How to write a business plan.

Discover what a business plan is and how to write one with Adobe Express.

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Starting a business can be an exciting and challenging time – which is why a business plan is important to set timelines and expectations and keep you to your aims.

Writing a business plan is one of the first steps in launching your venture. It can inform your strategy, set goals and help you pitch your ideas to potential investors.

In this guide, we’ll help you understand what a business plan is, what to include, and how to write one with the help of Adobe Express’ free tools and resources.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document that outlines your business aspirations and your roadmap to achieve them. You might need to write a business plan when starting a new business, scaling your business or even during a rebrand.

A business plan captures everything you need to know about the direction your business is moving in. It includes everything from your initial ideas to your ultimate goals, both short and long-term. It also features your financial details, including budgets and projected outcomes and gives a detailed overview of the business structure, as well as your marketing, sales and people management strategies.

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Why is a business plan important?

Before you learn how to write a business plan, knowing why having one is important can be helpful when describing your business and getting started on the right foot. Here are five benefits of writing a business plan:

What to include in a business plan.

So, what does a business plan look like? It can be an overwhelming question when you’re starting, but here are some key things you need to factor in, consider and include when you write a business plan:

How to write a business plan in 10 steps.

Learning how to write a good business plan is all in the detail – it’s about knowing what to include step-by-step to ensure it’s a comprehensive representation of your business, audience and goals. You can then use Adobe Express to turn your business plan into a presentation, or other format to share with the relevant stakeholders.

Take a look at the essential steps to follow to get to this stage:

1. Plan and write your executive summary.

A common way to write an executive summary for a business plan is to keep it efficient while offering a comprehensive overview of your business plan. It needs to clearly explain the business and business goals to anyone you present it to.

What you include will be unique to your business and circumstances, but a summary typically includes:

2. Add in your company overview.

The company overview will swiftly follow your executive summary with an eye-catching summation of your business, what you do and why it’s important to you and your customers. You may wish to include:

3. Conduct a competitive analysis.

A detailed competitive analysis of your industry can help with a comprehensive understanding of the market and where your business services fit in the landscape. This section can work to highlight your expertise and show potential investors and partners your knowledge while underlining why they should come on board.

You may want to include details such as:

4. Clearly outline your business structure.

What a business plan looks like depends on each individual entity – and the same goes for your business structure. Your business success will depend on your people and your teams, no matter how good your product or service is, so you want to get this across when you write your business plan. Include:

5. Explain what you do.

Establish your brand identity and tell the reader why your services or products are unique. Explain who and what your services serve, what problem they solve and why your business benefits the market and customers.

This section should also include the ins and outs of your operations, how you get to market and what you need. Depending on the product or service, you might also consider including timelines to market, patent details, improvement plans and details for third parties to get in touch.

6. Write out your customer segmentation.

Analyse your target audience and organise into categories to show who and what your services serve. Use this section to show how well you know your audience and understand its needs and pressure points. Your competitive analysis will help inform this section, so take advantage of all the data you’ve discovered to make this section shine.

7. Discuss your marketing and sales strategy.

How do you plan to market your business and ultimately sell your products and services to consumers? This section is your chance to lay out all your sales and marketing plans to show how you will succeed. You might wish to include:

8. Explain operational plans.

Offering an insight into how the business will run day-to-day will help you stay true to your goals and aims while showing potential partners, suppliers and investors how organised your plans are. This section should include details of the resources you need to achieve your goals, the logistics that need to be involved and how the business’s resources will be managed.

9. Add in financial planning details.

A key aspect of why you need to write a business plan is providing details of your financial situation and future financial plans. You must outline your plans to ensure the business turns a profit and show how your strategies will help investors make a profit on their investments.

This section will clearly show the financial status of the business, how much support you currently have, how much you need and where financial backing could take the business. Consider including:

10. Wrap up with a closing statement and appendix.

Ensure you tie loose ends together and highlight important information you want to underline. Give a full yet concise closing statement to wrap up your business plan with clarity. Then, include a well-organised appendix that includes supporting documents such as CVs, data charts, permits and contracts and important contact details.

Free editable business plan examples.

Tasks
presentation
Topics
business, business plan AND circle, blue, city, marketing plan, business strategy AND growth, report, marketing, consulting AND plan, media, strategic planning
Q

Collection ID

(To pull in manually curated templates if needed)

Orientation


(Horizontal/Vertical)

Vertical

Width


(Full, Std, sixcols)

sixcols

Limit


(number of templates to load each pagination. Min. 5)

6
Animated
All

Sort

Most Viewed

Rare & Original

Newest to Oldest

Oldest to Newest

Newest to Oldest
Locales
GB or EN

Premium


(true, false, all) true or false will limit to premium only or free only.

false

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Good to know.

What does a business plan look like?

All plans follow a similar structure, but how a business plan looks overall will be determined by your organisation, structure and industry. You will include an executive summary, competitive and market analysis, details of your business and its structure and a financial summary.

If you want your business plan to be organised and eye-catching, check out the Adobe Express business plan templates for free design inspiration. You can then customise to fit your brand.

How long does it to take to write a business plan?

How long it takes you to write a business plan will depend on the details you wish to include. You will likely need to do time-consuming research to populate each section with comprehensive information. Research and the subsequent write-up could take a few days – but remember this document is essential to the management and growth of your business.

Is Adobe Express free?

Yes, our free plan offers many core features including thousands of templates, photo editing and effects, animation, and 5 GB of storage. See our  pricing page for details and to compare plans.