4 Steps to Write an Effective Business Plan in 60 Minutes or Less

Writing a business plan is a task that many small business owners shy away from – not because they don’t want a plan, but because it seems like a daunting exercise. What goes into an effective business plan? Doesn’t it have to have an array of confusing numbers and professionally designed graphs? How many hours will you have to spend? And once it’s made, what do you do with it?

Fortunately, the answers to these questions are easier than you might think!

*I will offer one caveat before we get started: if the purpose behind creating your business plan is to gain funding from a bank or attract investors, you will want to build a more data-driven, professional business plan. However, this format can serve as a strong draft to work from!

If your purpose is to create a plan that you can use to develop your goals, strategize ways to reach them, and keep track of your growth, this format will work perfectly. You’ll be able to develop it in an hour or less (or an afternoon if you want to dig deeper) and it will grow with you as your business progresses.

Ready to get started? Just follow the steps below! Each is based on one of the 4 Pillars of Successful Business Management, a system that equips you to consider, plan, and manage each area of your business so that it grows in a profitable, sustainable way.

Pillar 1: Planning (10 minutes)

There are four main “pillars,” or primary areas, that will go into building your small business plan. The first one is planning – the what, why, and when that everything else will be built upon.

Set a timer for 5 minutes and jot down your answers to the following:

• What do you want to build?
• What is your mission?
• What are the core values and culture you want to develop?

It’s fine if this is messy – at this stage you’re just jotting down ideas to create a structure. You can clean it up later!

Now, set your 5-minute timer again and answer the following:

• Short term needs (this should include cash flow)
• Long term needs (consider staffing needs and long-term financial goals)

Again, this is just a draft. Don’t worry about getting it perfect!

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Pillar 2: Sales and Marketing (20 Minutes)

Once you determine the foundational goals and needs of your business, you’ll want to think through your sales goals and some initial marketing ideas to bring in leads.

Set your timer for 10 minutes and answer the following:

• What are you selling and what will your services or products be priced at?
• How many will you need to sell to reach your quarterly sales goals?
• How will you make these sales? (In person? Online? Over the phone or Zoom?)

Sales are necessary for your business to grow – and in order to have people to sell to, you’ll need to put some marketing in place. Set your timer for another 10 minutes and jot down any and all ideas that come to mind.

• Who is your audience, and where are you likely to find them?
• Will you utilize social media? YouTube? An email list? Networking groups or advertising in a trade magazine?

The point of marketing is to find the people that need your services or products, gain their trust, and draw them into your Sales System. This will obviously be an area that you will come back to over time, but simply taking 10 minutes to write out your ideas will make a huge difference!

Pillar 3: Management (20 Minutes)

This is another large category, so we’re going to break it down into a few different smaller areas.

The first is hiring. At first, you’ll likely wear a lot of the hats in your business, but as you grow you’ll need to bring on team members. This is an exciting but intimidating phase – who will you hire? How will you onboard them? How will you delegate the right tasks to them?

Grab your timer and set it for 10 minutes to answer the following questions:

• Which positions do you think you’ll need to hire for in the next 4 quarters? (The answer will depend on which phase of business growth you’re at.)
• What will you need to do to prepare for onboarding your new team members? (Jot down some vital tasks they will need to learn and some ideas for how they will learn them.)

Great job! Now it’s time to move on to workflows – describing in plain English (either as a paragraph or a diagram) how you do what you do. This is an area you’ll come back to, but getting your initial ideas down is often the hardest part.

Set your timer for 5 minutes and sketch out the flow of work in your business. This is also a great way to find any gaps you weren’t aware of!

Then, jot down 3-5 improvements you would like to make over the next year.

Finally, set your timer for 5 minutes and make notes on any equipment, software, or other tools you and your team need to streamline your activities.

If you have a physical office, this may include things like more space, equipment, or furniture. If you have a remote or hybrid team, this will probably include software, training, or some outsourcing.

Almost done! It’s time to move on to the fourth Pillar.

Pillar 4: Financial Controls

A strong CEO is a strong money manager – and that won’t happen without strong financial controls. If you don’t know where your money is going, how can you manage it well?

Set your timer for 10 minutes and map out your current financial controls as well as what you will need as you grow:

• Who is on your Financial Team? A good Bookkeeper? A CPA?  Are you ready for a CFO?
• How often do you meet with them, and do you have systems in place they can use to help you become a great money manager?
• Which financial reports are you reviewing, and do you know how to use them to plan? Are you reviewing both lag and lead metric reports?

If you notice that you’re missing some items, take a moment to set some concrete goals. What do you want to have done in the next 1-3 quarters?

Putting It All Together

Now, take a look at your notes as a whole. Chances are, you have a lot of material to work with – and that’s the point of this exercise!

All of this information is in the back of your mind, but if you’re like most business owners, it’s just too easy to get tied up in the day to day of running your business. If you don’t take the time to get them down on paper, they’ll never happen!

Your notes are probably kind of messy, and that’s ok. We have a free Business Plan Template to help you make sense of them! Just click below – you’ll also find a free video training to go with it if there’s anything you would like to review or dig deeper into!

Once you fill out your Business Plan Template, we’re happy to give you a free review and ideas to refine it. You’ll find the instructions at the link below!