business plan questions what would you add?

[Team Gopher]

What would you add to these business plan questions?



Business Description
- Give a one paragraph description of your business.
- Where is your business located?
- What services does your business offer?
- What value does it add to the marketplace?

Management Abilities
- What are your qualifications?
- How will your experience contribute to the success of your business?

Business Strategy
- What are the key strategic opportunities you have identified in your marketplace?
- How will your business take advantage of these strategic opportunities more effectively than your competition?
- How do you intend to maintain your competitive edge?
- Describe the key challenges you face and how will you overcome them?

Legal Structure
- Will your business operate as a sole proprietor, partnership, corporation or an LLC?
- How will your legal structure decrease your business's exposure to risk?

Financial
- How much will you personally invest in your business?
- How much money are you seeking from banks?
- How much money are you seeking from private investors?
- How long until you plan to break even?
- How long until you plan on making a profit?
- What will your start-up costs be? Be specific, describe each and the cost.
- What is your sales forcast for each month of the entire year? List each month's goal.
- What will be your operating expenses? Be specific, describe each and the cost.
- What will your fixed costs be? Be specific, describe each and the cost.


Mission Statement
- What is your business?
- How will your business succeed?
- What values are important to your business?
- How does your business improve the lives of your customers' and employees'?

Marketing Slogan
- What is your marketing slogan?

Market Analysis
- What are the positive NATIONAL trends that will affect your business?
- What are the negative NATIONAL trends that will affect your business?
- How will you take advantage of the positive trends and deal with the negative trends?

- What are the positive REGIONAL trends that will affect your business?
- What are the negative REGIONAL trends that will affect your business?
- How will you take advantage of the positive trends and deal with the negative trends?

- What are the positive LANDSCAPE INDUSTRY trends that will affect your business?
- What are the negative LANDSCAPE INDUSTRY trends that will affect your business?
- How will you take advantage of the positive trends and deal with the negative trends?

Customer Analysis
- Who are your target customers? (age range, education level, occupations, average home value)
- What do your customers want?

Competition Analysis
- Who are your competitors?
- How many employees do they have?
- What is their estimated sales volume?
- What services do they offer?
- What is the quality of their product?
- What is the price range of their product?
- Who are there customers?
- What are their strengths?
- What are their weaknesses?
- Are they a direct or indirect competitor?

Labor
- How many employees will you start with? Full or p/t?
- What will the hourly labor wage paid to employees be?
- What will your total annual labor hours be?

Equipment
- What equipment will be needed?
- How much will it cost to obtain this equipment?
- Where will you store the equipment?
- How much will it cost to store the equipment?

Advertising / Promotion
- How will you advertise or promote your business?
- How much will you spend doing each per year?

[promower]

Good post. Dont think I have much to add to that, actually theres a few you mentioned that I will add to my own. Thanks Gopher

[procut]

I think what you have would be more than sufficient.

[Team Gopher]

Thanks promower and procut,

I will post more to this in the future if I get any further feedback.

[LB1234]

What books are you getting this information from? It would be nice to reference them.

[LLCO]

Good stuff here.. I do not see proforma financials and a 5 yr plan which are all pretty standard.

What is your thoughts on the best way to gather the competitive information?