plan can help your small business thrive and how to create one that stands out. 

Ready to get started with creating a business plan to win over your investors? Pick from Venngage’s 10,000+ professional  templates  to customize your own for free!

Click to jump ahead:, why is having a business plan important for small businesses, what are the 3cs for writing a successful small business plan, what are the 7 steps of creating a winning business plan, how to make my small business plan stand out.

Nevertheless, you may be wondering – is it really necessary to go the extra mile and build a business plan even as a small business? 

For many business owners, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations of running your business. However, it’s essential to take a step back and create a solid business plan – especially if you’re looking to:

1. Clarify your vision and goals

Whether you’re trying to start a new business or expand your existing business, it’s important to know what your goals are. The plan will serve as a blueprint for how you plan to grow and sustain your business over time. 

2. Secure Funding

Another reason for writing a business plan is to seek out investors for your business. A compelling business plan demonstrates the potential for growth and profitability of your business and increases your chances of securing funding. Partnering with a reliable invoice finance provider can offer a flexible solution to manage cash flow and support growth, especially when navigating the financial complexities of expanding a small business.

3. Identify potential challenges

From financial obstacles to operational and staffing challenges, having a business plan forces you to think critically about your business. From there, you can develop strategies to address these challenges more effectively.

4. Attract and retain customers

Having an exciting product or service is simply not enough. You need to think about how you can get customers to keep coming back to sustain in the long run. With a business plan, you can develop a strategy that resonates with your customers and stand out from the competition.

5. Measure performance

Your should include your financial projections and key performance indicators to measure your achievements. By regularly reviewing and updating your business plan, you can also ensure that your business is on track to meet its goals.

Ready to put your ideas down on paper? Here are  15+ business plan templates you can use for strategic planning .

As an entrepreneur, you’d know that running a successful business goes beyond just your day-to-day operations. Therefore, having a detailed business plan can help you take a closer look at your business — starting by analyzing your 3Cs. 

By focusing on these three key areas, you can develop a plan that effectively communicates your business concept, identifies your target customer, and positions your business to compete in the market.

The first ‘C’ refers to the concept of your business. Look for gaps in the market you’re in and how your product or service solves a problem for your target market. Focus on what is your competitive advantage and how it sets you apart from your competitors. 

Your business plan should also include information about your company’s history, business structure and mission statement. Having a solid understanding of your business will also come in handy when writing your company description and earn you extra first impression points.

2. Customers

The second ‘C’ is all about understanding your target markets and potential customers. Before you dive deep into your business plan, you should first conduct market research. This would help you identify your ideal customer profile, including their demographics, behaviors and preferences.

Additionally, you should explain how you plan to reach and acquire these customers with a detailed marketing and sales strategy plan. Creating a user persona guide helps you understand your target market and how they use your product or service. Here’s an example that you can use:

Visualize your customers with Venngage’s  User Persona Guide  tool today. It’s free and most importantly — no design experience is required.

3. competitors.

Your final “C” in writing an effective business plan is no other than your competitors. Competitor analysis is critical in positioning your business for success. You should definitely research and evaluate your competitors, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, market position, and pricing strategy.

At the same time, you should also outline your strengths and weaknesses and explain how you plan to overcome them. You can always conduct a SWOT analysis on both your and your competitors’ business. This SWOT competitor analysis template is a good example of how it’s done: 

Check out this article to learn everything about  utilizing infographics to create an effective business plan . 

If you’ve read this blog on  how to create a business plan , you’d know that a professional plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

This may seem overwhelming for many small business owners and you’re probably thinking of backing out at this point. Therefore, creating your  bus i ness plan outline  before you go into the details can ensure that you don’t leave any essential information out of your plan. 

But let me assure you that you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful business plan that can help you achieve your goals by following these steps:

Step 1: Define your business idea

Every business idea should be born out of a problem that needs solving. To find a good business idea , start by identifying a problem or a need in the market that is not adequately addressed. For example, if you notice members in your community Facebook group are often looking for cleaners in the area with little success, that’s a market you can tap into by starting a cleaning business .

You also should clearly define your business idea and what you plan to offer. Don’t forget to also consider your business’s cost, feasibility, scalability, and profitability.

For example, this candle business highlights that handmade candles are made from 100% beeswax to ensure product safety and quality: 

Once you have that figured out, it’ll be easy as pie for you to come up with your company description. Your company description should include details such as your business location, business resources, management team and more. 

Step 2: Conduct your market research

Conducting thorough market research builds a strong foundation for your market analysis. What’s more, it provides insights into the viability of your business idea and helps you develop a winning strategy.

You can conduct primary market research with:

• Customer interviews
• Online surveys or questionnaires
• In-person focus groups
• Purchasing a competitor product to study packaging and delivery experience

Or secondary market research by:

• Reading company records
• Examining the current economic conditions
• Researching relevant technological developments

This market overview template will help you look into industry trends and your target audience and collect vital data for your marketing strategy:

Step 3: Analyze your competitors

A  competitive analysis  report outlines the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors compared to those of your own business. 

Start by creating a competitor profile for each of your competitors which typically includes:

• The company’s revenue and market share
• The company’s size and management team
• A SWOT analysis 
• An overview of how the brand is perceived by customers

In addition to specific product features, here are some attributes that you might want to look into:

• Product quality
• Number of features
• Ease of use
• Customer support
• Brand/style/image

Use this competitor analysis report template to dive deeper into your competitor data and inform your marketing and business strategies: 

Step 4: Develop a marketing strategy

Your marketing strategy can be brief, covering a single campaign, or it can be long-term, detailing your marketing plans for an entire year. 

An effective marketing plan revolves around your target market and finding ways to reach them effectively. This may include branding, advertising, and social media .

While different marketing tactics are used to achieve different goals, they should always be in sync with the overall goals of your business. 

Use a mindmap to organize your marketing goals and strategies to make sure that they are in line with your business goals. 

If you’re running a small business, you may have limited funds to allocate toward marketing efforts. Some commonly used marketing strategies for small businesses include:

• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Work with local influencers
• Word-of-mouth
• Customer referral programs
• Customer loyalty plans

This Japanese restaurant business plan details both their online and offline marketing strategies. They’re also keen to capitalize on the steady stream of tourists coming into the city by catering to groups with large orders.

You can also use a timeline infographic like this one here to keep you on track with your marketing goals:

Don’t know where to start? This article will give you a crash course on  how to make your marketing plan . 

Step 5: identify your key performance indicators (kpi).

With all those marketing strategies in line, the next step is to identify the key metrics you’ll use to measure your business’s success. So, what is your KPI going to be? Is it revenue, profit margin, customer acquisition cost or customer retention rate?

KPIs give you a clear understanding of how well your business is doing and provide valuable insights that help make informed decisions. Without identifying KPIs, it can be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your efforts. 

Step 6: Develop a Financial Plan

We’ve finally reached the core of your business strategy, which is the section that your potential investors are most interested in – your financial plan.

Having your business plan lined out can help you understand the financial viability of your business and prepare for potential challenges. It can also persuade investors and get the funding you need.

Some of the important details that you’d want to include in your financial plan are your:

• Income statement
• Cash flow statement
• Balance sheet 
• Sales forecast
• Break-even analysis
• Financial health 
• Financial forecasts

Planning to start your own gym ? Use this template to project your revenues and expenses: 

Step 7: Determine your funding needs

Now that you have your financial plans worked out, you’ll have a clearer picture of how much funding you’ll need to start and grow your business . 

There are several types of funding options available for small businesses seeking financing, including:

• Self-funding or bootstrapping
• Family and friend loans
• Crowdfunding
• Angel investors
• Venture capital
• Business loans

For example, this non-profit business plan template details the fundraising activities they have to generate operational funds.

Start customizing your business plan with these  15+ templates that would help you win over your investors, lenders, or partners . 

As new business owners, having a strong business plan is essential for securing funding and laying the foundation for your company’s success. However, with so many business plans vying for investors’ attention, it can be challenging to make yours stand out. 

In summary, the following tips can help you write a business plan that captures the attention of investors:

Focus on your competitive advantages

Furthermore, show customers and investors why they should choose you over others. Highlight what sets your business apart from your competitors and how your product or service can serve as a solution. 

Show a deep understanding of your target market

Visualize your ideal customers and their needs with a user persona and analyze your competitors. This will help you explain how your business can meet those needs better than your competitors. 

Provide a clear and concise executive summary

Start with a short, punchy summary that gives investors or lenders an overview of your business. Your executive summary should also include your plans, its value proposition, and the opportunities it presents to attract funding.

Provide solid financial projections

Investors and lenders want to see that your business has a foreseeable future. Make sure to detail your business financials such as cash flow statement, income statement, break-even analysis and balance sheet.

Be specific about your goals and milestones

Lay out achievable goals and milestones that you aim to reach in the short and long term. This will give investors a clear sense of your vision and your commitment to achieving it.

Show your passion

Finally, don’t be afraid to let your passion for your business shine through. Investors and lenders want to see that you are committed to your business and that you believe in its potential for success.

Elevate your small business with an exceptional business plan that sets you apart from the competition

Having a well-thought-out business plan can really max out your business’s potential and win over your investors. But as an entrepreneur, growing a business requires a lot of time and effort and you might not have the extra time to spend on designing your business plan. 

But don’t you worry – Venngage has got it covered for you. Designing a business plan requires little to no effort with Venngage’s customizable professional templates. Most importantly, no design experience is required. 

Pick from one of the templates above or browse for more  Business Plan Templates  and start customizing your own today! 

How to Write a Business Owner Bio

by J. Johnson

Published on 21 Jul 2017

All business owners should have a professional biography. You can use this biography to market yourself and your business, gain customer and client loyalty, attract investors to your business or utilize as part of your direct mail package. You can also include the information in your biography on your business's website. Before you sit down to write your professional biography, think carefully about your experience and how you want to present yourself and your business.

Create an attention-grabbing first paragraph. Your professional biography should be informative but also interesting. Start with an exceptional accomplishment or unique service you provide. For example, your first paragraph could start out with, "Tammy Smith, a Harvard-educated lawyer and recipient of the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, takes a client-centered approach to her law practice."

Include your qualifications for running your business, your professional accomplishments and an overview of the services or products you offer in the professional biography. Try to use powerful and emotional language, such as "confident," "sympathetic," "optimistic" and "passionate." The words you choose should be positive, and used when describing your professional achievements. For example, "Tammy is passionate about upholding the law, and she remains confident that she can help her community grow and thrive, one client at a time." There's no need to overly describe your accomplishments, as long as you use language that demonstrates how much you love your work and how dedicated you are to your profession.

Add any other information that may be attractive to the reader, including awards, honors, education, certifications, licenses, significant clients, your business partners, your professional experience and associations you belong to. Never use acronyms. You want to make sure the reader understands all the information presented. This information should not be listed as in a resume. Instead, it should be weaved throughout the paragraphs of your biography. Include relevant information where it makes sense to the reader. For example, when describing why your clients trust you and your business, include information about your education, licenses and certifications. These credentials show that you are qualified to do the work. For this information to be effective in a business owner bio, it should be used to back up your credibility, qualifications and expertise in your field.

Include your contact information. List the address of your business, a phone number and an email address.

Avoid writing a professional biography that's more than one page. Short biographies are more likely to be read in full by clients, customers, partners, investors or website visitors.

Write the biography in third person. This is more professional, and because it appears to have been written by a third party, you can be less modest and describe your accomplishments without sounding like you're boasting.

How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated April 17, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

Free business plan templates and examples

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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• Business Plan: What It Is, What's Included, and How to Write One 7 of 25
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): Meaning, Types, Impact 8 of 25
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How to Write a Business Plan [Complete Guide]

Last Updated on – Aug 8, 2023 @ 3:22 pm

Preparing to write your business plan? You’re already one step ahead of other entrepreneurs who don’t see its value.

A well-thought-out and well-written plan for starting and running your business helps you focus on what you need to do to make your business idea work. It can also boost your chance of getting investments and loans to finance your business .

Did you know that half of small businesses fail in their first four years? Planning is such a crucial step to reducing the risks of managing an enterprise. Turn your business idea from something abstract and uncertain into a successful venture. It starts with drafting a good business plan.

Here’s your definitive guide to writing a business plan that speaks for itself.

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a written document that details what a business is, what direction it will take, and how you’ll get it there.

Practically speaking, the business plan evaluates your business’ viability. As the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) puts it , the document allows entrepreneurs to find out whether or not their business idea will bring in more money than how much it costs to start and run it.

More than just a document, the business plan helps business owners to figure out the key aspects of an enterprise, including the following:

• Business goals and strategies to meet them
• Competitive edge and how to leverage it
• Potential problems and how to solve them
• Funding required to start the business
• Equipment, facilities, and manpower needed for operations

Who Needs a Business Plan and What Is It Used For?

Every aspiring entrepreneur who will spend a great amount of money, time, and energy to earn a profit needs a business plan.

Business planning is a crucial part of starting an entrepreneurial journey, no matter how small or big a business is. Never skip this step—as they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Here are some examples of business types that benefit much from business planning:

Founders of startup businesses seek funds to begin their new venture. Business plans help them persuade investors and lenders to provide the funding they need.

For startups, a business plan explains the nature of the new venture, how it will achieve its goals, and why the founders are the best people to lead the company. The startup business plan should also specify the capital needed to jumpstart the new business.

Related: Fast-Growing Startups in the Philippines

Existing Businesses

Not only do startups gain advantage from a business plan—existing enterprises need it, too.

But business plans for growing businesses serve a different purpose. Usually, a business plan helps a middle-stage business raise funds for additional facilities, equipment, manpower, and others needed for expansion. This document also defines strategies for growth and allocates resources based on strategic priorities.

Growing businesses also use business plans to communicate their vision to various stakeholders such as customers, business partners, potential investors and lenders, employees, and suppliers.

For such needs, a business plan for existing businesses lays out the goals, strategies, metrics to evaluate success, responsibilities, and resource allocation.

Social Enterprises

Social enterprises may not be as profit-driven as other business types, but that doesn’t mean they need business planning any less.

A social enterprise needs to prepare a business plan to achieve its social objectives and keep empowering the communities it’s supporting. This document is what government agencies and donor agencies require and evaluate when approving grants for funding a social project .

A social enterprise business plan determines the social issue that a business idea will solve, its beneficiaries, products or services, target market, and sales projections, among many others.

Non-Profit Organizations/NGOs

Like social enterprises, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can also use business plans to source funds for their campaigns and projects.

A nonprofit business plan discusses the problems an NGO is trying to solve through a certain project, as well as how it will do that and how much resources are needed.

It also helps the organization and its board members to prepare for risks by making projections on how likely the activities will push through and how the current sources of funds will continue to yield a certain level of revenue. Most importantly, the business plan defines the Plan B if the original plan ends up failing.

Business Plan Format and Its Components

How does a business plan exactly look like? There’s no recommended universal format for business plans. Ideally, yours is customized according to the nature of your business and what you’re going to use the plan for.

However, all business plans have sections in common. Here’s a quick walkthrough of the six components that make up a business plan.

1. Executive Summary

Like an abstract of a college thesis or a foreword of a book, the executive summary is meant to provide a brief overview of the document. It presents the highlights of a business plan in a page or two.

The executive summary the first thing that readers see, so keep it short yet engaging and compelling enough to make them want to view more details in your plan.

2. Company Profile

The company profile is your chance to introduce yourself and your business to people outside your company. It’s also called the company summary, company information, business description, and business profile.

This section quickly answers the five Ws and one H of your business: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Think of it as your business calling card. Being the shortest section of the business plan, the company profile provides a quick overview of the business—who the owner and founder is, management team, business goals, business address, product or service, and what makes it unique.

3. Operations Plan

The operations plan explains how you’ll run your business, focusing on the different aspects of manufacturing your product. This section includes the following information, among many others:

• Type of business (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation , or non-profit)
• How the product is made or the service completed
• Necessary materials, equipment, and facilities to manufacture the product or complete the service
• Any subcontractors needed
• Quality control system

4. Organizational Plan

Your people should play a major role in your business plan, just as how they’re important to your business success . The organizational plan includes a chart that shows how your company is structured according to key departments or functions such as administration, production/manufacturing, marketing, and finance. This organizational chart not only presents the levels of authority in a company but also clarifies who is responsible for which people and function.

Aside from the organizational chart, the organizational plan also includes these details:

• Number of employees to hire
• Responsibilities of each job role
• Qualifications of workers who will perform each role
• Salaries and benefits per job assignment

5. Marketing Plan

The marketing plan and the succeeding chapters are the heart and soul of your business plan, explaining the things that will make your business work. This section details how you plan to promote your product or service in the market.

Specifically, the marketing plan covers the following:

• How the product or service will work and how it will benefit customers
• Target market and its profile
• Strategies for packaging, advertising, public relations, and distribution
• Competitive advantage

6. Financial Plan

A critical section in your business plan, the financial plan helps you assess how much money you’ll need to start or grow your enterprise and identify your funding sources to get your business off the ground and sustain its operations. This is where you’ll provide financial estimates that cover at least one year of running your business.

Investors and lenders specifically look for these financial details in business plans:

• How much you’re going to borrow, what you’ll use the loan for, and how you’ll pay it back
• How much profit you’re expecting to make (through an income statement and balance sheet)
• How you can finance your business operations (through a cash flow statement)
• Whether to keep the business going or close it down to cut losses (through a break-even analysis)

Related: How to Write a Business Proposal

Should You Use a Business Plan Template?

Business plan templates identify what information to put into each section and how it should be structured.

They provide instructions to guide entrepreneurs through the process. This way, nothing is missed out while writing the plan.

Thus, using a business plan template is a great idea, especially if this is your first time to prepare a plan for starting or growing your enterprise.

Helpful as it as may be, a business plan template doesn’t make business planning 100% effortless. While it provides the outline that makes writing the plan easy and quick, you still need to do your homework.

For example, a template won’t compute the financial projections for you—it’s a task you have to complete either on your own or with the help of a professional.

So before you use a business plan template, manage your expectations first and be prepared to do a lot of math!

8 Free Business Plan Templates

Yes, you read it right—you can download free online business plan templates. Some of these templates are designed for a specific niche, while others offer sample business plans for a wide range of business categories and industries.

Start off by choosing any of these free templates that suit your business planning needs.

1. Business Plan Format by the DTI

DTI has a wealth of useful information for micro, small, and medium businesses in the Philippines. Of course, it’s free to access since it comes from the government.

On the DTI website, simply look for the Business Planning section and download the business plan format in a PDF file. This document not only lists down all the information to be included in every section of a business plan, but it also provides guide questions per section—making business planning easier for first-timers.

If you want a more detailed discussion of what should go into each component of your business plan plus sample scenarios, check the DTI’s Negosyo Center e-book that fleshes out things for small business owners.

2. Simple Business Plan Template by The Balance Small Business 

The Balance is an online resource for small business owners. It has a free business plan template that’s simple and easy to understand for beginners, with instructions on how to use it. Broken down into sections, the simple business plan template tells you what to include in each component of the plan.

Simply copy the free template and paste it into a word document or spreadsheet. From there, you can start drafting your business plan with the template as a guide.

3. Free Sample Business Plans by Bplans

This website features a collection of over 500 free business plan samples for various industries, including restaurants, e-commerce, real estate, services, nonprofit, and manufacturing.

Under each category are links to many sample business plans for specific types of business. Each sample comes with a plan outline, too. For example, under the Services category, you’ll find sample plans for businesses like auto repair shops, advertising agencies, catering companies, health spas, photography studios, and more.

4. Business Plan Samples by LivePlan

More than 500 free sample business plans are available at the LivePlan website, so you’re likely to find one that suits your business best. The samples allow users to know how other businesses structured and worded each component of their business plans. You can copy and paste the sections into your own plan.

To download a full business plan sample, you’ll have to sign up by submitting your name and email address through the website.

5. Business Plan Templates by PandaDoc

PandaDoc offers free business plan templates for NGOs, startups, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, hotels, and salons. These documents can be downloaded in PDF format.

But if you want a customizable template, you can download the PandaDoc template for a 14-day free trial. This template allows you to edit the document, choose a theme that matches your branding, and add pictures and videos.

The website also has free templates for executive summaries and business letters.

6. The One-Page Business Plan by The $100 Startup

If your business has a simple concept, then a one-page business plan template is ideal to use. This downloadable PDF file is a very simple outline made up of a few sections with questions that you have to answer in just a short sentence or two.

7. Business Plans by Microsoft

Microsoft provides a broad selection of templates for its users, including business plan templates in Word, business plan presentations in PowerPoint, and business plan checklists in Excel.

• Sample business plan template (Word) – Provides the steps in writing a complete business plan
• Business plan presentation template (PowerPoint) – Consists of slides for different sections of a business plan that highlight the key points for viewers
• Business plan checklist template (Excel) – Enumerates the important things to do when writing a business plan, using the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis framework

The advantage of using a template from Microsoft is having a professional-looking document, slideshow presentation, or spreadsheet. No need to do the formatting by yourself because the template is already formatted. All you have to do is enter the necessary information into the template to complete your business plan.

8. Social Business Plan Guidelines by the Ateneo de Manila

This free business plan format for social entrepreneurs comes from the Ateneo de Manila University’s John Gokongwei School of Management. In a glimpse, it provides the basic information you need to plan a social enterprise.

It also has more detailed business plan guidelines you can refer to. Simply click the link to the word document at the bottommost part of the page.

Related: 11 Best MBA Programs & Schools in the Philippines

How to Write a Business Plan

An outstanding business plan covers everything your stakeholders need to know about your business. So don’t just wing it—put a lot of thought into this critical document.

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of drafting a business plan, whether you’ll use a template or not.

1. Brainstorm about your business idea

You may have a very promising business idea, but it won’t fly unless you develop it into a clear-cut concept.

Brainstorm with your team about everything you can think of about starting and running the business. Then list them all down.

Be as creative as possible. No need to be too critical at this point.

While brainstorming, aim to answer these key questions:

• Why do you want to start the business? What has inspired you to go for it?
• What product or service do you plan to sell?
• Who will be your target customers? What are their problems that you’re hoping to solve through your product or service? How will you promote your offerings to them?
• What will be your business branding ? How will you position your brand in the industry?
• What is your competitive advantage? What makes your business unique?
• Where do you see your business within a year?

2. Validate your business idea

Research on the specifics of your business idea—paying special attention to your product or service, target market, and competitors.

According to entrepreneurship experts, it’s best to spend twice as much time on this step as spending the time to the actual drafting of the business plan.

Here are some ways to validate your business idea:

• Read studies and research to find information and trends about your industry .
• Conduct market research to gather insights from industry leaders, potential customers, and suppliers . You can do this through surveys, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews with your stakeholders.
• Collect data about your competitors , especially the product or service they offer and how they reach their customers. Consider buying from them or visiting their store to get a feel of their products and customer experience.

Gather all relevant information and analyze your findings to assess whether the business idea is feasible or not. You may need to tweak your business idea based on your evaluation of its feasibility.

3. Define the purpose of your business plan

It’s extremely difficult to carry out anything if you aren’t sure about why you’re doing it in the first place. Without a clear purpose, you’re like driving a car without knowing where you’re headed to.

When it comes to writing your business plan, you should have its purpose in mind from the get-go. It can be one or more of the following:

• Create a roadmap to provide the directions the business must take to achieve your goals and overcome challenges. This is ideal for bootstrapping or self-funding startups.
• Seek investments and loans to finance a business. If this is your purpose for making a business plan, it should be compelling enough to attract investors and lenders.
• Set your targets, budget, timelines, and milestones. When you put them all in writing, it’s so much easier to evaluate and measure your business’ actual performance versus your goals.
• Communicate your vision and strategic priorities with the management team. With this purpose, your business plan must establish specific goals for your managers so that they have something to commit to, you can track progress, and get them to follow through on their commitments. Also, having a business plan for this purpose ensures that everybody involved in running your business is on the same page.
• Minimize risks. Running a business in itself involves a lot of risks, and it gets riskier with a poorly researched business idea. A business plan can help entrepreneurs mitigate them by organizing activities and preparing for contingencies.

4. Create an outline for the executive summary

The first section of any business plan is the executive summary. You don’t have to draft it yet at this point, but it helps to write an outline for it before you proceed with the rest of the sections.

In a sentence or two, describe these key aspects of your business:

• Product or service
• Target market
• Competitors
• Unique value proposition (how you set your business apart from the competition)
• Management team
• Short-term and long-term business goals
• Possible sources of revenue

5. Describe your business

The next step is to write your company profile. Get your readers to become familiar with your business and realize why they should be interested in it.

If you have no idea what specifically goes into this crucial business plan section, you can check the company profiles of businesses in your industry. Usually, you can find them on their websites at the About Us or About the Company page. Take note of the information included and how they’re written.

Here are the must-haves of a great company profile:

• Brief history of the company
• Mission and vision
• Product or service lineup
• Target market and audience
• How the business will address the customers’ pain points
• What makes the business unique

6. Provide details about your operations and organizational structure

Anyone who will read your business plan needs to know what they should expect when they deal with you. They need to see a solid plan for your operations and the people who make up your team. So give your operations plan and organizational plan a careful thought.

For your operations plan, choose carefully the right legal structure for your business. Will you be a sole proprietor? Or will you partner with someone or form a corporation? Your choice will have an impact not only on your business operations but also on the taxes you’ll pay and your personal liability .  

As for the organizational plan, it’s where you put your organizational chart that shows a glimpse of the hierarchy within your organization. You can easily create this chart in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Also introduce the people who comprise your management team—their relevant experience, qualifications, and expertise . The organizational plan must also include information of the support personnel, as well as who reports to whom and who manages whom.

If you’ll be outsourcing some of your business functions, add them to your organizational plan, too. These may include consultants , accountants , lawyers , logistics specialists, and IT specialists. This way, you’re showing that you’re planning to fill in any expertise and skill gaps in your in-house team.

Also Read: Business Process Outsourcing to the Philippines [Complete Guide]

7. Compose your marketing plan

Make this section of your business plan as comprehensive and detailed as possible. You’d want to prove that you’ll take a strategic and aggressive approach to reach your target customers and promote your brand and product or service to them.

Divide your marketing plan into five subsections: objectives, product/service description, target market profile, competition profile, and promotional activities.

A. Objectives

Zero in on the what and the why of your marketing activities. Under the marketing objectives section, list down all your goals and the strategies you’ll implement to meet them.

Your marketing goals can be any of the following:

• Raise brand awareness
• Introduce a new product or service
• Regain or get more customers for an existing product or service
• Secure long-term contracts with your ideal clients
• Increase sales in a certain market, product, or price point
• Improve product manufacturing or product/service delivery
• Increase prices without affecting sales

B. Product/Service Description

Describe each product or service you’ll offer, including its features and benefits. You can use storytelling , images, charts, tables, or any visual element that best illustrates how each item will work to the benefit of your target customers.

C. Target Market Profile

Present as much relevant data as you can about your potential customers. Make sure to include the following:

• Demographic profile: age range, gender, income level, education, interests, etc.
• Buying behaviors
• Factors that influence their buying decisions: purchasing power, personal preferences, economic conditions, marketing campaigns, social factors (such as peer pressure and social media influencers ), cultural factors, etc.

D. Competition Profile

Your marketing plan must focus not only on your own business but also those of your competitors. List down the similar products or services that they offer to your target customers.

Also, provide an assessment of your competitors’ performance. Which areas are they doing well? How can you improve on their strengths and weaknesses? How can your business stand out? Is it your more competitive pricing? Better customer service? Superior product quality?

To come up with a good competition profile, take the time to research about your competitors. When interviewing your target customers, ask them about the brands they use or businesses they deal with.

You can also do an online search of your competitors. For example, if you’ll run a pet supplies store in Pasig, search for “pet stores Pasig” on Google. The search engine results page may show you the different stores that sell the same products as the ones you plan to offer. Read customer reviews online to get deeper insights on how these businesses serve their clients.

Consider doing a “secret shopping” in your competitor’s store. This way, you can experience firsthand how they treat their customers and how they market and sell their products or services. You might even be able to get information about their product lineup and pricing.

E. Promotional Activities

The last subsection of your marketing plan must discuss how you’ll promote your brand and products or services and connect with customers. Also, be ready to allocate budget for each marketing activity you identify in your plan.

Create a list of marketing activities you plan to implement. Will you reach your audience through SEO (organic online search), paid advertising, and/or social media? Or will you go the traditional route through print and TV advertising or joining expos, exhibits, and trade shows? The right choice depends on the nature of your business and the type of audience you’re trying to reach.

8. Develop your financial plan

The financial plan is the section where you’ll crunch the numbers. Unless you’re really good at math, it’s best to hire an accountant or business consultant who will work with you to develop a foolproof financial plan.

Put simply, a financial plan explains how a business will spend money and make more money. It also estimates the amount of time it will take for the business to earn a profit.

Here are the specifics of a good financial plan:

• Total capital requirement
• Business financing plan and any loan requirement
• Collateral to put up for a business loan
• Schedule for loan repayment
• Financial statements : cash flow statement, income statement/profit and loss statement, and balance sheet
• Break-even analysis
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Financial analysis

Ultimately, these financial projections answer the question, “Is your business financially feasible?”

9. Back up your business plan with supporting documents

Books and theses have an appendix section at the end that provides additional resources. Your business plan should have one, too. This final section consists of documents, surveys, studies, charts, tables, images, and other elements that provide supporting data.

Depending on the information you’ve presented in the other sections of the plan, your appendix may include these things:

• Market research data and findings
• Resumes of the management team
• Relevant financial documents
• Lease agreements
• Bank statements
• Licenses and permits

10. Review and refine your business plan

Your business plan is almost done at this point. Now all you have to do is go over the document once more to ensure you’ve covered everything and nothing crucial is left out.

Check your final draft and be sure it has the following:

• Sound business idea – If you’ve done Step 2 properly (validating business idea), you can be confident that you have a sound business idea.
• Comprehensive and in-depth look into your business in a professional format
• Thorough understanding of your target customers , their behaviors, interests, and needs
• Competent management team – The people who make up your team must possess the skills and expertise that complement yours.
• Business focus or specialization

Aside from yourself, ask a business partner, proofreader, and accountant or financial expert to review your business plan and spot any errors and inconsistencies. You’d want to make sure that it looks professional and is accurate.

11. Write the executive summary

Lastly, get back to the outline you created in Step 4 and write it based on your final draft. Make sure to craft an engaging executive summary that hooks people into reading the rest of the plan.

6 Actionable Tips on Writing a Business Plan

Anyone can write a business plan—but it takes more than great writing skills to create an exceptional one.

Here are some tips to help you prepare an effective business plan that goes beyond the ordinary.

1. Write with your audience in mind

When drafting your business plan, you’re writing not for yourself but for people who will play key roles in starting and running your enterprise. This is why it’s important that you know whom you’re writing for and keep them in mind while preparing your business plan.

If you think you can’t create a plan that caters to all your audience groups, consider having different versions of the document. For example, you can come up with a business plan for investors, another for lenders, one for employees, and so on. But keep the data consistent across all versions.

To write a business plan that suits a particular audience, you have to use the right language, highlight the parts that interest them, and adjust the format accordingly.

A. Use the Right Language

One of the most important rules in business writing: use the language that your target audience easily understands. If you’re writing for engineers, finance people, or lawyers, your language can be technical—meaning you can use jargons and terminologies familiar to them.

However, if you’re writing for investors who barely have technical knowledge, tweak your language in simple terms that are easy to grasp and appreciate.

Likewise, if you’re writing a business plan to communicate internally with managers and employees your company’s direction and strategies, it’s best to use more casual language than you would when writing for high-level, external stakeholders.

B. Appeal to Your Audience’s Interests

It also helps to understand what interests your audience because they will influence how you’ll write your business plan.

Your management team, for instance, will be interested in knowing your business goals and strategies so that they can help you steer the company in the right direction.

Investors and lenders look at the business plan differently—they’ll be more interested in your financial statements to determine your financial health, like if your business is worth investing in or has the ability to pay back a loan.

C. Adopt a Suitable Business Plan Format

There’s no one-size-fits-all format for business plans because it depends mainly on your audience, aside from the nature of your business.

Let’s say you’ll set up a restaurant, and you’re drafting a business plan to apply for a business loan. To convince lenders that your business is viable, details such as your restaurant’s location and possible renovations are crucial.

Meanwhile, if you’re writing the plan for potential big-time investors, you’ll take a different approach. A good restaurant business plan focuses on the business aspects that will lead to growth and profitability (Remember that investors are interested in how they’ll make money from partnering with you).

2. Keep it concise

How long should a business plan be? According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , it depends on various factors such as the specific audience it’s written for and the nature of a business. The SBA cites surveys that found the ideal length to be at least 25 to 100 pages.

Sounds a lot? If you have a simple business idea and you’re writing a business plan for busy people who don’t have time to pore over hundreds of pages, then one page up to 20 pages should be fine.

However, you may need to provide more explanation (which will take up more pages in your business plan) if you’re planning to build a new kind of business, and a risky one at that.

The size of your business also affects the length of your business plan. Business plans for small businesses need not exceed 30 pages. Corporate business plans are expected to be longer.

What matters more than length is how concise your business plan is. Meaning, it provides all the necessary information—including solid research and analysis—using the fewest words possible. No place for wordiness here!

3. Document everything related to your business

Support your claims in the business plan with solid facts and proof. Investors, for instance, need an assurance that they won’t lose their investment when they trust you with their money. This is where documenting your business thoroughly plays a crucial role.

What kinds of documentation can you include in your business plan?

• Industry forecast or projections
• Licensing agreements
• Location strategy
• Prototype of your product or service
• Survey and FGD results
• Resumes of your management team

4. Show your passion and dedication to your business

Although business plans have straightforward, matter-of-fact content, you can still establish an emotional connection with your readers through your plan. After all, your readers are humans with feelings and motivations.

No need to be dramatic about it—you can show your passion and dedication while still sounding professional in your business plan. Write about the mistakes you’ve had (like a failed business in the past), what you’ve learned from the experience, the values you hold, and the problems of your customers you want to solve through your product or service.

5. Know your competition and how you’ll stand out

Your business won’t be the single player in your industry. Other businesses in the same niche have started way ahead of you, and some new ones will also compete for business in the future.

Write your business plan in such a way that you know your competitors so well. Identify all of them and what makes your business unique compared with the rest without belittling them.

6. Be realistic and conservative in all your estimates

In any aspect of your business, it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver than the other way around. This also holds true when writing a business plan. You wouldn’t want to set unrealistic expectations that will lead to disappointments and worse, losses, when you fail to deliver on your promise.

There’s no place for too much optimism in your business plan. Your budget allocation, timelines, capital requirements, sales and revenue targets, and financial projections must be reasonable, realistic, and conservative. These will lend credibility to your business plan and yourself as an entrepreneur. Because there are a lot of factors beyond your control, always assume that things will get completed longer and cost more ( consider inflation over time! ).

This is where your research prior to writing the draft comes extremely helpful. You have something solid and factual to benchmark against. For example, if your analysis based on the facts you’ve gathered indicates that you’ll be able to get 40% share off the market in your first year of operations, consider making your estimates a bit more conservative and attainable.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Business Valuation in the Philippines

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Business Plan

Now, let’s explore the mistakes entrepreneurs often commit when writing a business plan. Listing them all down here to let you know what to avoid.

1. Prioritizing Form Over Substance

Spend most of your time and energy on building solid research and facts rather than obsessing about which font type or background color will look best for your document.

2. Overthinking

Many entrepreneurs take too long to complete their business plans because they worry too much about it. Don’t get intimidated by business planning—you don’t have to be an expert or a degree holder in business management or business administration to be able to write an outstanding business plan. Overthinking will just lead to analysis paralysis and get nothing done.

As long as you know your business well and are passionate about it, then writing a business plan won’t be as difficult as you think, especially if you’re using a template.

3. Submitting the Document Without Proofreading It

If your business plan is filled with typos and grammatical errors, readers will get distracted even if you’re presenting substantial information. It may also give your audience an impression that you’re careless—and who wants to deal with a person who isn’t professional and careful enough?

Even if it costs you money, pay a professional proofreader to check your work and correct any errors so that the message you wanted to convey through your business plan will get across.

4. Making Empty Claims

Any statement that isn’t sufficiently supported by solid research or documentation has to go. For example, if you want to claim to be the top player in your industry but you don’t have any evidence to back it up, rethink about including it in your business plan.

5. Writing an Overly Long and Wordy Plan

Make sure that everything you put into your business plan is relevant and serves your purpose. Otherwise, remove unnecessary statements that just add fluff to the document.

Also, don’t waste your readers’ time by using too many words—including highfalutin ones. Remember, your goal is to make your audience understand your business, not to impress them with beautiful or complex prose.

6. Using Too Many Superlatives

Even if you really feel that your business, business idea, or projection is incredible, amazing, the best, great, fantastic, or one of a kind, avoid using these superlatives because they aren’t appropriate for formal documents like a business plan.

7. Doing the Financial Projections on Your Own

Unless you’re an accountant yourself, it’s best that you get a professional to do the job for you. It will save you time and the headache of dealing with numbers and formatting your financial plan properly.

8. Overestimating Your Projections

The business plan is not a place to make impossible promises—while they look good on paper, you might run into trouble fulfilling them. To avoid this mistake, always do your research. Find out how other businesses do it and what the typical timeframes and financial projections are before you come up with your estimates.

9. Long-Term Business Planning

As much as possible, limit your projections to only a year. A lot of things can happen and make your business different from how you initially planned it. Stick with your short-term or one-year targets and estimates, then just tweak your business plan as time goes by.

10. Including Unfounded Rumors About Your Competitors

Not only do rumors make your business plan look unprofessional, but they also distract your readers from your intended message, which is to highlight what makes your business different from the competition. Avoid including details based only on hearsay. Everything in your plan must be backed up by solid, quantifiable facts.

Key Takeaway

A business plan is more than just a document that you prepare once and will never look at again. Rather, it’s a strategic tool that you should use from time to time to guide your business operations, get the buy-in of your stakeholders, and grow your business over time.

Once you’re done with writing your business plan, make the most of it for your business. Use it and modify it as often as needed!

Ready and confident to start writing your business plan? Share your thoughts and questions below!

Other Useful Business Resources from Grit PH:

• How to Sell a Business in the Philippines

About Venus Zoleta

Venus Zoleta is an experienced writer and editor, specializing in personal finance and digital marketing.

She has been a regular columnist for some of the biggest business & finance publications in the Philippines, such as MoneyMax.ph and Filipiknow.net.

Hoping to retire early, she started investing and bought a home in her early 20s. This crazy cat mom eats ramen like there's no tomorrow.

Education: University of the Philippines (B.A. Journalism) Focus: Personal Finance, Personal Development, and Entrepreneurship

Reader Interactions

March 3, 2020 at 10:00 am

I like it, and i want to learn more about for business

March 6, 2020 at 9:46 am

Hello Ms. Venus, Rise Against Hunger Philippines, N.G.O. , branching out into a new high ways… and i am newly hired as a social enterprise development officer… whose main tasks to launch a product line; an up-cycled tarpaulin bags.. manufactured by a group of community women (skills training’s, coordinated by life coached; aiming w-holistic transformation and sustainability program.. . with such a big tasks, i need a step by step guides, and if possible a coach for i cannot do it alone… thank you, henry reandino chua

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Tips for Writing an Interesting Small Business Owner’s Bio

Feb 17, 2022

All business owners should have a well-written, professional bio.

You can use it to develop trust in your brand , market yourself and your company, attract customers, build a customer base, and appeal to investors.  

As the leading internet marketing company in Florida, we are going to share some helpful tips you can use to write a compelling small business owner’s biography.  

But before we delve into that, let’s first discuss what a professional bio is.  

What Is a Professional Bio?

A professional biography is a summary of who you are: where you come from and what you do. This helps establish your integrity and expertise. A compelling bio instills trust in you and your brand.

Where Can You Use a Professional Bio?

Once you have a professional bio, you can:

• Use it as a blurb for any articles, books, reports, or any professional documents you write.  
• Include it in your marketing materials.  
• Add it to your proposals.  
• Post it on your website or blog.  

How to Write a Good Professional Bio

1. start with your name..

If you’re concerned about sounding redundant since your name will be printed above your bio, don’t be. This is one of the few occasions where it’s okay to be repetitious.

2. Mention your company’s name.

After your name, you want to mention your brand or company name. If your company has awards, this is a great place to mention them.

Something like this may seem very simple, but it’s effective. It tells people who you are and what you do right away.

3. Include details about what you do.

Use the next few lines of your bio to describe what you do as a small business owner.  

For example: “Jane Doe is the founder and CEO of Digital Resource, a three-time Inc. 5000-ranked digital marketing agency located in Florida. She is responsible for running all facets of the business, including sales. Doe has a proven executive management track record and over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience.”

Write down your primary responsibilities first, so your readers can visualize who you are during the day and what you have to offer in your niche.  

4. State at least one professional accomplishment.

To establish your experience, you want to mention what you have achieved in your professional career. This will serve as proof that you are who you say you are.

If you’re not sure what to write down, ask yourself this:

"What have I done for myself or for others that make me a valuable player in my niche?"

As the leading internet marketing company in Florida, we suggest that aside from your professional accomplishments, you should also mention your educational attainment, if you're involved in your community, and in what ways.

Here are some things to think about including:

• Community and industry involvement: How do you show leadership outside the office? Do you participate in charitable activities?
• Education: Where did you attend school? Do you have any academic honors, special training, or certifications?

5. Explain your values and how this guides the way you do business.

Values help build a sense of purpose in the workplace by empowering your employees to work on achieving a common goal.  

Some of the most common company values are those that are related to customer relationships, company growth, and business relationships. These are often translations of your very own values.  

For example, if one of your values is reliability, then your clients can expect that you and your employees will deliver work outcomes to agreed quality standards and timeframes.  

If you’re not sure what your values are, ask yourself the following questions:

• Why do you do what you do?
• What is your vision for your company?
• What gets you up in the morning?
• What values do you and your employees share that will make your business a huge success?

6. Wrap your bio up by telling your readers who you are outside of work.

Give your readers a peek at who you are as a person by describing what you like to do when you're not working. This may include:

• Spending time with family and pets.
• Playing your favorite sports.
• Doing hobbies or interests you love.  
• Side hustles you’re working on.
• Favorite food.

People like to connect with others . The more genuine you feel, the more likable you’ll seem.  

Tips for Writing a Good Bio

Pique The Interest of your Readers

Starting your bio with your name is a great way to draw the attention of your readers and make them want to learn more about you.  

Using a conversational tone in your writing will also make it easy for readers to follow along.  

Tailor It to Your Intended Audience

To make your bio more compelling, you should first identify its purpose and who will be reading it.  

Is it for a publication? Marketing material? A proposal for a client?

Once you know the purpose of your bio, you can customize it as necessary.

For example, if it’s for a client, they’ll want to know more about your achievement and what makes you qualified to earn their trust.  

If it's for a magazine feature, they'll probably want more information about your personal life.  

Depending on your audience, your bio can be formal, funny, or personalized.  

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Vulnerable

People love authenticity . Show people your personal side by mentioning whether you’re married or not, your hobbies, favorite food, and so on.

Depending on the purpose of your bio, don't be afraid to give away a little information about your professional life.  

Update Your Bio

As time goes by, your experience and qualifications change. To reflect this progress, it’s important to update your bio every now and then.  

Is Your Bio Interesting?

Your bio gives you an opportunity to outline your qualifications and feature some interesting facts about yourself. You could even show off a little about your achievements.  

You can use this to establish credibility, build trust, and win over potential customers.  

If you don’t have a bio yet, it’s high time for you to create one! Use this blog to help you get started.  

Need Help with Your Marketing?

Digital Resource is an internet marketing company in Florida. Our team of digital marketing specialists can help you maintain a positive image by managing the spread of relevant information, strengthening your marketing campaigns, and boosting your employer branding.

If you want to improve how your customers and your employers see you and your company, we can help! Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Top 12 Business Owner Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's competitive job market, showcasing a robust set of skills on your resume is crucial for business owners aiming to transition into new roles or industries. Highlighting the top business owner skills reflects your ability to navigate complex challenges and demonstrates a versatile, results-driven approach to potential employers.

Business Owner Skills

• Negotiation
• Financial Analysis
• Strategic Planning
• Project Management
• Digital Marketing
• E-commerce Platforms
• Data Analytics
• Risk Management

1. Leadership

Leadership, in the context of a business owner, is the ability to guide, inspire, and influence a team towards achieving the company's goals and vision.

Why It's Important

Leadership is essential for a business owner as it drives the direction, motivates the team, ensures effective management of resources, and shapes the company's culture, ultimately leading to achieving business goals and success.

How to Improve Leadership Skills

To improve leadership as a business owner, focus on these key areas:

• Self-awareness : Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can help.
• Communication : Enhance your ability to convey ideas and listen actively. Resources like Toastmasters International can improve public speaking and communication skills.
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) : Cultivate your EI for better interpersonal relationships. The book "Emotional Intelligence 2.0" by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves is a great resource.
• Vision and Strategic Thinking : Sharpen your strategic planning skills with courses from platforms like Coursera or edX .
• Delegation and Empowerment : Learn to trust your team by delegating effectively. The Harvard Business Review offers insights on delegation.
• Mentorship and Development : Be a mentor to your team and invest in their growth. Platforms like LinkedIn Learning offer courses on leadership and management.

Focusing on these areas, along with continuous learning and feedback, will significantly improve your leadership skills.

How to Display Leadership Skills on Your Resume

2. Negotiation

Negotiation is the process of discussing terms and conditions between two or more parties to reach a mutual agreement, often involving compromise, with the goal of achieving beneficial outcomes for all involved, particularly relevant in business for securing deals, resolving conflicts, and optimizing operational efficiency.

Negotiation is crucial for a business owner as it enables them to secure favorable terms, reduce costs, resolve conflicts, and build valuable relationships, essential for long-term success and growth.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

Improving negotiation skills as a business owner involves honing your ability to communicate effectively, understand others' needs, and reach mutually beneficial agreements. Here are concise steps and resources to help you enhance your negotiation skills:

Prepare Thoroughly : Gather all relevant information about the party you're negotiating with, understand your needs, and establish clear objectives. Harvard Business Review's Guide to Preparing for a Negotiation.

Build Rapport : Establish a connection with the other party to create a positive atmosphere for negotiation. Forbes' Insights on Building Rapport.

Listen Actively : Listening more than you speak can reveal the other party's underlying interests and concerns. MindTools on Active Listening .

Practice Emotional Intelligence : Be aware of and control your emotions and understand the emotions of the person you're negotiating with. Psychology Today's Overview of Emotional Intelligence .

Aim for Win-Win Outcomes : Strive for solutions that benefit both parties, creating a basis for future positive interactions. Inc.'s Guide on Achieving Win-Win Negotiations.

Develop Your Persuasion Skills : Learn how to present your ideas in ways that appeal to others, making it easier to reach an agreement. Entrepreneur's Tips on Enhancing Persuasion Skills .

Practice and Reflect : Regularly put your negotiation skills to the test and reflect on what worked and what didn't for continuous improvement. Mindful's Advice on Reflective Practice.

By focusing on these strategies and seeking out additional resources, you can significantly improve your negotiation abilities, leading to better business outcomes.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

3. Financial Analysis

Financial analysis involves examining financial statements and metrics to assess a company's performance, identify trends, and make informed business decisions to enhance profitability and growth.

Financial analysis is crucial for a business owner because it provides insights into the company's performance, helps in making informed decisions, identifies opportunities for growth, and ensures effective management of resources and risks.

How to Improve Financial Analysis Skills

Improving financial analysis as a business owner involves enhancing your understanding and application of financial data to make informed decisions. Here's how you can achieve that:

Educate Yourself : Gain a solid foundation in financial principles. Consider online courses from platforms like Coursera or edX .

Use Financial Software : Adopt robust financial software solutions for real-time insights. QuickBooks (QuickBooks) and Xero ( Xero ) are popular options.

Analyze Financial Statements : Regularly review your balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. Learn more at Investopedia .

Benchmark Performance : Compare your financial metrics against industry standards. Resources like BizStats can be helpful.

Seek Expert Advice : Consult with a financial analyst or a certified public accountant (CPA) for personalized advice. The AICPA can guide you to licensed professionals.

Implement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) : Track financial KPIs relevant to your business to monitor performance over time.

Stay Informed : Keep up with financial news and trends affecting your industry through reputable sources like The Financial Times or Bloomberg .

By following these steps and utilizing the resources provided, you'll be well on your way to improving financial analysis within your business.

How to Display Financial Analysis Skills on Your Resume

4. Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a process where a business owner defines their company's direction, sets goals, and outlines actionable plans to achieve those goals, ensuring long-term success and growth.

Strategic planning is crucial for a business owner because it provides a clear roadmap for achieving long-term goals, ensures efficient resource allocation, and helps anticipate challenges, enabling proactive management and sustained competitive advantage.

How to Improve Strategic Planning Skills

Improving strategic planning involves a focused approach to defining your business goals, understanding market dynamics, and aligning your resources for effective execution. Here are concise steps with relevant resources:

Define Clear Objectives: Begin by setting clear, achievable goals. MindTools offers guidance on setting strategic objectives that align with your business vision.

Conduct a SWOT Analysis: Assess your business's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to understand your competitive position. MindTools provides a comprehensive guide on conducting a SWOT analysis.

Understand Your Market: Conduct market research to understand your customers and competitors. Entrepreneur outlines strategies for effective market research.

Plan Your Resources: Allocate resources efficiently to meet your strategic objectives. The U.S. Small Business Administration offers resources on planning and managing your resources.

Implement and Monitor: Execute your strategy with precision and monitor progress regularly. Harvard Business Review discusses keys to successful strategy implementation and monitoring.

By following these steps and utilizing the resources provided, you can enhance your strategic planning process and position your business for success.

How to Display Strategic Planning Skills on Your Resume

5. Project Management

Project management is the process of planning, executing, and overseeing a project to achieve specific goals within a defined timeline and budget, ensuring efficient use of resources and successful completion. For a business owner, it's a critical skill for delivering projects that contribute to the growth and objectives of the business.

Project management is crucial for business owners because it ensures that projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the desired quality, directly impacting profitability, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage.

How to Improve Project Management Skills

Improving project management involves a combination of adopting best practices, leveraging technology, and enhancing team skills. Here's a concise guide for a business owner:

Define Clear Objectives : Begin with clear, achievable goals. Setting SMART goals ensures everyone understands what's expected.

Choose the Right Methodology : Whether it's Agile, Scrum, or Waterfall, pick a project management methodology that fits your project's needs.

Implement Project Management Software : Use tools like Asana , Trello , or Monday.com to organize tasks, collaborate, and track progress.

Communicate Effectively : Maintain open lines of communication. Tools like Slack can facilitate this, keeping everyone on the same page.

Monitor and Adjust : Regularly review project progress and be prepared to make adjustments. Tools like Gantt charts can help visualize timelines and adjust as needed.

Develop Your Team : Invest in training and development to enhance your team's skills. Platforms like LinkedIn Learning offer courses on various project management topics.

Learn from Each Project : Conduct post-project reviews to identify what worked and what didn't. This post-mortem analysis can guide future projects.

By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve your project management approach, leading to more successful outcomes.

How to Display Project Management Skills on Your Resume

6. Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) service and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development, helping businesses connect with their customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

Salesforce is important for a business owner because it offers a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) platform that streamlines sales, marketing, and customer service processes, enabling better customer engagement, increased efficiency, and higher revenue growth.

How to Improve Salesforce Skills

Improving Salesforce for a business owner involves streamlining processes, enhancing user adoption, and leveraging analytics for better decision-making. Here are concise strategies:

Customize for Your Business : Tailor Salesforce to fit your specific business processes and needs. Utilize custom fields, objects, and workflows to mirror your operational model closely.

Integrate with Other Tools : Connect Salesforce with other tools and platforms your business uses. This integration enhances efficiency and ensures a seamless flow of data across systems.

Train Your Team : Invest in comprehensive training programs for your team to boost adoption and proficiency. Salesforce offers a variety of training options tailored to different roles and skill levels.

Utilize Salesforce Analytics : Make informed decisions by leveraging Salesforce Analytics. Explore Tableau CRM for advanced analytics and actionable insights.

Automate Processes : Use Salesforce automation tools to reduce manual tasks and improve efficiency. Explore options like Process Builder for automating business processes.

Maintain Data Quality : Regularly clean and maintain your data to ensure accuracy and reliability. Implement data entry standards and utilize tools for data cleaning.

Leverage Salesforce Communities : Build Salesforce Communities to connect with customers, partners, and employees in a new way, enhancing communication and collaboration.

Seek Expert Advice : Consider hiring a Salesforce consultant or partner to get expert advice tailored to your business needs. They can provide insights into best practices and advanced features you may not be utilizing fully.

By focusing on these strategies, you can significantly improve your Salesforce implementation, leading to increased efficiency, better customer relationships, and ultimately, business growth.

How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume

7. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a comprehensive accounting software designed for small to medium-sized businesses, offering features for managing finances, payroll, inventory, and invoices, simplifying the financial management process.

QuickBooks is important for business owners as it simplifies financial management, automates bookkeeping tasks, enables accurate tax filing, and provides insights into financial health, enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency.

How to Improve QuickBooks Skills

Improving QuickBooks for a business owner involves optimizing its setup and usage for enhanced efficiency and insight. Here are concise strategies:

Customize and Automate : Tailor QuickBooks to fit your specific business needs. Automate repetitive tasks such as invoicing and bill payments. QuickBooks Customization

Integrate Applications : Connect QuickBooks with other business tools you use for a seamless workflow. This can include CRM, inventory management, and eCommerce platforms. QuickBooks App Store

Use Advanced Reporting : Leverage QuickBooks Advanced Reporting for in-depth insights into your business performance. Advanced Reporting Guide

Regularly Update Financial Data : Ensure all transactions are up to date for accurate financial reporting and decision-making.

Educate Yourself and Your Team : Take advantage of QuickBooks training and resources to improve your and your team’s proficiency. QuickBooks Tutorials

Review QuickBooks Setup : Periodically review your QuickBooks setup with a professional to ensure it aligns with your current business model and accounting practices. Find a ProAdvisor

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly enhance the utility and efficiency of QuickBooks for your business.

How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume

8. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing involves promoting your business online to reach and engage customers using channels like social media, search engines, email, and websites.

Digital marketing is essential for business owners because it allows them to reach a larger audience more efficiently and cost-effectively than traditional marketing methods. It enables precise targeting, real-time analytics, and direct engagement with customers, leading to increased brand visibility, customer loyalty, and revenue growth.

How to Improve Digital Marketing Skills

Improving digital marketing for a business owner involves several strategic steps aimed at enhancing online presence, engaging with the target audience more effectively, and optimizing marketing efforts for better results. Here are key strategies:

Understand Your Audience : Gain insights into your audience's preferences and behaviors through analytics tools and surveys. Tailor your content and marketing messages to meet their needs. HubSpot's Buyer Persona Guide is a helpful resource.

SEO Optimization : Ensure your website and content are optimized for search engines to increase visibility. Focus on keyword optimization, quality content, and a mobile-friendly website. Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO is a comprehensive resource.

Leverage Social Media : Use social media platforms to connect with your audience. Post engaging content, interact with users, and use targeted ads to reach potential customers. Hootsuite offers a Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard that can help streamline this process.

Content Marketing : Create valuable and relevant content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. This could be through blogs, videos, infographics, and more. The Content Marketing Institute provides a useful Getting Started Guide .

Email Marketing : Use email marketing to stay in touch with your customers. Send newsletters, promotions, and personalized offers to keep your audience engaged. Mailchimp's Email Marketing Guide is a great starting point.

Data Analysis : Regularly analyze your digital marketing data to understand what's working and what isn't. Use tools like Google Analytics to make informed decisions. Google offers a free Analytics Academy to help you understand your data better.

Continuous Learning : Digital marketing trends evolve rapidly. Stay updated by following industry news, attending webinars, and participating in relevant courses. Websites like Digital Marketing Institute offer courses and certifications.

Engage with Influencers : Collaborate with influencers in your niche to reach a wider audience. This can amplify your brand's visibility and credibility. Influencer Marketing Hub provides an insightful Influencer Marketing Guide.

Implementing these strategies requires a commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation to the changing digital landscape. By focusing on these areas, business owners can significantly enhance their digital marketing efforts and achieve better results.

How to Display Digital Marketing Skills on Your Resume

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) involves optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results, increasing organic (non-paid) web traffic. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) encompasses SEO tactics plus paid advertising to enhance visibility in search engine results. For a business owner, both strategies aim to attract more customers online by making your site more visible and accessible to those searching for your products or services.

SEO/SEM is crucial for business owners as it enhances online visibility, drives targeted traffic to their website, improves user experience, and increases conversion rates, ultimately leading to higher sales and competitive advantage.

How to Improve SEO/SEM Skills

Improving SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) involves various strategies to boost your website's visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). Here’s a concise guide:

Keyword Research : Identify relevant, high-volume keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs . Incorporate these keywords naturally into your website’s content, titles, and meta descriptions.

Quality Content : Create valuable, original content that addresses your audience's needs and questions. Use BuzzSumo to analyze content trends in your industry.

On-Page SEO : Optimize your website’s structure and content. This includes using proper tag hierarchy (H1, H2, H3), optimizing images (alt tags), and ensuring mobile-friendliness. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can check your site’s mobile compatibility.

Link Building : Acquire high-quality backlinks from reputable sites within your industry. This can be achieved through guest blogging, collaborations, and creating shareable content. Tools like Moz’s Link Explorer can help analyze your link profile.

Local SEO : For local businesses, optimize your Google My Business listing, ensure NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistency across directories, and gather positive reviews.

SEM Campaigns : Use Google Ads for targeted advertising campaigns. Focus on crafting compelling ad copies and utilizing the right keywords to improve your ad’s Quality Score, thereby reducing your cost per click (CPC).

Analytics and Adjustment : Regularly monitor your SEO and SEM performance with Google Analytics and Google Search Console . Analyze what works and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Remember, SEO and SEM are ongoing processes that require consistent effort and adaptation to ever-changing search engine algorithms and market trends.

How to Display SEO/SEM Skills on Your Resume

10. E-commerce Platforms

E-commerce platforms are digital solutions that enable businesses to sell products or services online, manage inventory, process payments, and handle shipping, providing a comprehensive tool for operating and scaling an online storefront.

E-commerce platforms are crucial for business owners because they provide a cost-effective way to reach a wider audience, enhance customer experience with 24/7 accessibility, streamline sales and inventory management, and gather valuable consumer data for targeted marketing and improved business strategies.

How to Improve E-commerce Platforms Skills

Improving e-commerce platforms involves a multifaceted approach that focuses on enhancing user experience, optimizing website performance, and employing effective marketing strategies. Here are concise strategies for business owners to consider:

Enhance User Experience (UX): Simplify navigation and streamline the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment. Tools like Hotjar can help analyze user behavior and improve UX.

Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is fully responsive and mobile-friendly, as a significant portion of online shopping is done via smartphones. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test can provide insights into your site's mobile performance.

SEO Optimization: Use SEO best practices to improve your site's visibility in search engine results. Tools like SEMRush offer comprehensive SEO analysis and recommendations.

High-Quality Product Images and Descriptions: Invest in professional photography and detailed, keyword-rich product descriptions to enhance appeal and searchability.

Implement Secure Payment Options: Offer multiple, secure payment methods to cater to different customer preferences. Consider using services like Stripe or PayPal for secure transactions.

Leverage Social Media and Email Marketing: Utilize social media platforms to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your site. Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp can help automate and personalize communication with your customers.

Customer Reviews and Testimonials: Encourage and prominently display customer reviews to build trust and credibility.

Analytics and Feedback: Regularly analyze site performance and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for understanding your audience and their behavior on your site.

By focusing on these areas, business owners can significantly enhance their e-commerce platform's performance, ultimately leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction.

How to Display E-commerce Platforms Skills on Your Resume

11. Data Analytics

Data analytics involves examining raw data to draw insights and make informed decisions, helping a business owner understand market trends, optimize operations, and drive strategic planning.

Data Analytics enables businesses to make informed decisions by uncovering patterns, trends, and insights from collected data, optimizing operations, enhancing customer experience, and driving revenue growth.

How to Improve Data Analytics Skills

Improving data analytics in a business setting involves refining data collection, analysis, and interpretation processes to make better-informed decisions. Here's a concise guide:

Define Clear Objectives : Clearly define what you want to achieve with your data analytics efforts. This clarity will guide your data collection and analysis processes.

Invest in the Right Tools : Utilize robust analytics tools that suit your business size and needs. Tools like Tableau , Power BI , and Google Analytics can provide deep insights.

Enhance Data Quality : Ensure the data you collect is accurate and relevant. Implement data validation methods to improve data quality.

Develop Analytics Skills : Encourage or provide training for your team in data analytics. Platforms like Coursera and Udacity offer relevant courses.

Foster a Data-driven Culture : Encourage data-driven decision-making across all levels of your organization. This involves educating your team on the importance of data and its impact on business outcomes.

Leverage Predictive Analytics : Use predictive analytics to forecast future trends and behaviors. This can help in strategic planning and staying ahead of the competition.

Regularly Review Analytics Strategy : The business environment is constantly changing. Regularly review and adjust your analytics strategy to stay relevant and effective.

By focusing on these key areas, you can significantly improve your business's data analytics capabilities, leading to more informed decision-making and better business outcomes.

How to Display Data Analytics Skills on Your Resume

12. Risk Management

Risk management involves identifying, assessing, and prioritizing risks to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unforeseen events, ensuring a business can achieve its objectives and sustain growth.

Risk management is crucial for business owners because it helps identify, assess, and mitigate potential threats to their company's operations and financial stability, ensuring long-term sustainability and growth.

How to Improve Risk Management Skills

Improving risk management for a business owner involves a structured approach to identifying, evaluating, and mitigating risks that could negatively impact the business. Here’s a concise guide:

Identify Risks : Understand the various risks (financial, operational, strategic, compliance-related) that could affect your business. Tools like SWOT analysis can be helpful.

Evaluate Risks : Assess the likelihood and impact of identified risks. This can be done through a Risk Matrix .

Prioritize Risks : Focus on risks that have the highest likelihood and impact on your business. This ensures efficient use of resources.

Implement Risk Controls : Develop strategies to mitigate the prioritized risks. This could involve diversifying investments , improving security measures, or purchasing insurance.

Monitor and Review : Continuously monitor the risk environment and the effectiveness of your risk management strategies. Adjust as necessary.

Educate and Train : Ensure your team is aware of potential risks and knows how to respond. Regular training on risk management is key.

Develop a Risk Management Plan : Document your risk management strategies in a plan. The Small Business Administration offers guidance on creating a risk management plan.

By systematically following these steps, a business owner can effectively manage risks, protecting and enhancing the value of their business.

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Quincy chef is up-and-coming star in the culinary world. Here's how he reached that status

QUINCY – Spots on Plate Magazine’s Chefs to Watch and Bon Appetit’s Best New Restaurants . A victory on the Food Network’s cooking competition Chopped . A nomination for the prestigious James Beard Awards.

These recent accolades have put Quincy chef Laurence Louie on the map as an up-and-coming star and someone to keep an eye on in the culinary world.

Louie opened Rubato , a Hong Kong-style café on Hancock Street in North Quincy, less than two years ago. But he has been putting in the work for more than a decade.

"It seems like we're the new kids on the block, but we've been at this for 10 years," he said in a recent interview at the restaurant. "It's happened pretty organically, and it's great to be here and be part of the conversation."

Professional chef wasn’t always the plan

Louie, 37, grew up in Brookline, but spent a lot of time in Quincy, since his mother owned a Cantonese bakery in North Quincy for more than two decades. His restaurant Rubato is now located where Contempo once stood. His mother was born in Hong Kong and his father is Chinese American.

After earning a master’s degree in American studies from UMass-Boston, Louie worked as the director of a youth program in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood for several years.

"I loved my job, but I wanted to see what other options were out there and what my heart would guide me to," he said.

So he spent a year in Southern China as part of a soul-searching trip of sorts, where he learned Mandarin and worked as an apprentice at a noodle restaurant. He said it was there that he rediscovered a connection to the food of his heritage and realized his passion for cooking for others.

He also met his now-wife, Rary Ratsifa, who was born in Madagascar and grew up in Switzerland, while in Guangzhou. The couple, who lives in Quincy, welcomed their first child, a son named Ivo, at the of March.

Upon returning to the States, he decided to test his culinary skills as a full-time professional cook. He said he sent out dozens of applications, and landed a job working at Oleana, the Mediterranean restaurant of James Beard Award winner Ana Sortun. He said he did some "really good cooking," and started to learn the ins and outs of a professional kitchen.

But at the same time, he and Ratsifa were ready to settle down and be together. She was living in London at the time, so he agreed to move abroad. He landed a job working for acclaimed Chef Selin Kiazim, eventually becoming the head chef of her now-closed Turkish restaurant, Oklava. There he worked long, grueling hours and learned the discipline and efficiency needed to run a large commercial kitchen.

"I got my butt kicked in the best way," he said of his four years working at Oklava.

Pandemic changes trajectory of his career

Louie actually had plans in the works to open his own restaurant in London. A sit-down, full-service restaurant. He hadn't quite broken ground, but investors were lined up when the pandemic hit and the plans fell through, which he called "devastating."

He said that forced him and Ratsifa to pause and think about where they really wanted to settle down.

"It was like, 'Do we want to raise kids in London? Are we going to have British-accent babies?'" he said with a chuckle.

At the same time, his mother was winding down from her decades of owning Contempo. While she had floated the idea of him taking over the space in the past – and he had hinted he wasn't really interested – she brought it up again.

This time, he said the 900-square-foot counter-service space had a new appeal given the state of sit-down dining during the pandemic. After some discussion, he and Ratsifa decided to make the move to Quincy and open Rubato in late summer 2022.

It was a fast hit and sold out without two hours.

"It was a good problem to have," he said.

Ratsifa, who works for the tech company Bazaarvoice, popped into Rubato during the interview. She describes Louie as "extremely ambitious" and generous with his time and food. She said he works hard at whatever he does, whether it's opening a new restaurant or maintaining an international long-distance relationship.

"He gives the same intensity where ever he goes, and it reflects today," she said.

For example, the couple described Louie intensely preparing for his appearance on the Food Network’s cooking competition "Chopped" – from making spreadsheets of the ingredients used in prior episodes, to studying the kitchen set up and utensils provided to contestants. They even had friends provide mystery boxes for him to practice, without disclosing he was going to be on the show.

"We don't leave anything up to luck," said Ratsifa, who co-owns Rubato. "I think we're letting luck happen to us when it's there, but it's 100% work on the back end."

Rubato serves Hong King comfort food with a twist

The menu at Rubato includes classics like steamed char siu baos, congee and house-milled soy milk to more modern offerings like sandwiches on bolo bao buns, which are a staple in Hong Kong cafes. They also serve youtiao, which is like a fried dough stick and was one of Contempo’s most popular items.

Among the most popular items are the fried chicken bolo sandwich and Nutella-filled Hong Kong french toast. Open until 4 p.m., the menu has several dozen items and is considered "daytime" food. On a busy weekend day, Louie said they serve about 100 chicken sandwiches.

Inside, the 900-square-foot restaurant has forest green wall tiles with fluorescent window shades that add a hue of green. A high-top counter runs along the length of the restaurant with stools for those looking to eat there. The restaurant has a total 10 employees, including seven who work there full-time. Rubato also offers catering, though it's not a huge part of the business.

It's located in the the heart of North Quincy, surrounded by other restaurants and storefronts where there is a lot of foot traffic and many other Asian-owned businesses.

The typical sit-down restaurant isn't necessarily his dream anymore

While the natural next question is about his plans for another restaurant, Louie said he'd love to expand to more locations, but keep with the to-go, casual-seating style.

"The dream was to have a sit-down, full-service restaurant, but since opening Rubato, I've fallen in love with counter service," Louie said. "Before the pandemic, the assumption was good food comes with more expensive pricing and full-service experience, but I think that's changed."

For now, he said his focus is on strengthening Rubato.

"Right now my priority is strengthening the operations of this location and making sure we're not jumping at opportunities that aren't the best," Louie said. "Rubato is what got us here, and what we know we do well, and I want to keep fortifying that right now and see where it goes."

Louie said his priorities are serving good food that is accessible for people, paying employees a good wage and offering 40-hour work weeks, all things he said are easier to achieve with counter service. Rubato closes at 4 p.m., giving staff time with their families – something that is typically rare in the restaurant business.

"At the root of it, it's my ideal restaurant down the street," he said. "It's quick. It's affordable. It's delicious and it's things that I feel connected to as a Chinese American kid."

As a restaurant owner, Louie said he taps into the same things that drew him into community organizing.

"It's a way to share something in a meaningful way," he said. "It's like a relationship. You're coming in and we're cooking for you, and that's a beautiful thing."

Cooking isn't his only passion

Louie said he enjoys cooking for friends and family, and especially loved cooking for his wife during her pregnancy.

"For me, it's a love language," he said.

Asked the list of ingredients he always has on hand, Louie said: soy sauce, chili oil, sesame oil, sugar and Shaoxing wine.

But he rarely cooks for himself. If he's on his own for dinner, he said he will opt for takeout or something quick, like noodles and frozen dumplings.

Since opening the restaurant, Louie said he hasn't had much time for hobbies. But in his before life, he said he enjoyed Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop game with elaborate rules and miniature figurines that players hand paint.

"It's super nerdy," he said. "It's in the same caste of nerdiness as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic."

A former TikTok employee says he had a boss he never met, which concealed the platform's close ties to China

• An ex-TikTok worker claims the company hid the involvement of ByteDance, Fortune reported. 
• Evan Turner said he had check-ins with a ByteDance exec in Beijing and never met his American boss.
• The claims come as TikTok fights legislation forcing a sale of the Chinese-owned app.

A former TikTok employee said the company tried to hide the involvement of Chinese owner ByteDance in his work by assigning him to a manager in Seattle, whom he never met.

Evan Turner, a former senior data scientist, told Fortune he was being managed by a Beijing-based ByteDance executive when he joined the company.

Turner worked at TikTok from April to September 2022, Fortune reported. He claimed he was placed under the management of an American manager in Seattle later in his employment. However, he said he was told in a video call that he would actually still work under the Beijing manager, the report said.

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He added that he never met the American manager and claimed the opaque management structure differed from what executives at TikTok maintained about it operating independently from ByteDance.

Turner told Fortune that he met with the Beijing-based executive weekly, which consisted of meetings under seven minutes to report on his progress with tasks. In a comment to Fortune, a TikTok spokesperson disputed the claims from Turner and the outlet's other sources in broad terms."These are completely unfounded assertions brought forth by disgruntled ex-employees," the person said. "It is incredible that Fortune would solely rely on individuals with clear motives and agendas to spread anonymous lies and distortions."   TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Turner was unable to be reached for comment by BI.

The claims come as TikTok and ByteDance try to fend off legislation aimed at forcing a sale.

TikTok is facing a ban in app stores unless ByteDance sells it to non-Chinese owners. A new bill proposing the ban was passed last month by the House.

US lawmakers said in a statement announcing the bill that apps like TikTok are "controlled" by foreign players and "pose an unacceptable risk to US national security." But TikTok has insisted that it's run independently and has tried to distance itself from ByteDance.

Watch: TikTok could be banned in US after House vote

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A new Wilmington wine bar is coming this fall in the site of a former comedy club

A new wine bar next to FranksWine shop in Wilmington is planned to open this fall on the site of a former comedy club.

Business/building owners Frank and Colleen Pagliaro say they hope to open Anura Wine Bar in October after renovating the interior and exterior of the space at 1206 N. Union St., near the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue. It had last been the home of the House of Laffs comedy lounge 

The comedy club closed in November 2022 when the owner was evicted from the Wilmington building for failing to pay $270,000 in back rent and other fees such as legal, utilities, water and sewage, real estate tax and insurance.

Frank Pagliaro has owned the building that also houses his wine/liquor store for 37 years. It was known as Wilmington's longest-running nightclub spot and was once the home of The Alley.

Pagliaro has leased out the 6,500-square-foot space to 12 tenants over the years — the best-known nightclub was probably the former Porky's Dance Club in the 1990s — and he said he no longer is interested in offering long-term leases.

Pagliaro said he and Colleen, a pediatric pharmacist who has worked in restaurants and as a bartender, gained the confidence to open a wine bar after the success of outdoor cafe events they hosted that included live music and food trucks in the parking lot of FranksWine shop during the pandemic.

The Anura name is a nod to the frog logo at FranksWine, known as Jeremiah. Anura refers to any of an order of amphibians comprising frogs, toads, and tree frogs.

The wine bar has a license to serve alcohol, and the Pagliaros plan to serve food. Since June 2023, the kitchen of the space has been used as a commissary by Chef Robbie Jester for his thriving catering business. Jester is known for winning competitions on the Food Network and the Netflix series Pressure Cooker .

New in Delaware: Restaurants offer BYOB social club, dumplings, smoked cocktails and hot chicken, more

The building was originally a bowling alley that opened in 1941. The space is getting a complete interior and exterior overhaul that includes remodeled restrooms, more space for kitchen preparation, a patio that's compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a new bar that will offer a Cruvinet wine system similar to a beer tap.

"We're going to pull out everything and do it the right way," Pagliaro said, adding, "No nightclub."

He said the space could be opened before and after theater events in nearby downtown Wilmington and used for parties, wine tastings and pop-up events.

"There's no way to just do a wine bar and sustain it. We're going to have to have other events here," Pagliaro said.

Upcoming events that the Pagliaro say will give people a glimpse at what's coming this fall include a five-course May 17 wine dinner with food prepared by Jester and beverages from California Winery Owner & Winemaker Gus Kalaris of  Axios Napa Valley Winery . The cost is $125 per person and includes gratuity. Visit frankswine.com

If you want to read more stories from Patricia Talorico, click  here. You can find her on  Instagram , X (formerly Twitter)  and  Facebook . Email [email protected]  or leave a message at 302-324-2861. Sign up for her Delaware Eats newsletter.