Learning how to write a business plan starts with understanding its purpose. A business plan is essentially a blueprint explaining key facts about a given company. These facts usually include the products or services it offers, how it makes (or will make) money, and its marketing operations (how it intends to do so). Other frequently-stated topics included in a well-written business plan are leadership, staffing, and funding. The plan’s purpose is to show how the company plans to achieve its goals, as well as to convince investors and lenders of its future worth.

Business plan templates are widely available online, and they can simplify your writing on how to write a business plan. These documents will also guide you through the different stages of writing a successful business plan, including identifying the appropriate financial assumptions, analyzing market conditions, researching suppliers, and developing a marketing strategy. If you use a template, you will find it easier to compose an attractive and workable plan.

Investors are wary of lending money to fledgling companies, partly because they don’t know what the business owners can provide in return for their money. The majority of venture capitalists are men, with backgrounds in finance, technical expertise, or even a college degree. They typically seek long-term investors with a proven track record of success. Thus, it is important that potential investors are able to provide direction on how to write a business plan that will attract their attention.

One way how to write a business plan outline that will secure funding is to offer creative details about how the company plans to generate revenue. If you’ve done your homework, you should already have a strong business plan that reflects how you plan to capitalize on opportunities through online marketing, membership programs, merchant services, or other direct sales channels. You may also want to include information on how you plan to solicit customers and retain them. Once you have a detailed business plan outline that provides solid guidance on how to write a business plan, you can turn to securing funding. Here are some tips to follow.

Determine Your Business Goals Prior to contacting investors, be clear about what your business goals are, as well as what type of organization you intend to create. As with all business plans, it’s helpful to have a high-level overview of your business goals so you can emphasize them in your pitch to potential investors. If you are in a specific industry, make sure to detail which industry you plan to enter. You may also want to provide an executive summary to accompany this section of your application. If you don’t have a detailed executive summary, provide this portion of your application to potential funding agencies.

Create a Cash Flow Model Projections When presenting your business plan and/or executive summary to potential funding agencies, provide projected cash flow projections for the next five years. Be sure to take into account any variable such as inflation and lease financing in your projections. Even if your projections are accurate, you may not be able to convince investors that your company has enough future income to justify investing in your startup.

Estimate Your Costs As a rule, entrepreneurs underestimate the costs of starting their business because they believe they can do everything themselves. While it is possible to set up a simple website and collect donations for your cause, you will still need to buy office furniture, rent a space for business meetings, pay employees, buy software, cover your legal expenses, etc. The goal with lean startup plans is to eliminate these middlemen and create a one-stop-shop where customers and investors can conduct business. If you do not believe that you will be able to do everything yourself, you should strongly consider hiring someone who has the experience needed to manage all elements involved in your startup. Outsourcing experts are more cost-effective than hiring another member of your team or purchasing software to manage these elements.

Create A Detailed Overview When presenting your business plan to investors, be sure to include a detailed overview of what you hope to accomplish with your business and the means by which you plan to do so. This overview should be broken down into two separate sections. In the first section, describe your unique selling proposition. In the second section, explain why your business needs capital and what you plan to do with it when you obtain it. Using a high quality ecommerce business plan template is a great way to save time and stress when preparing your own business plan.