Business Plan Basics

[Huntley]

Business Plan Basics
By Palo Alto Software, Inc.

(Note from the editor: Although this article is not specifically written to those of you writing a martial arts business plan, remember that lenders and investors are all looking for the same things no matter what the business is. I suggest you read this article carefully, and if you're stuck, refer to the resources listed at the end of the article.)

The best way to show bankers, venture capitalists, and angel investors that you are worthy of financial support is to show them a great business plan. Make sure that your plan is clear, focused and realistic. Then show them that you have the tools, talent and team to make it happen. Your business plan is like your calling card, it will get you in the door where you'll have to convince investors and loan officers that you can put your plan into action.

Once you have raised the money to start or expand your business, your plan will serve as a road map for your business. It is not a static document that you write once and put away. You will reference it often, making sure you stay focused and on track, and meet milestones. It will change and develop as your business evolves.

Do I need a business plan?


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Not everyone who starts and runs a business begins with a business plan, but it certainly helps to have one. If you are seeking funding from a venture capitalist, you will certainly need a comprehensive business plan that is well thought out and contains sound business reasoning.
If you are approaching a banker for a loan for a start-up business, your loan officer may suggest a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, which will require a business plan. If you have an existing business and are approaching a bank for capital to expand the business, they often will not require a business plan, but they may look more favorably on your application if you have one.

Reasons for writing a business plan include:

Support a loan application
Raise equity funding
Define and fix objectives and programs to achieve those objectives
Create regular business review and course correction
Define a new business
Define agreements between partners
Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes
Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion
What's in a business plan?


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A business plan should prove that your business will generate enough revenue to cover your expenses and make a satisfactory return for bankers or investors.

Executive Summary--features the highlights of your plan and sells your idea in two pages or less.
Company Summary--a factual description of your company, ownership, and history.
Products (or Services or both)--describes your products and/or services and how they stand out from competitive products and services.
Market Analysis-provides a summary of your typical customers, competitive landscape, market size, and expected market growth.
Strategy and Implementation-describes how you will sell your product, how you will put your plan into action, and establishes milestones.
Management Summary-provides background on the management team, their experiences, and key accomplishments.
Financial Plan-contains key financials including sales, cash flow, and profits.
What makes a successful business plan?

A well thought out idea
Clear and concise writing
A clear and logical structure
Illustrates management's ability to make the business a success
Shows profitability
How do you write a business plan?


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Sitting down looking at a blank computer screen as you prepare to start your business plan can be daunting. You may want to look at some alternatives that will make the process a bit easier.
Hire a Professional
A professional consultant will create the business plan for you, but you still have to be prepared to think through your business and understand the underlying concepts in your business idea. You will have to work closely with the consultant to ensure that he or she develops a good plan that accurately represents your business or business idea. You can find a list of business planning consultants at www.planconsultants.com.

Buy a Book
There are many good books on the market that will help you to understand what needs to go into a good business plan. You can read Timothy Berry's "Hurdle: the Book on Business Planning".

Use Business Planning Software
A good business planning software package will provide you with an outline for a well-developed, objective-based and professional business plan. Software packages will remove the problem of starting from scratch by structuring your plan for you. The software should ask you the right questions that will pull out the most important underlying concepts within your business idea. Find out more about the leading software package on the market, Business Plan Pro.

[stabasit]

Business Plan Defined

Hi all,

A business plan is an extract of business activities and is normally intended for presenting in front of stake holders, entrepreneurs and financial institution like banks, in anticipation of attracting investment to raise capital. It should contain extensive material related to following:

1. Industry Analysis
2. Marketing Plan
3. Marketing Strategy
4. Marketing Mix
5. Operational Plan
6. Financial Plan and many others

It is a difficult job, but not very much if you have extensive business and industry knowledge. A better idea could be hiring a professional business plan writer who can do that with ease by using expertise, hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge of industry. We at iSource Biz can provide you all kind of business writing services such as

1. Business Plan
2. Marketing Plan
3. Financial Plan
4. Business Reports
5. Business Presentations and many other

For more information please visit our website:
Outsource, Outsourcing, Offshore Business Plan Services

[jannifer]

Hi
I suggest you use a business plan to set concrete goals, responsibilities, and deadlines to guide your business.A good business plan assigns tasks to people or departments and sets milestones and deadlines for tracking implementation.high interest savings
A practical business plan includes 10 parts implementation for every one part strategy.As part of the implementation of a business plan, it should provide a forum for regular review and course corrections.Good business plans are practical.

[jasmin]

Make sure that your plan is clear, focused and realistic. Then show them that you have the tools, talent and team to make it happen.

[Scott Bolinger]

AAA, ya don't have to through allthat crap. It's not rocket science. You do a rough outline of what kind of business your going to , write up your market demand and a projection of possible earnings. Create a business name, then go to the IRS and get a tax ID number for your business. After that, you go to the SBA and get information from therm, they'll have fair amount of information on how to write up a business plan. Your city may also have a development coorperation that may provide that for you. If you have the money to hire someone to do everything for you, that's greate, but most people starting out don't have that type of cash flow to blow. If you don't have information on what your earnings can be, and do some sort of projection, you could probably get some numbers from another organization. And also keep handy your last 3 years in taxes.

here is a rough draft of a business plan. This is published in my third book. What I was looking at, is a building that someone was going to give me, thats also listedi as a Historyal building and needed alot of work.

Busyness plan



Type of Business:
This will be a diversified sports program.
 GYM: We will start off with both Boxing and KickBoxing programs with options to expanding the arts and have rented time frames for other coaches. The primary teaching of the arts is for individuals interested in getting in shape or for sport martial arts. We will support and promote sport tournament fighting such as point karate tournaments, Tae Kwon Do Events, amateur and pro kickboxing events, pro and amateur boxing, grappling events and MMA events. We will be kept informed of USA Boxing (amateur boxing club), USA TaeKwonDo, CornHusker state games, Colorado Karate Association, Dynamic Martial arts tournaments, Ring Wars, WRKF continuous point sparring events, local gym events and Combat sports events and regulations. Students won’t be limited to just traditional training techniques. Out side of learning about the different combat sports, individuals will learn toning techniques, such as plyometrics and weight lifting.
 Store: There will be a store in the building in which we will sell protein and vitamins, sparing equipment, apparel, training manuals, and competition weapons.
 Publishing Company: This program will help coaches and athletes with publishing training manuals
 Apartment: there are apartments above the store that will be rented out
 Mentoring program: eventually we will add a mentoring program for youths. Martial arts and boxing has proven time and time again to be a structured program that helps promote good will. After the business is established we will be looking at employing a individual that’s has the college experience in human services to start a mentoring program and tie it into one of our training programs.


Owners Experience in This field:
• 25 years instructing boxing and kickboxing with two published books
• Training as a structural technician in the US AirForce
• Certificate in Fitness and Nutrition
• 9 years in property investments and rental properties
• 2 years as a field inspector


Market Demand:
There are currently 3 martial arts schools in Alliance, and about 6 schools in a 60-mile radius, with several personal trainers. Not one of them is specifically designed to take someone from a amateur athletics status to being a successful professional athlete. And at this time there are no martial arts instructors in this area that takes the time to put on martial arts events. Years ago there was a Shotokan instructor that pushed the point tournament competition in this area, and there were plenty of tournaments throughout the year. Right now there’s no organization between the black belts of different arts to start creating competition in western Nebraska. Through this club we will have that organization, and keeping in contact with the surrounding schools will be on a regular basis. At the moment the closest karate tournament is in Rapid City, about a 200 mile drive. On the boxing side the common events are located in Gordan NE, Pine Ridge, Cheyenne Wy, Denver CO and Lincoln NE.
Most karate and tae kwon do program teach the quick point system which is what karate point tournaments are based on. Some athletes jump from there to full contact competition or MMA, but with the WRKF, we will have a form of competition that is in between. Which will be a light contact competition lasting 3 rounds to better the skills and endurance of each athletes. There are know other organization that fallows the WRKF continuous point sparring system, but many schools have shown interest in the program.
In Alliance, we haven’t had a specialized protein and vitamin shop in over 20 years, this will be a good addition to the city. At this time, for quality product most people either go out of town to get there products or they order products online. Having this shop will help with keeping people buying in town.
At this time there is no publishing company in town. The last publishing company that we have had in town was roughly 35 years ago with “Iron Man”. This business will specifically help coaches and athletes with getting there training manuals published. Most publishing companies are very costly, I will provide affordable publishing.

Mission statement:
The goal of the Bolinger Boxing and KickBoxing program is to teach the sport of fighting as a respected, honorable and fun sport, with emphasis on good sportsmanship. The boxing and martial arts programs tend to attract youth and young adults who don’t participate in “mainstream” activities offered in the school and local YMCA (gulf, baseball, football, etc). There is a need for many youngsters in Alliance to have a positive sport experience with positive adult role models. Some of our goals are to develop leadership and to develop fighter’s techniques to the utmost of their abilities and being flexible in the style of competition that the athlete wants to compete in. Give the athlete follow threw on techniques and a powerful drive to succeed. Learning follow through and drive is character traits of successful sportsman as well as successful businessmen. We will also instruct the importance of physical fitness. Being part of this organization, the young athletes will learn healthy behaviors, i.e., to avoid violent confrontations, and to stay away from alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs and steroids. Martial arts have been proven to also impacted other sports, adding flexibility, proper balance, strength, hand/eye coordination and control. This is a community based fighting club with participants ranging in the ages of 8 – 35 years old. Competition boxing and martial arts matches take place at the local, state, regional and national level. We will be working with and support organizations such as USA Boxing, USA TaeKwonDo, Combat Sports, WarriorRage KickBoxing Federation, Colorado Karate Association, RingWars, and CornHusker State games

Required Equipment each student will need to have:

Kickboxing
One white GI (Karate uniform) ( a lot of karate and TaeKwonDo meets are traditional style meets in which you could only wear a white GI, so having at least one white gi would be a must.)
Groin cup
Karate gloves – covered with vinyl or leather (if competing in point tournaments)
Instep pads – covered with vinyl or leather
Shin pads
Mouth peace

Boxing
Groin protector
Mouth peace
Shorts
Boxing Jersey
Boxing Gloves for competition ( check with your coach on size)
Bag gloves


As a instructor, I always keep extra equipment around for my students to use. That way they don’t have to pay for classes, then dump another 200 to 300 dollars into equipment and then pay for their license. A lot of people can’t afford that. What I push for around the gym is, come to class with cloths you feel comfortable working out in, but it’s also a good idea to take some sweets and a hoody just in case it gets cold. Just remember, your there to teach and build people into professional fighters and athletes, your not there to teach how to be a fashion model.

Current Development and Expense:
There is a building at 206 Box Butte in Alliance, that will be donated to Scott Bolinger to create the Bolinger GYM. The building is centrally located for people to easily get to.

There is a lot of construction work needing done:

1) Needs a new roof: $10,000
2) Needs brick work done on the outside of the building on the south side: $1000
3) Will need a rack for the punching bags: $1000
4) Interior will need painted: $200
5) Shelves: $300
6) Some pluming and electrical work may need to be done: $1500
7) Carpet building: $1000
8) Mats to train on: $3000
9) Solar panels: $2000

Products:
Protein and Vitamins: $2000
Sports equipment: $500


Expense:
Natural Gas: 0
Electric: $75 to $500 per month
Liability Insurance: $450
Building insurance: $450
Taxes: $145.58
Internet: $45 per month


Value of Building:
$7,692 taxable value


Closing statement:
We see the GYM as a place that can be open to various sports groups, such as the weight lifters, aerobics, gymnastics, dance class, and many other combat sports etc. Martial arts need a central place in Western Nebraska and the Bolinger GYM can be that central place. That don’t mean well will control it, but it does mean we will contribute to the professionalism and promotions of the sport.



Start up Cost

Plywood 25 X 65 (51 sheets at $27 a peace) $1377
Rolled roofing (23 rolls at $41.23 per roll) $952.59
Repair upper level roof (tar, snow cover and flashing) $600
Solar system (photovoltaics) $2000
Brick repair $1000
Paint for inside $200
Paint for outside $200
Shelves $300
Plumbing and Electric repairs $1500
Protein and Vitamin supplies $2000
Sports Equipment $500
Insurance $900
Total $11,329.59


Projection

• Tuition: $15,000 per year
• Protein and Vitamins sales: $1,200 per month
• Lease training area to other coaches: $4,800 per year (maybe negotiable)
• Rental property: $200 to $325 per unit – 4 units – minimum earnings: $800.00
• Tournament Profit for first year: $1,340
(I would want to run at least 3 WRKF events each year, ending with a regional event. WRKF events are pretty low maintenance event, but not high profit. Invitational’s maybe done at the property, but a regional would need a larger facility).

Karate Point Tournament:

• Numbers are based on Champion Sport Karate out of Papillion Nebraska.
• Based tuition amount $50,000
• Tournament in Omaha in June 2002 had 250 participants

Expenditures on that tournament
• $5000 in expenses
• $12,000 to $14,000 on an average made or roughly $7000 in profit.
• On Concession stands: spent: $400 and made $1200

Quote: in a largely populated area, people will travel an average of 4 miles to train. In a less populated area such as Alliance, people might travel an average of 28 miles to train. In Alliance , running a karate tournament on a circuit there would still be between 200 and 250 participants.



WRKF tournament Estimates:

We expect to run several WRKF continuous point sparring matches, estimating at $800 at the door and roughly $250 in sales. Expense would be at roughly $470 with a total of $335 profit.
Estimate:
$580 – audience
$225 -- concession stand
$150 – expense for concession stand
$250 – expense for EMT


Monies made outside of this program:
(this is part of my business that I’ve been running for several years that will continue to run under the business name of Bolinger & Associates)
Rental properties: $1300
Field Inspections: $550 (has room for expansion)

Investments:
Tuition will be invested in Money Market and Mutual funds

Membership/training Cost



Membership Fees:
Per Year Single: $150
Per Year Family: $240

Training Fee:
Training fees for single: $20 per month
Training fees for Family: $35 per month
 $5 for each additional class



Fees for non-members
Single
Per Day: $5.00
Per Week: $15.00
Per Month: $55.00 (8 sessions per month)

Family
Per Day: $9.00
Per Week: $20.00
Per Month: $75.00 (8 sessions per month)



There will be a special program for under privileged children.

Every Boxer that is wanting to compete in USA Boxing will need to have a boxing license that will cost $45.

USA Boxing Coaches License Cost: $60



Employment



This business will create several positions. 1 Manager/Head Coach, 3 store clerks and the opportunity to have several contract and volunteer coaches and a production manager/worker.

Manager Job Duties: Hiring of staff, promotions of business, maintain and update website, expenditures and expansion of business, coordinate events (tournaments and seminars), approving programs.

Trainers Job Duties: Learn the Bolinger boxing and kickboxing style and be efficient in teach this art. Be able to work the coaches mitts, instruct weight lifting and plyometrics.

Stores clerk job duties: Be able to help new and old clients with application and membership dues. Take moneys for products and services. Keep tract of all moneys coming into the Bolinger GYM and give summery at the end of there shift.

Production manager job duties: Being efficient and making each product. In charge of sales and coordinate sale program with the overall manager. Be able to teach productions workers how to make each product. Always looking to add new products and services to the business.

Production worker: To be efficient at making the product line in the allotted time given.

Managers’ salary will be on a commission based: 20% of membership due
Production Manager/worker: 20% of production sales
Clerk Salary: $5.50 per hour
Head Coach: $10 per hour
Instructor: 75% of fees for class



Short Range Goals:

 Fix roof
 Paint walls
 Improve bathroom
 Get apartments ready and usable to get a steady income coming in
 Set up the store. (distributorship achieved with Euroa to sale protein & vitamins line.)
 Install solar system
 Set up rack for training bags
 Move over training equipment
 Fix south wall
 Make website
 Promote store through coach and athlete contact list, newspaper, and flyers
 Install sweat tents
 Get contractors license



Long Range Goal:

 Install green heating and cooling system
 Mat most of the training area
 Sana
 Hot tub
 Run WRKF team Circuit events
 Expand building to cover lots 202 & 204 or make a parking lot or sweat tents/lodge.
 Expand bathrooms and add showers and lockers

[Scott Bolinger]

you can get numbers from other gyms, that might be more comparable to your area. I'm in a town of about 8,000 people, 2 other towns that are roughly 60 miles away with populations of 20,000 and 6,000. So it's not very populated.

[imkaren20]

These are great ideas in starting a business. Above all, if you have the 'passion' in it, surely success will follow.

[stevedav]

A good enterprise design assigns jobs to persons or agencies and groups milestones and deadlines for following implementation.high concern savings
A functional enterprise design encompasses 10 components implementation for every one part strategy.As part of the implementation of a enterprise design, it should supply a forum for normal reconsider and course corrections.

[Kenjifujima]

Nice article, thanks for sharing this information.