Far too many aspiring entrepreneurs jump-start their businesses without taking the time to plan properly. Just as a builder uses a blueprint to ensure a new construction project will be structurally sound, a carefully researched and well-thought-out business plan allows you to determine whether or not your business concept will succeed and make money.

A solid business plan can not only serve as a roadmap to guide your company’s progress, but it can also allow you to test the validity of your business model, research the market, understand your competition, and avoid potential pitfalls. And if you are applying for a loan or seeking investors, a business plan is a must-have to demonstrate that you’ve thoroughly vetted your business’ financial feasibility.

In the end, developing a solid business plan can be the difference between the success or failure of your business. While you should consult with your Family Business Lawyer™ before you open your doors to ensure your company has the needed legal, insurance, financial, and tax (LIFT) foundation needed to survive and thrive, here are seven tips for creating a winning business plan.

Developing a plan to make money is essential, but it’s not the only—nor most crucial—factor. In identifying how you will generate revenue, you must also clarify and communicate why your company exists (its purpose) and what you intend to accomplish (its vision) with your brand.

Your company’s purpose and vision will serve as your organization’s compass for making future decisions at all levels and provide a framework for hiring a team, marketing and selling your services or products, and running your operations. Once you’ve come up with your business’ purpose and vision, you can more easily define what makes your business unique from competitors and how you plan to deliver your product or service to the public.

When creating your plan, it’s vital to understand who else serves the market you plan to serve. While these people are often considered competitors, you may be able to turn them into collaborators. The best part of clarifying your “competition” is that if there is a healthy market for the services or products you want, you’ll likely know that there is a need and desire for your services or products.

Document your research on the competition, identifying the market size, the market share you need, and what will make your product or service better and different from the others.

While your business plan narrative is a broad overview of your company’s purpose and how you plan to fulfill your goals, your “business model” focuses on the specific ways in which you plan to generate revenue. In other words, what are you going to sell, how much are you going to sell it for, and who is going to buy it? This is a critical part of your business plan if you seek financing or investors.

That said, outlining your business model is necessary even if you are funding the business yourself, as you want to ensure that you’re clear on how your investment of time, energy, attention, and money (TEAM resources) will result in returns for you. Indeed, developing financial projections, including an estimate of start-up costs, a break-even analysis, a profit-and-loss forecast, and a cash-flow projection, will help you decide if your business is worth starting or if you need to rethink your concept. We call this process the development of a “Money Map” that doesn’t just take into account your financial outlays and objectives but your time outlays and objectives.

Be specific with your goals for yourself and your company, including time-based benchmarks you feel confident you can meet.

Setting defined goals sharpens your focus and allows you to track your company’s progress as you grow your operation.

Look out three years into the future, document the vision -- both big picture and micro down to the numbers -- and then walk that back to 1-year goals that will assure your 3-year success. And finally, walk that one-year vision back to quarterly actions that will get you to your one-year goals. We call this “practical magic” because each time we’ve walked our clients through it, we’ve seen them create magic.

While you may be a whiz at delivering your core product or service, you are likely too close to all of it to create your plans on your own. We can help you use “practical magic” like a 3-year strategic vision planning process and a “money map” to create a business plan that will give you the confidence to know what you need to do, when you need to do it, how you need to fund it, and the next steps you need to take from quarter to quarter to achieve your big vision.

Then, we can help you design your legal, insurance, financial, and tax (LIFT) structures to match and support your vision.

From setting up your financials and creating solid agreements to managing taxes and buying insurance, we can support you. As your Family Business Lawyer™, we can ensure you have the foundational legal, insurance, tax, and financial (LIFT) systems in place, so you can focus your time and energy on growing your new business. Schedule a LIFT Start-Up Session with us before launching your new company, and then, as your operation grows, meet with us again to implement the full suite of systems offered in our LIFT Foundation System and Toolkit. Contact us today to get started.

This article is a service of a Personal Family Lawyer™. We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule.

The content is sourced from Personal Family Lawyer® for use by Personal Family Lawyer firms, a source believed to be providing accurate information. This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA, tax, legal, or investment advice. If you are seeking legal advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own separate from this educational material.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.