Business Planning Simplified
Course Details
Business Planning Simplified guides you through creating a practical business plan, whether you’re starting a business, launching a product or service, or improving an existing business.
You’ll begin by setting out what your business will offer, who it will serve and the problems it will help customers solve. You’ll also clarify your goals, why the business exists and the values that will guide your decisions.
You’ll learn how to research potential customers and competitors, identify opportunities and prepare for risks. You’ll use your findings to choose what to focus on selling, explain why customers might choose it and plan how to reach them.
The course then covers the everyday work involved in creating and delivering products or services, supporting customers and organising business tasks. You’ll learn how to estimate sales income and costs, work out when payments are expected to arrive and bills will need paying, and compare your estimates with actual figures.
Using the Action Guide, Simple Business Plan Template and Financial Estimates Spreadsheet, you’ll develop your plan as you complete the lessons. You’ll bring its main points together in a short summary and decide which actions to take first.
By completing the activities, you’ll have a first draft of your business plan, with clear priorities and a way to measure progress. You’ll also learn how to review and update it as you put it into practice.
Start the course to work out what to do first, what you’ll need and what it will cost.
Course Content
Module 1: Establish Your Business Foundations
- Lesson 1: Craft a concise business snapshot detailing your audience, products, and goals.
- Lesson 2: Develop a clear vision statement to inspire and guide future decisions.
- Lesson 3: Write a mission statement that defines your purpose and values.
Module 2: Explore Your Business Landscape
- Lesson 1: Conduct market research to understand competitors and target audiences.
- Lesson 2: Identify gaps and opportunities for growth in your market.
- Lesson 3: Assess potential hurdles and risks, and devise strategies to mitigate them.
Module 3: Create Your Marketing Plan
- Lesson 1: Choose marketing focus areas and align them with audience needs.
- Lesson 2: Fine-tune your unique value proposition and positioning.
- Lesson 3: Outline a basic marketing strategy, setting actionable goals and tactics.
Module 4: Improve Your Operations
- Lesson 1: Plan production or service creation processes.
- Lesson 2: Streamline delivery methods to optimize customer satisfaction.
- Lesson 3: Plan support for your products and services.
- Lesson 4: Establish administrative workflows and business systems.
Module 5: Plan Your Financial Resources
- Lesson 1: Estimate revenue and set achievable financial goals.
- Lesson 2: Calculate and manage expenses effectively.
- Lesson 3: Create a financial projection to track profitability.
Module 6: Track Your Progress
- Lesson 1: Learn methods to evaluate performance metrics and assess business progress.
Module 7: Write Your Executive Summary
- Lesson 1: Compile key points from your business plan into a succinct and compelling summary.
Module 8: Next Steps
- Set an actionable roadmap to implement your business plan and revisit it for continuous improvement.
Course Resources
Students enrolled in this course will also gain access to a comprehensive resource package designed to enhance their learning experience and simplify implementation:
- Student Course Book: A complete guide to the course lessons, examples and Action Steps, helping you create, implement and review your Simple Business Plan.
- Action Guide: Record your answers to the lesson activities, including your research, business decisions and financial estimates.
- Simple Business Plan Template: A structured worksheet that enables students to build their business plan step-by-step as they progress through the course.
- Financial Estimates Spreadsheet: Enter sales and expense estimates to calculate totals, then compare your targets with actual figures as they become available.
- Summary Cheat Sheet: A quick-reference resource summarizing key insights from the course, allowing learners to save time and review essential information easily.
Use the Action Guide to work through the lessons, the template to assemble your plan, and the spreadsheet to record and review your estimates.
Course Benefits
- Clear business direction: Define what a business offers, whom it serves and what you want it to achieve. Writing these foundations down gives you a reference for choosing priorities and explaining your plans.
- Informed market decisions: Research potential customers and competitors, then identify opportunities and risks. You’ll learn what information to gather and how to use your findings when deciding which business ideas deserve attention.
- A focused marketing plan: Choose the product or service to promote, explain its value and select ways to reach the intended audience. Connect each marketing activity to a goal and a way to measure progress.
- Organised day-to-day work: Map the work involved in creating, delivering and supporting your products or services. Identify specific improvements, the resources they need and how you will check whether those changes are helping.
- A working grasp of business numbers: Use the Financial Estimates Spreadsheet to estimate sales, costs and earnings. See how the figures fit together, record your assumptions and compare estimates with actual figures as they become available.
- Useful progress checks: Decide what to measure and when to review it. The course shows you how to compare plans with actual performance and use the differences to decide what needs adjusting.
- A business plan you can use: Bring your research, decisions and estimates together in the supplied template. Completing the course activities gives you a written plan to consult, put into action and revise as circumstances change.
The completed plan brings your business decisions into one place, with priorities to act on and a way to review them.