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Copyright (c) 2008 Schauffler Associates LLC

The heart of any useful business plan – and any plan that attracts financing and partners, is the financial projections section. Most important to those projections are the assumptions used.

TIP 1: BE CAREFUL ON ASSUMPTIONS

The core of any usable business plan, and also any plan that is created in order to find financing or partners, are the financial projections. Then, most important to those projections are the assumptions used to create these projections.

Are the assumptions understandable? If you’ve written your business plan because you’re looking for an investor or lender, don’t assume that the reader can understand your business plan assumptions. By the time you are finished with your projections, you will be very familiar with the assumptions you used to construct your financial models. A first time reader of your business plan will not. Are you certain that you made it easy to follow your logic? It’s better to explain a little more than you have to, than not explain enough.

The best kind of projections are well-rounded ones. Telling the investor that his projected return is 52. 444% is not any more impressive projecting a return of 50%. Many entrepreneurs come down with a bad case of “spurious exactitude” when doing projections. This would be a very contagious disease.

TIP 2: BE CAREFUL WITH “WHIZ BANG” SCENARIOS

Many people think that the more complex their financial models are, and the more “what if” scenarios they concoct, the higher their chances of being funded. A variation of this is the business plan that has projections seemingly for decades. 50 pages of imaginary numbers are not better than 5. Particularly in this age when technology is evolving so quickly, it is impossible to accurately forecast 3 years out, let alone 7.

Concentrate instead on answering these questions: How fast are we going to use the investor’s money, when does the company’s cash flow turn positive, and what margins can this company earn? It is definitely better to KISS (Keep It Simple, Sam) than to try and wow your business plan reader with outlandish scenarios that they will know instantly are not realistic.

TIP 3: THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT BUSINESS PLAN SOFTWARE

There are a number of business plan software packages that sell thousands and thousands of copies. Software can be very helpful in developing financial models and preparing projections. But they are not going to write the narrative sections of the business plan for you, so you may be disappointed in the results you get from using a computer program in building your business plan. How can the programmers of “Super Duper Hot Business Plan Package” or whatever the software is called, possibly know how your plan should look since they have never met you and do not know anything about your company? Software can’t think for you.

Much better would be to learn what you need in your plan and then simply write the plan with the correct information. You can go to Small Business Tool Kit (www.toolkit.com) for an excellent outline. This site is a free Wiki site to all who use it; believe it or not, they are not selling anything! Amazing, huh?

For the average cost of these software packages you could take your family out for dinner, and at least two of them could order dessert. Why not do that instead of wasting you money on one of these software packages that will not really make things any less complicated for you anyway?!

The overall idea here is: Make sure your assumptions are simple and easy to accept, then your financial projections and the example scenarios you create will also impress and inform your business plan readers.

Before embarking on writing a business plan for starting a car wash, a definition of what a business plan is in order. A business plan is a document to identify an opportunity, research why this opportunity is profitable and the steps needed to capitalize on the opportunity. The business plan can be a formal document or it can be written on the back of a napkin but the mere act of writing the idea down forces you to get the idea out of your head and on paper which helps find hidden business flaws and makes you think carefully about each phase of your business.

Creating a business plan is something anyone can do, even if you don’t know anything about business or finances. Even though the business plan is critical to getting the idea off of the ground, many entrepreneurs procrastinate when it comes to preparing a written plan. If you don’t know anything about business or finances, this is the best time to begin learning as the chances of your business being successful will be limited without this knowledge. Just as a builder won’t begin construction without a blueprint, entrepreneurs shouldn’t rush into new ventures without a plan. The old saying that “those who fail to plan, plan to fail” is very relevant when talking about starting a business. SBA’s statistics claim over half of new businesses fail in the first three years and the common factor is poor planning or under-capitalization (which is also poor planning).

Getting Started
The first step in creating a business plan is just getting started. Writing the business plan may seem overwhelming at first, but if you break the plan down to bite sized pieces and work on one section at a time won’t seem as daunting. Begin with what you know first and describe your business and your product or services. Work towards the more difficult subjects such as marketing, operations and financials. Don’t worry about it being perfect now, just get the concepts on paper – expand and refine later. If you get stuck on a section in the plan, skip it for now and come back later when you have more details.

Who is your audience?
When writing your car wash business plan, you need to keep in mind who your intended audience is and why you are writing the plan. Why? A plan for the bank will be less interested in the exit strategy and return on investment than one for equity investors. Additionally, a plan for written for internal use will be different than one looking for financing as a bank is not necessarily interested in detailed operations of the business.

Structure
Business plans tend to have a lot of elements in common. While there is not a format that all business plans follow, there are generally accepted guidelines that most follow as the order in which the subjects flow are not random. The Business Description of a business plan is aimed at painting a picture of your business and why this business will be successful. The Marketing, Management and Operations sections are researched and a strategy of how your business will compete and operate is developed. Last financial projections show in numbers what you explained in the business plan for the sales and expenses.

Breaking these three major sections down even further, a business plan consists of six key components:

Executive Summary
Business Description
Marketing
Managers & Employees
Operations & Location
Financial Projections
In addition to these sections, a business plan should also have a cover, title page and table of contents.

How Long Should Your Business Plan Be?
The answer that nobody liked in school applies to a business plan which is, “as long as it needs to be”. The more complex a business or the more sophisticated investors or funds requested will increase the length of a plan. An average car wash business plan narrative should be 4-15 pages plus financials and appendix items.

Business Plan Outline

Executive Summary
The executive summary is the first part of the business plan but is the last to be written. It gives the reader a quick glance of what your business proposal is about and what you are asking for. This part is critical as most readers will scan this section before deciding whether to read further.

The executive summary should typically be about one-half of a page in length and include what you would cover in an elevator pitch such as:
Explain the condensed version of the business concept
Product description or service proposition
This section should emphasize any unique features or benefits that what is currently in the industry or area, aka why would someone buy your product over the competition.
The demographics of your market
The Management team
When the anticipated start date is
Your equity position
How much are you asking for

Concise is the key in the executive summary. You will go into more detail later in the business plan.

Business Description
The purpose of the business description is to objectively describe the car wash business details and future potential include:
Mission
What the business does
Description of products and/or services
Industry information
Business Organization
Status of the business (start-up, expansion or purchasing)
Current and future goals

Any facts or figures should be noted and sources included in the business plan. This information is important should you need to defend your data and assumptions. The business description is where you are trying to paint a picture of the potential of your business along with the facts to support it. Try to inject energy and excitement to get the reader enthusiastic about the idea, without going overboard of course.

After describing the business, it is time to describe and additional products or services your car wash is selling. Keep in mind that it is important to show how your products and services are better than the competition. If you don’t have a good answer than you should rethink your strategy. What is it about your car wash that is going to get the customer to change doing business with the competition?

Marketing
A very important part of your business plan is the marketing section. Regardless of the quality of your products and your services, your business will be lost in the clutter of advertising. If you don’t know your customers, how will they ever find you? All of this begins with doing some research.

Customers: Who Is Your Market
The first step is to determine who you are going to sell to by identifying common characteristics of your market such as age, income, race, religion, education, interests and/or geographic locations. While everyone will want to wash their car product how are you going to effectively advertise to everyone and still make a profit? What you need to do instead is determine the group or groups of people who are most likely to use your car wash services and market to them. After all you are trying to generate a positive return on your marketing dollars, so use them wisely.

Competition
In today’s ultracompetitive marketplace, there is going to be competition, no matter how creative your business concept is. Attempting to run a portion of your car wash business better than the competition may be a difficult challenge so it is often better to focus on planning on being different and competing with them less directly. Can you serve a particular market niche such as the elderly that isn’t being looked at? Can you identify a unique operations/marketing/distribution strategy with a mobile approach? Even if you don’t have direct competition in your area meaning someone selling the same or similar products/services, you will have indirect competition for replacement products/services. If you indicate in your plan there is no competition it will be viewed that there is either no market for your product or you have not done your research.

Optimally you will want information on at least three but no more than five competitors. List information about who they are, how long they have been in business, location, products or services offered, perception on pricing, quality, etc. and compare your advantages and disadvantages. If the information you are looking for is not available online, you may need to pretend you are a customer to get some of this information.

Distribution – How Will You Get the Product To The Customer: By looking at who your market and competition is, you will have an idea of how to get your product to them. Perhaps through your research you will find a strategic advantage to serve the customer that the competition does not.

Promotional Strategy
With the above steps researched, the promotional strategy follows. The promotional strategy is where most entrepreneurs fail as they use the blanket statement that they are going to advertise in the newspaper, radio and/or television without thinking through the process or the customer. The promotional strategy provides you a map of how you are going to reach your market in the most efficient manner possible. Advertising is expensive, use it wisely.

Sales Projections
On of the more difficult areas of the business plan is coming up with sales projections. This number is probably going to be wrong and that’s ok. What you want is a figure backed up with justifiable data. Just grabbing a number out of the air saying you will make 0,000 won’t work. There are many sources to help come up with this number including:
Industry journals
Trade groups
Car washes in similar demographic areas
Industry experts
Census data

Pricing
The effects of pricing play a large role on how your product is perceived in the marketplace. Price too low compared to the competition and your product could be perceived as cheap and unreliable. Price too high with the features and benefits of your product and few customers come through the door. While this is a complex issue, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Make sure you can make a profit at whatever price you are selling at.
If you want to have lower costs and “get your foot in the door” it may be better to offer discounts or coupons initially until your business is better known.
Don’t be afraid to charge more for your product or service than the competition if you have something of more value to offer.
Pricing is the easiest of the marketing mix to change. You may find that a large competitor will under price you to ensure you can’t make a profit and your car wash goes out of business.

Management & Employees
In this section you would describe who is going to manage the business on a daily basis as well as provide strategic direction (if these positions are separate). Each of these people need to have a brief biography included as well as a resume in the appendix. Try to show how the experience and education of these people will be able to successfully execute the strategy in the business plan and succeed. Many times the owner may not have the specific experience for this business, so it is very important to pull their other professional experience in and explain how it will make for a successful operation. Next, a brief explanation of the employees is in order including:
What positions need to be filled
When they need to be filled (This is important in developing financial projections as you may have some employees come on after you start)
How much they get paid (Be sure to calculate payroll taxes as well, estimate 15% if not sure)

It is also recommended to add the professional and advisors to your business. These people include:
Board of directors
Consultants
Accountants
Attorneys
Bankers
Mentors

Operations & Location
The operations and location section of the plan illustrates how you are going to make or acquire your product and information about your business location.

Operations – Explain how and where your products or services are made. A few points to include in your plan
How does your car wash operate, what steps are in your service?
Who are your suppliers?
What are the terms and lead time for this product?

Location – Location is where you will be doing business out of. If you are in the classic, I can’t get my location until I get a loan so I can’t finish my business plan scenario, list what features you are looking at in a building along with average prices or rents and pad that number a little just in case. A few things to add:
Department of Transportation traffic count – most states have this information online to show how many vehicles pass your location each day.
Building description
What is the size
Where is it located
Specific reasons for this property
Proximity to suppliers, roads, airports, railroads, and shipping centers, etc.
Zoning
Average utilities – Be sure to get the last 12 months from the electric company if the building had been occupied. This could be an expensive lesson from a dishonest landlord. If you are opening a new location, try to talk with other car wash operators in a non-competitive area to get a estimate
Add pictures to the appendix
Add a floor plan to the appendix
Purchase price or monthly rent/lease
Include sales/rent/lease agreement in appendix
If building or renovating be sure to include quotes as this is an area frequently underestimated in costs.

Financial Projections
Financial projections are placed at the end of your business plan, before the appendix but it a very critical piece to the plan. The three must-have financial statements are a cash flow statement, a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet. The information already provided in the narrative portion of the business plan must match the financial projections. Most financial projections are three years in length. It is a good idea to include a Notes & Assumptions to Financial Projections page to both help make sure all of your numbers come through and provide an itemized list to provide clarity for the reader.

Notes & Assumptions to Financial Projections
Loans
Break out each loan (building, equipment, inventory)
Amount
Interest rate
Length
And any monthly costs not discussed in business plan narrative
Cost of goods/inventory
Advertising
Employee wages
Insurance
License & fees
Miscellaneous
Professional fees
Rent/property taxes
Repairs & maintenance
Supplies
Telephone
Utilities
Vehicle expense
Etc.
Anything else that needs to be explained in the financials that is not in the narrative

Financial Projection Sections

Startup Expenses – These are all expenses you will incur prior to opening your car wash. It is recommended to have quotes available or in the appendix for the larger items. It is also recommended that you pad your numbers some as there will always be unexpected expenses that were not accounted for.

Sources and Uses of Funds – This section details how the loan money will be used (inventory, car wash equipment, repairs and improvements, working capital, etc) and who is providing it (bank, investor or owner). You will likely need to be injecting 20% of your own money and maybe more depending on the risk assessment of the business and your personal finances.

Cash Flows – The cash-flow statement is one of the most important pieces of your business plan. It shows a schedule of the money coming into the business and expenses that need to be paid and whether you have enough cash to sustain the business gained during the warm month to cover the costs during the winter months. Every part of your business plan is important, but none of it means a thing if you run out of cash. Should this number be negative, you either need to raise sales, reduce expenses or have more cash. Your cash flow statement will typically be three years in length with the first year analyzing the monthly figures and later years by quarter. Don’t be intimidated with the cash flow statement as it is merely a future look into your checking account.

Profit & Loss – This statement, while similar to the cash flow statement but illustrated annually looks at the effects of non-cash charges such as depreciation and amortization to get an accounting overview of the operations of your business.

Balance Sheet – The balance sheet is a summary of the value of all assets, liabilities and equity for an organization at the end of each year. A balance sheet is often described as a “snapshot” of a company’s financial condition and will show the value of the business over time.

Personal Financial Statement – If you are looking at bank financing every person who will have a 20% or more ownership position will need to provide a personal financial statement to show how effective they are at managing your money. This statement will show your assets (checking & savings accounts, cd’s ira, 401K, valuables, home, vehicle, etc) as well as assets (mortgages, credit card bills, installment accounts, etc)

Appendices
Appendix items are various pieces of information that help make your case. Include details and studies used in your business plan; for example:
Quotes for items over 0
Resumes of the management team
Industry research
Demographic data and trends
Maps/floorplans/blueprints of location
Leases and contracts
Letters of support

There is a lot to creating your business plan but will definitely make your business stronger. While it may seem easier to have someone else write your plan, there is no substitute to writing it yourself. This is your business and by writing it yourself you will have a better understanding of your business and strategies for success. There are also many free business plan templates and workbooks available on the web to help you get started. You can use these to help get started creating your business plan and then modify it for your car wash business.

For more free articles and resources for starting a car wash are available at www.StartingACarWash.com.

Additionally, business plan help can be found at www.TheBusinessPlanFactory.com

Small business marketing is all about determining the needs of your target market and then providing solutions to meet those needs.

These 7 steps are aimed at entrepreneurs starting a small business and those who want to create a successful small business marketing plan for an existing business.

Most small business promotions focus on how great their products and services are. Instead, you should educate your target market consistently and start building a relationship that will establish your credibility and trust. It is important to develop a marketing mindset. “Think Marketing” your products and services all of the time. It is very important to consistently market your products and services. Don’t fall into the trap of stop and go marketing. Some small business owners only market when sales are down.

You can’t have a successful small business without having a successful small business marketing plan. Effective small business marketing is the way to growth and profits.

If you’re a small business owner or you want to know how to start a small business in the future, this simple 7-step plan will help you understand your business and your target market.

How to Start a Small Business Marketing Plan: 7 Steps

Begin the process by answering these questions:

1) Who — Who specifically is your target market? Who is your ideal client? What research can you do to find out more about your target market?

2) What — What products and services do your ideal clients want and need? What does your product and service do for your ideal client? What problems does your product solve for your customer? What are the solutions that your ideal client is looking for? What is your area of specialty that will differentiate you in the marketplace? What are the industry trends? What type of message will your ideal client likely respond to? What are you ultimately selling? For example: Are you selling eye glasses or are you selling vision? What is your unique mix of products and services? What is your pricing strategy?

3) Where — Where is your ideal client? Where is your customer located geographically? Where will you position yourself so they can easily find you? Where are the best places to get your marketing message to them? Will you speak to groups, hold seminars, or write a blog, newsletters or articles?

4) When — How frequently does your target market need to hear your marketing message? When are they most likely to buy your products and services?

5) Why — Why are you in business? Why do customers or clients buy from you? Why should they choose your product or service over your competition?

6) How — How does your customer buy your product or service? How are you going to reach potential buyers for your services and products? How will you communicate your marketing message? How will you provide customers or clients with the information they need to make their buying decision?

7) Marketing Mindset – Practice mastering a Marketing Mindset and you will be on the path to a profitable small business.

With these 7 steps, you can take action towards starting a small business marketing plan that targets new customers. “Marketing is about testing and evaluating your return on investment. But it’s primarily about helping people get what they want.” Master these small business marketing steps and you will be on the path to more profit and success as a business owner.

Making it big in the competitive business environment of today is not easy, unless you are bold and assertive. The same goes for a business proposal. You must make it stand out in the crowd if you wish to win the bid or get your business idea funded. Read on to find out the top ten tips for creating successful business proposals that can help you write power-packed winners every time!

1. Be clear about your objective of writing the proposal and only then will it reflect on the end-product. Summarize the concept in two sentences and then start elaborating.

2. Even if your business idea is great, communicate it clearly for the recipients of your proposal. Don’t leave any room for ‘self explanatory’ portions.

3. Make sure that your proposal is absolutely error free. Grammatical, spelling and typing errors can ruin all your hard work and so, be careful to eliminate or revise any errors that are there in your proposal.

4. Print your proposal on good quality bond-paper in order to make it look professional. You can even get it bound and backed for less than .

5. Your proposal document should have white space on the left side. This allows the readers to make notes if they wish to do so.

6. Spruce up your document with graphics, images, charts and tables wherever applicable. Not only can these additions break the monotony of continuous blocks of text, but also they are a great way to represent numerical data in an interesting format.

7. Be sure to add a title page to the document as this makes a professional impression. Include details of your company as well as the title or identification number of the tender.

8. You should only use language that is neutral and not provocative in any manner. Be politically correct and never assume that the recipients of your proposal share your thoughts and ideals. Instead of inadvertently ticking them off, stick to the safe middle-path!

9. Your language should also not include any locally used phrases, which people may find hard to understand. Maintain a general tone, keeping in mind global audiences.

10. Try to keep jargon away from your proposal and if you use any, also take care to explain them with footnotes.

Bonus Tip

Your own professional resume also helps create the first impression when packaged with your proposal. Before the interviewers or other people who are hiring even see you or continue with discussion, they may like to take a close look at the resume that you could easily prepare, to find out whether you are a suitable candidate for the job or other work opportunity they are offering.

Make sure to list basic objectives as related to your proposal, your experience and skills, references and other pertinent information. And create an eye-pleasing format and style with bullet or numbered points, sub-headings and legible font.

In short, brush up your resume and package it along with your proposal. Hire help if needed, so it’s in tip top shape.

Now it’s up to you. Put your best foot forward, letting your proposal make your mark.

It is not hard to find companies trying their level best to remain competitive and deliver quality services to its varied customers. How do they ensure this happens all the time? Well, having an effective web page that divulges all relevant details of their services and products can really prove a handful under this circumstance. So, how to make sure these things are in place?  First up, you need a very good web page design for your website to make it look good and to keep it going. That is not all; having reliable business plan templates can help you a long way in this regard too.

You can always contact the experts and make sure you get a wide variety of choices. Ask the organization to give you options in the form of templates. Templates are like samples you can base your web site’s foundation on. There are various types of templates available in the market such as business plan templates, email templates, excel templates to name a few. Browsing through templates will give you an idea of your website and web page design.  Another good idea is to search and look for competitors websites and pick design ideas and functionalities from the different competitor websites and then consult with your selected web design company and inform them of your requirements and choices.

To elucidate further, let me explain it this way. Business plan templates include all the necessary information that is needed in a business plan. This makes it easy for the organization to know exactly what needs to be included in the plan; hence business plan templates help them live up to the expectations of the client. Similarly e-mail templates are meant to give out samples on what a business email should generally contain and what is expected from the other party in terms of information when they refer to your email. And excel templates include set tables or charts wherein one can fill out information. Business plan templates are very important since business plan is one of the main criteria for doing business specifically for the large corporations. To have all this you need to consult an expert, an expert who can provide you with services best in the business.

“Gamit Web Design services” is a web design company, which has a creative team of experts at its disposal who can work par excellence to create that excellent web page design for your business. The team comes up with variety of web page design to choose from so that the consumer gets a wide range of options available to them and hence are not forced to make a choice from the few options at their disposal. “Gamit Web Design services” provides services to large number of professionals and businesses such as lawyers, sports organizations, e-commerce sites, SMES to name a few. Also the company at present is giving away discount on their premium templates, which means that you do not have to restrain because of limited finances and there would be a wider choice for you to select from.

The fact is that proposal writing starts well before you even put pen to paper…because the proposal is only part of the business development cycle. Sure, there are the technical things you need to know how to put the proposal together and to write persuasively, but if you know your client and know what you can do to help them, then writing the proposal should be the easy bit…

In order to get to where we have to write a proposal, we have to have a client and a need identified. And either of those could come first.

If you have a product that fills a certain need, then you can target organisations that have that need. Presuming you have a genuine value proposition then it shouldn’t be too hard to sell…and presumably you have the need in mind when the product was developed…if you didn’t then you have a strange way of going about product development.

      

But what if you are more services-oriented and don’t have an off-the shelf solution to sell? How do you find and create opportunities? In many ways the same way…surely you have a marketable solution that you can offer to a target organisation…

You may have a long list of target organisations, but how do you get in the door. Maybe they have an incumbent offering a similar service already. Firstly, get to know them. Get an appointment – if you can get a call to a decision maker then asking for a few minutes of their time shouldn’t be hard – as long as you can demonstrate that you can offer better value to them than a competitor or provide them with something that solves a business need.

Use a SWOT analysis to help you quantify your own value proposition and refine it. Use competitor evaluation tools to help identify your market position.

There are of course occasions when tenders and RFPs are advertised, but by then the organisation has done it’s research and knows what it wants – to get the most out of opportunities, try and get in there first and create your own. What tenders provide you with though are information about the business and especially their procurement cycle. The more professional procurement gets, then the better you have to be ready to handle it. Remember that not all your competitors may not jump through all the hoops as well as you, so use the procurement process to your advantage.

Once you have a target client, then create an account plan for how you will achieve your goals. Start those goals small – a phone call with your target buyer. Then a meeting, then an identified opportunity stating at each step of the way what you need to do to close the next goal that you have identified. Remember that getting any kind of action from the client – agreeing to a phone call or meeting is a close…and if you keep closing you end up writing a proposal (hopefully writing a winning proposal) for your client.

Plan regular meetings and calls with the client and once you get to know them, give yourself a monetary target that you are looking to get from that client.

No-one is handing business out these days – you have to go after it, and create your own leads. So do research on potential organisations where you can make a difference, find out how they buy, what they need and go after them with your value proposition. It’s not going to work every time, but you will end up with more opportunities to write proposals for.

Learn to Write Proposals is the leading Internet business proposal resource center.

At Learn to Write Proposals you will find all the tools that any proposal writer needs to manage, write and review a proposal. This includes training material, templates, tools and resources all designed with one goal in mind – to help our members create better proposals, faster.
http://www.learntowriteproposals.com