Managing a business is not a simple and easy task. You must know the customers, market, competitors, and products. The business requires marketing, financing, producing, and strategy. You can put all of them in one document, and the business plan is done. You can use this kind of plan for two main purposes, for starting a new business or expanding the existing one. To make a proper plan, you must have a business plan outline.
Business Plan Outline Basic Ideas
The outline is similar to the pillar or key point. You can enlist the items that will be the core content in the business plan. That’s the main idea for having this kind of outline in the first place. Without the proper outline, you may end up creating a plan with unnecessary items. That’s why the plan becomes necessary and important.
Business Plan Outline and Content
The outline has items for preparing content. You can add more or reduce them. The following list shows the things you find in the business plan outline.
- Objectives
You can create a business plan because it has the objectives. The plan is necessary when you start a new business. On the other side, you can use the plan to expand the business. Your resources are limited, and the plan is the proposal to attract investors.
- Market, trend, competitor, and customer
The plan has extensive analysis in various fields, such as market, competitor, and customer. You can conduct research and gather data. From the analysis, you know your business position in the market. This part will have long pages, but you should have a short version.
- Business strategy
Business strategy is the key section that investors see. You should explain how to manage the business. The most important thing is whether your strategy can generate profit or not. You should make a realistic method to get more profit.
- Finance and budget
The plan includes finance, funding, and budgeting. This part will explore all the financial aspects of your business. Budgeting explains the liability, debt, revenue, profit, and balance sheet.
- Review and evaluation
The last part is a review to evaluate all items in the outline. You should check a certain part that requires an update.
Business Plan Outline Template and Samples
The outline and template is only a tool. You must prepare the contents. More samples for the business plan outline will be useful to understand how this plan works.
- Restaurant business plan
- Non-profit business plan
- Simple business plan
- Small business plan
- Hotel and tourism business plan
From the list above, some templates are for specific businesses. The rest is for general ones that can be adjusted with any business scale. Choose the plan that’s capable to fulfill your preference. If the basic is not enough, you must hire the professionals. When creating a business plan, you have to create an executive summary.
Business Plan Outline Design and Layout
The plan represents your credentials and credibility. The investors will see the layout as the sign and indication of whether you are the right person for handling the business or not. The business plan outline uses the official structure with the formal layout and additional data. 
