How to write the introduction of a business plan
How to write the introduction of a business plan
A business plan is an important document for success for newly emerging as well as scaling or expanding ventures. A business plan is to a business exactly what a building plan is to a building project. Both documents are very important documents in their own rights and without them, all you are left to do is a bunch of guess work, and we all know guess works is a dangerous thing to do in business. Guesswork isn’t a safe practice in business anymore like embarking on a building project without a building plan isn’t only dangerous but can result in a big loss.
Why is a business plan important?
When you are planning to start a business, you need direction, focus, and set goals so you can follow a track that leads to success. You need to know what your business entails and how you will go about meeting your goals and objectives. You also need funding to grow your business. Any serious investor would want to know the feasibility of your business before putting their money in it, and the only documents that provide such information at a glance is the business plan. This is a key reason why it is important to know how to have a plan for your business. A business plan also helps you to have a clear picture of what your product and services is (or should be) all about, “where do you want to take your business and how will you get there?” are the pertinent but difficult questions which a business plan equips you to provide answers to. Furthermore, a business plan creates a very clear roadmap to your business’ future such that trials, guess works, and errors are eliminated.
Writing the introduction for your business plan
When writing your business plan, the introduction is the first thing you’ll write obviously. It must always come first, of course – because it is the introduction – it is that simple. The question that naturally comes to us would be, “Why is it anything of importance for anyone to think of making the introduction of a business plan a subject of discussion? Why does it matter? It should be considered important and crucial because it sets the tone for the entire business plan document. The very first thing anyone reading your business plan sees is the introduction – and the way the introduction of your business plan is written can affect how the person(s) reading (usually an assessor, or a group of assessors) will perceive the rest of the document. Because of this, smart entrepreneurs and business owners spend quality time crafting the opening lines of their business plan in ways that catches the attention, and secures the interest, of the reader within the first 30 seconds of reading or glancing through. This is exactly what you want to achieve with the introduction of your business plan.
The way this part of your business plan is written can determine whether the person reading it will decide to read the plan beyond the very first few lines of the opening paragraph, or not. This is where many business plans fail, which contained great ideas and could have been otherwise read and received the required support.
Introduction versus executive summary.
The introduction of your business plan must never be confused with the executive summary because the two are not the same. The executive summary is an important part of your business plan where you provide a summary of all you have written in your plan in a way that is concise but revealing the most important fact that the investor must be aware of.
The executive summary of a business plan (which should not exceed the recommended size of a page) is written in such a way that, if it is all that a lender or an investor gets to read, it is as good as having all the important information communicated already, at least to get the interest of the reader who can then decide whether he still wants to read the entire document or not. While the executive summary can be seen as the compressed version of your entire business plan document, the introduction of the business plan isn’t a summary of the plan. The introduction part of your business is meant to intimate the reader with the management overview of your business. It spells out the goals of the business, the description of the business, and why you have decided to venture into the business – why you have succeeded so far, or why you think it will succeed in the case of a startup.
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How to write the introduction of a business plan
What should you include in the introduction section of your business plan?
Your business plan introduction should include a description of your business, your goals, and why it is worth pursuing. The business plan introduction focuses more on the things you want to accomplish and why you think you will achieve it, and what you need to accomplish it. In this part of your business plan document, you should attempt to answer the following questions:
- The “Why” of the business: Here, you want to touch on topics like why the business is the way to go and why anyone should consider investing in it.
- Your target customer: It is important to know who are the people that will buy your products and/or services, and why you think they need what you are offering.
- The time factor: Here, you are expected to touch on the reason why this vision cannot wait. You want to convince the investor that this is the right time in history to make the market move that will birth unprecedented breakthroughs in education, science, health, politics, etc. – whatever the field in which you’re trying to drive a change in, is.
- How will your target customer access this new innovation or solution you are creating? What are the processes that will sustain the buying and the selling of this business you are creating, or have created?
- Revenue model: How will it convert to cash, and how much?
- Profitability: Will it be profitable? What are the metrics that you can show to prove the profitability potentials of this new venture you’re trying to introduce?
- Break-Even Point: When will this new exciting venture start making profits? How much sales must be made before you start recording profits and when do you see that happening?
The rare nature of the introduction in business plans
Most of the business plans that we commonly see today do not really have introduction which speaks to the reason why many people do not even know that such a thing exists. While the introduction as we have described it may not be a quite familiar concept because we do not need it in most business plans, there are however some cases in which introduction is compulsory. When you are writing proposals or business plans that contain a lot of information and are bulky, the introduction is of importance, and it can be as much as 2 pages and above, depending on the overall size of the entire document and the project.
If you need a service of a Professional Business plan writer, then Dayo Adetiloye Business Hub is the place to go Call or WhatsApp us now on 081 0563 6015, 080 7635 9735, 08113205312 or send an email to dayohub@gmail.com and we will solve any of your business plan problems.
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