Page 94 - The UnCaptive Agent

PLANNING 67

The Business Plan

A business plan is a relatively short document that
describes the business that you are in, the type of prod-
ucts you sell, and the type of clients you seek to attract.
The plan should detail how you will get these clients
and how you will service them. The plan explains how
you expect to be paid for the services you provide, how
much money you expect to make, and over what period.
It should include a pro forma (budget) financial projec-
tion. That’s it. It’s pretty simple.
A business plan isn’t a fantasy. It’s not a bunch of
projections without a solid demonstration of how they
will be accomplished. If you say in a business plan
that you’re going to do a million dollars in revenue
in your first year, you need to back that up with how
you’re going to get that million dollars. Your plan, to
paraphrase Anatole France, needs to be believable. It
needs to be something that you believe, and it needs to
be something that others will believe as well.
Who is the audience for the business plan? The
first person is you. You are writing your business plan
to convince yourself that this business that you’re
going to start is going to work. The audience of you
is important because if you don’t believe you’re going
to be successful, nobody else will either. Other audi-
ences for the plan include your potential partners and
employees. If you will need to hire people to make
your business work for the first two or three years of
its existence (before you have proven that you will be
successful), you won’t be the most attractive employer
for the best employees in the marketplace. Unless you
can sell them on your vision, they will work elsewhere.
For the startup agency, I think it’s very important to
write the business plan with the understanding that