Every type of internet home business needs a plan, no matter how simple and straightforward it is. A plan will clear up your mind and give you a bird’s view of your business. In addition, if you need extra financing or to open a general line of credit with a bank, you need to bring evidence of the fact that you have figured out the most critical aspects related to your business:
⦁ Who your potential clients are
⦁ What the purpose of your products and services is
⦁ How you plan to finance and market your business
⦁ What the expected results of running your business are
These four critical points must be included on your short-term business plan, even if they are there to offer you a benchmark against which you can compare the actual success of your internet home business.
So, today we will help you prepare your own business plan with helpful tips and suggestions. Do not worry, it is much simpler than it sounds – it is just a document that you write on your computer.
So, open your word processor and let’s get started!
1. The Executive Summary
Behind these pompous words hides a very simple concept: you describe what your internet home business is all about, what type of background experience, education and skills helped you develop your products or services, and what type of need they cover on the market.
Quickly outline your business model: how you plan to run your business, find your customers and sell your products. This helps you clarify the objectives of your own business, so you can always refer to this part of your business plan when you believe that things are getting out of hand.
2. Financial Plan
Even if you run your business from home, you need to finance it. Even if you only need to invest in a website, an internet service and a reliable hosting service, these expenses have to be accounted for and provided for.
So, how do you plan to finance your internet home business? Are you self-financing it? If so, specify your sources of income. Is your family participating in these expenses? Add their sources of income. What are your expected initial investment and ongoing costs? Can you keep your business going before it starts generating revenues?
3. Revenues
Now you start talking about how you plan to make money from your business. What is your projected customer base – how large is it, how frequently are they supposed to buy your products and what is the projected growth factor of your initial number of customers?
You should be able to produce a piece of market research that details the type of customer your products are addressed to and how sustainable the sale of your products to the customers is in the long term.
4. Marketing Plan
This is where you go in depth with what you plan to do in order to reach your customers and promote your products. Talk about what you plan to do in terms of social media marketing, Facebook and Twitter ads, marketing campaigns, newsletters and so on. Be as detailed and descriptive as you want, because this will help you stay focused and apply your plan consistently.
5. Exit Plan
Although you may not want to think about this option, you should. Your business plan must include details on how you plan to wind-up your internet home business in case it proves unsuccessful, how much you expect to recover from your investment and what happens to customers with which you are still under contractual obligations (for subscription-based services).
There you have it, this is a simple and functional structure for a business plan, which you can use as guideline when you prepare this document for your internet home business.