Home > For Businesses > Sanlam Cobalt > Sanlam Cobalt for Start-Ups > Create Your Business Plan

Before a lending organisation will even consider financing your business venture, it will want to see that some thought and research had gone into your venture. The common format for showing your pre-venture preparation is called a business plan.

Most business plans follow a standard format designed to force you to carefully think through the most important issues affecting the success of your prospective business. It also helps to identify possible weaknesses. Treat this document very seriously – and utilise this handy guide to help you draw up your own business plan.

Drawing up an in-depth business plan is no small task. However, with the help of our business plan guide, a step-by-step set of instructions, this task will be much easier. The guide deals with these aspects:

Table of contents:

• Making time and place to plan for your business

• Checking for sustainability and defining your service or product

• Planning your location, equipment and staff requirements

• Putting together your business team, salaries and training

• Formulating your mission statement

• Finding market research sources

• Researching your industry

• Researching your target market

• Researching your opposition

• Defining your market strategy

• Marketing: your offering

• Marketing: your promotions

• Sales methods and monitoring

• Budgeting

• Credit control

• Balance sheets

• Cash management

• Keeping financial records

• Strength and weakness analyses

• Writing your business plan

• Drawing up a 12-week plan

What needs to be done before I can complete a Business Plan?

The Business Plan Book

This e-book is widely regarded as one of the best preparatory publications on writing a business plan. It deals extensively with the all-important background information required for a business plan – everything that potential financiers may require before considering a business loan.

The book further provides all the tools and framework needed to plan a successful and sustainable business by taking entrepreneurs through all the steps - from idea to implementation – in a structured and disciplined manner, forcing you to think through critical issues you may never have considered otherwise, before attempting the actual writing of the business plan itself.

More than just a business-plan writing aid, the Business Plan Book constructively helps the would-be business owner or existing business owner wanting to expand his/her business to identify and deal with potential problems before they arise – and so contributes to the eventual success of a new business.

Once you have completed the Business Plan Book you should have sufficient information available to populate the specific finance application of the financial institution(s) of your choice. Their finance application forms can usually be sourced from their website or closest branch.

The Business Plan Book is proudly brought to you by Sanlam Cobalt, Sanlam’s portfolio of financial solutions for business owners.

You can download the complete Business Plan Book or specific chapters of the Business Plan Book at NO COST to you.