101 questions your business plan should a n s w e r

Contents
Your idea 1

You
Your People Your stakeholders Your Finances Your Firm Your Marketing Your Strategy : i

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3 4 6 8 9 10

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101 questions your business plan should answer

Your idea
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. What is your vision? Why will it work? Why is it different to anything else in the market? If it isn't, why can you create market share in the existing market? How much? Why will you be successful in achieving this? Have other people failed in this sector? Why? Why won't you? What it your long term goal? How much value do you want to create? How do you arrive at that value? By when will it be created? Will it have been worth the trouble? Why?

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101 questions your business plan should a n s w e r

You
16. 17. 18. 19. What natural strengths or abilities do you bring to the party? Is that enough to make it work? Are you sure this is something you will remain passionate about? Are you passionate about actually running a whole business, or are you only passionate about the product or service? 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. What will be your responsibilities? Are you capable of handling them all? What skills will be required? Do you have them all? If not, what ones are missing? How can you get them? One last crucial question: is your partner, children or family in general supportive of your goal? Starting a business can be a major marriage tester.

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101 questions your business plan should answer

Your People
27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. What other people will you need? What are their roles? What are their titles? How many will you need? Are you a good people manager? Do you need employees or outsourced services? Do you fully understand your responsibilities as an employer? Have you checked workers compensation costs, superannuation requirements, GST filings, PAYG rules and regulations covering employment of contract and casual workers? 35. Who will manage all this?

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101 questions your business plan should answer

Your s t a k e h o l d e r s
36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. Who are your shareholders? What do they want from their investment? Are you the only one? What do you want from your investment? Can you deliver that? Do you need other financiers? What do they want? Can you meet their requirements? What happens if you don't? Who is the management? Are they actually good at managing or just good at their job? Are you? Have you got the right partners and employees? Exactly who are the customers? What do they want? Are there enough of them?

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1 0 1 questions your business plan should a n s w e r

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Why wouldn't they go somewhere else? Who are you suppliers? What sort of relationship can you have with them? Can you serve them in the same way they serve you? Will you use distributors or other outlets or deal direct with your market? Is that the best way to do it? Do you want to sell a lot at low margin, or less at a high margin? What is the relationship between your business and the community? Do you want to engage with them? What would be best for both?

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1 0 1 questions your business plan should answer

Your Finances
62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. What are your best, worst and most likely revenue projections? Why are you confident you can generate that amount of revenue? What will happen if you have a shortfall? How much do you have to spend to generate your most reliable revenue forecast? How much of this money will be needed at what time? Do you have that amount of capital available at the relevant times? If not, where will you get it and on what terms? What contingencies have you built in? Have you properly costed and timed the payments for workers compensation insurance, PAYG contributions and GST inflows and outlflows? 71. When you put everything together and produce a cash flow budget forecast showing best, worst and most likely scenarios, what does it look like? 72. 73. 74. Would you be better off putting your money in the bank? If not, then can you do it on borrowed funds paying interest at market rates? What is the leanest business you could create? If you really put your mind to it, what is the minimum amount of money you would have to spend to start generating positive cash flow?

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1 0 1 questions your business plan should answer

75.

What terms and conditions will you operate under? How soon do you actually collect your revenue you earn? When do you actually pay out what you have spent?

76. 77.

At what point will the business become sustainable? At what point will it become profitable?

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101 questions your business plan should a n s w e r

Your Firm
78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. What structure will it take: sole proprietor, partnership, incorporated company? Do you have partners? What is their role? What rights do they have? What rights do you have? What premises will it need? Where will they be? How will you maintain your leasing payments if business is slower than you expect? What will be your HR policy? What is your OH&S policy? When will your first tax bill be due?

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101 questions your business plan should answer

Your M a r k e t i n g
88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. What is your product or service? What is your USP? Where will you sell it? To whom? At what price? How will people hear about it? What percentage of your gross profit do you have available to spend on marketing? How much is that per customer, or number of customers? Do you have a marketing plan? What is it? How much will it cost? Do you have that much?

100. Will you continue to have that much?

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101 questions your business plan should answer

Your S t r a t e g y
101. What then is your strategy? Can you confidently summarise it in the following form: you plan to. spend how much on expenses and capital investment, to employ how many people, to produce or deliver what quantity of goods or services, to how many people, at what price, over what period of time, to produce positive cash flow of what amount, at what point in time, which will translate into net profits that amount to what figure by when?

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