Whichever profession or career you determine to settle for, taking the decision to work on your terms and become self-employed is a big step. Hence, for you to run a smooth business while being self-employed, you need to have a business plan. Owning a business plan as a self-employed individual can help outline your goals and aid you achieve those goals. To get more insights on how you can run a successful business on your own, this article will cover the basic information you need to know about a self-owned business. With our self-employed business plan template, you will also learn how to write a plan for your business.
Just before we dive in, you can choose to ignore these procedures and just stick to our ready-made self-employed business plan.
What is a Self-employed Business Plan?
A self-employed business plan is a living document that analyses your business ideas, its goals, your products or services, your mission, how you intend to make revenue, its leadership and many other details essential to its success. You can also define a business plan as a road map that will help you attain the growth of your business.
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Not every potential or successful corporation started with a business plan, but many wise founders take out time to research their ideas, market, and audience to understand the basics of how to scale in their new field. This is strictly why you need to sit down and learn how to write a self-employed business plan for you to be able to handle your business on your own. To fail to plan is to plan to fail.
What is the Importance of a Business Plan?
Working side by side with a business plan comes with multiple advantages. As a self-employed individual, you might need some form of funding at some point, and you can only pull that through by having a business plan. Investors and banks rely solely on a business plan to evaluate the credibility of a business before agreeing to sponsor it.
Aside from needing a business plan in terms of funding, it can also help you focus on more important goals with the highest chance of success. A business plan also has the ability to help you manage your resources wisely and know when best to take in opportunities. Working for yourself can be rewarding because you get to choose what you are passionate about, work long hours and control your income, but it can only become better with a plan.
Is it difficult to write a Self-employed Business Plan?
Writing a business plan can be a fun activity because all you have to do is to write down those growth strategies. But other times, the process can be daunting, especially when it is your first time. But to make it easier, we have provided a unique template that can help you create a self-employed business plan with ease. In any case, if it gets too tough along the way, you can use our ready-made business plan. Having known this, let’s analyse how to write a self-employed business plan using the template below.
How is a Self-employed Business Plan Written?
To write a business plan, you will need a structured outline that will serve as a guide on the best steps to take. These outlines will also help you construct a compelling plan that any reader will access with ease. They include:
#1. Executive Summary
Your executive summary is a brief of the other sections. It is more of a summary of what your business is all about. Most of the time, your readers might not have all the time in the world to go through your business plan. To curb this, they will refer directly to your executive summary. This being the case, this section should serve as a hook that will attract them to read more. Make sure to also leave it clear and concise during this course. This section should cover your financial plan, team, marketing strategy, market analysis and goals among others.
#2. Company Overview
The company overview section of your self-employed business plan is where you get to explain who you are and the unique plans you have for your business. You can give a brief history of your business, yourself, industry, vision, and objectives, among others. Ensure not to leave out your short and long-term goals in this section.
#3. Market Analysis
Before you settle down to conclude your target market and market analysis, you will have to perform some research on your market. The essence of this research is to understand your industry and predict who your target client is. As a self-employed individual, you may require some assistance during this section. Discovering this information will also convince your readers of your ability to reach your ideal audience.
#4. Management and Organisational Team
Your team should not be left out of your business plan. You should be able to tell your readers about the personnel involved in the smooth running of your business. While doing this, you can also utilise this opportunity to highlight their different roles and skills in the firm. You can also educate your readers on how each person will contribute to the growth of your company.
#5. Competitive Analysis
Your competitors are clearly not left out of this plan. In this section of your competitive analysis, you will need to research who your competitors are and also tell your readers how you plan on being different from the crowd. You also need to note their weaknesses and strengths and decipher how to approach your client better.
#6. Sales and Marketing Strategy
Your sales and marketing strategy should cover the different marketing techniques you will be applying to your business to identify prospects, sell your products, and land new clients. You can decide to create an online presence or use manual advertisements.
#7. Financial Plan
Your financial plan is also an essential section of your self-employed business plan. You will need to explain your current funding, a clear estimation of how much revenue your business will yield per month, a list of expenditures, a balance sheet, a cash flow statement, and an income statement.
#8. Appendix
The appendix of your business plan covers any other important supplemental documents that didn’t make their way into the plan. This document can come in the form of insurance, resumes, legal forms, credit histories, licences and permits, among others. They will also convince your readers of how credible your corporation is.
Can you write a self-employed business plan in a day?
The time span solely depends on the amount of data you have at your disposal. If your business plan is a complex one that will cover a lot of information about your business, then you should be able to pull it through within 2-7 days. Whereas, when creating a basic plan, it should last for 3 hours or a day to finish.
How long should a self-employed business plan be for a small business?
A business plan for self-employment should be basically from two to four pages. You should focus more on making it clear, brief and concise. It does not need to be too complex and wordy. Let it serve as a clear guide that would easily define what your business is all about.
When should I start a self-employed business plan?
According to the current statistics, an average successful entrepreneur writes their business plan between six and twelve months after planning on how to start up a business. Constructing a plan within this time frame tends to yield more results.
Still confused about how you can write a self-employed business plan?
If there are something entrepreneurs still find hard to manoeuvre whilst starting a business, then it is mostly getting stuck on how to write a self-employed business plan for themselves. It is normal to face difficulties considering the fact that you are new to this field.
This is exactly why we have created a professional, ready-to-use self-employed business plan for your convenience. Over the years, Businessyield consulting has helped thousands of entrepreneurs like you start up on the right foot by taking the time to construct a unique plan for your business. What else do you seek? Get a copy here and unleash those ideas.
Conclusion
Making provisions for a business plan before starting off any type of business is always a great way to start and validate your business idea. That is why you need to give it a good steer to be able to produce a clear, concise and realistic self-employed business plan using our template, in order to enjoy all of its benefits. You should also remember to review the plan once in a while to keep your data updated.
FAQs
Why do business plans fail?
Owning a business plan does not fully guarantee the success of your business. Most of the time, you can face a certain failure, and this is mainly because you lack quality operational force. You end up planning the whole day and then put in zero effort to actualize your plans. Your action elements are not applied, monitored, functional, or refined. Once you do not put in the work, then your business plan will not reach its full potential.
What makes an excellent business plan?
A professional business plan should contain some necessary elements, including a marketing strategy, an executive summary, a financial plan, an operational structure, and a clear market analysis.
What are the common errors in the preparation of a business plan?
There are common errors that you should take note of when writing a self-employed business plan for your firm. They include using a bad business idea, neglecting the essence of an exit strategy, using an incapable team, having spelling and grammatical errors and writing half-baked financial projections among others. These are crucial errors you should take note of while writing.
