
The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan details how you plan to reach your target market segments.

Then leverage competitive analysis tools like the competitive matrix and positioning map to solidify where your business stands in relation to the competition. Start by identifying who your competitors are or will be during your market research. To succeed, you want to be sure you know who your competitors are, how they operate, necessary financial benchmarks, and how you're business will be positioned. Every business will have competition, if you don't then you're either in a very young industry or there's a good reason no one is pursuing this specific venture. To do this effectively you need to get to know your competitors just as well as your target customers. Part of defining your opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage may be. Focus on outlining why the market you're entering is viable and creating a realistic persona for your ideal customer base. You'll cover your target market as well as information about the growth of your market and your industry.

This section is where you will showcase all of the information about your potential customers. Market analysisĬonducting a market analysis ensures that you fully understand the market that you're entering and who you'll be selling to. It needs to go beyond a simple product or service description and get to the heart of why your business works and benefits your customers. This is your chance to explain why you're in business and that people care about what you offer. It includes information about the problem that you're solving, your solution, and any traction that proves that it truly meets the need you identified. The products & services chapter of your business plan is where the real meat of your plan lives.

Your executive summary should include a summary of the problem you are solving, a description of your product or service, an overview of your target market, a brief description of your team, a summary of your financials, and your funding requirements (if you are raising money). You should also plan to write this section last after you've written your full business plan. It comes first in your plan and is ideally only one to two pages. The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. You'll find that the plans in this library and most investor-approved business plans will include the following sections: Executive summary Before you start exploring our library of business plan examples, it's worth taking the time to understand the traditional business plan format.
