Every successful business needs one. If your small business doesn’t have one, you leave yourself open to all manner of risk including having no idea where you are headed or how you expect to get there.

Your business plan is, perhaps, the most important tool you can have that will allow your business to grow and thrive. Updating it regularly is also a huge help because as you grow and situations change and emerge, you will need to chart a new plan to accommodate the new growth and the new risk.

• The first thing any solid business plan must have is an Executive Summary. This is, basically, what it says it is. This is a summary of your business and what it does. It lets the reader know what you want and is a concise breakdown of how you are going to get there.
• Next you want to outline and basically describe the type of business you have and what it is you are selling. This is where you, also, begin to truly try to assess and analyze your business. You need to see your business as other may see it. These will include immediate goals and goals you have set for the businesses a few years down the road.
• You must include a section on the management of your company as well as how it intends, or already is, operating. This will include a market analysis and a breakdown of your competitors. In addition, you must recognize the risk involved and have firm strategies in place for how to mitigate them. You must know where your potential customers are and how you intend to get them to buy. You need to recognize and state the strengths of your business over those of your competitor. What will distinguish you?
• Finally, you need to have a handle on your current and future financials. What are your cash flow projections? What reserves do you have? What type of funding, and how much, are you going to need in the near future? Investors, especially venture capitalists, want to see hard numbers and they tend to become involved with day to day operations so how much control over your company are you willing to surrender? Where will your cash come from if it is not generated through sales?

Putting together, and regularly updating, your business plan is a vital tool to your small business success. Recognizing the risk, and developing a plan to mitigate and eliminate it, is the one sure way you will grow and thrive.