Writing Your Business Plan
What additional content can I add to my plan?
In addition to the default plan outline, LivePlan provides a selection of pre-built sections, charts, and tables that may be useful for specific kinds of businesses.
This content is available in the Outline of the Plan. You can easily add these items to any chapter of your plan.
Below is a list of these available pre-built Plan items:
Available Sections
Barriers to Entry
Company History
Exit Strategy
Expected Return
Future markets
Intellectual Property
Key Assumptions
Key Customers
Key Planned Hires
Market Growth
Market Trends
Milestones
Partners & Resources
Pricing
Regulatory Requirements
Risks & Mitigation
Roadmap
SWOT Analysis
Validation of problem
Validation of solution
Available Charts
Cash Flow by Month
Cash Flow by Year
Expenses by Month - The total of your direct costs and expenses, broken down monthly.
Expenses by Year - The total of your direct costs and expenses, broken down annually.
Financial Highlights by Month
Financial Highlights by Year
Gross Margin by Month
Gross Margin by Year
Net Profit (or Loss) by Year
Net Profit (or Loss) by Month
Revenue by Month
Revenue by Year
For more information, please see Adding and editing plan charts
Available Tables
Projected Balance Sheet
Projected Cash Flow Statement
Projected Profit & Loss
For more information, please see Adding and editing plan tables
Adding a SWOT analysis to your plan
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can help organizations and individuals evaluate their current state and identify areas for improvement or growth. SWOT is an acronym for "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats." Sometimes, it goes by the name "SWOC" instead, as in "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges."
A SWOT analysis involves looking closely at the factors that help your business succeed and the factors that can get in the way so that you can build a more effective business plan. It's a time-honored tool for both for-profit and nonprofit companies.
Our team has written several helpful articles about SWOT analysis for our learning websites. Here are some excellent starting points:
The SWOT analysis is an optional text section you can add to your plan.
In the Plan section, select the Add Section button in the applicable chapter:
In the Available Content menu, find the SWOT Analysis section.
Click on SWOT Analysis and it will automatically add it to your outline and navigate you to that section. The change will save automatically:
Add text and images to the editing field. Any changes will be saved automatically.
Adding a mission statement to your plan
If you're creating a detailed business plan in the Plan section, you can add a custom section to any chapter of that plan, title it "Mission Statement," and add the text of your mission statement. A sample is shown below:
Here is an article from our resource website, The LivePlan Blog on formulating your mission statement:
Adding a marketing plan
The Plan offers text sections in the default outline, where you can describe your sales and marketing intentions in more detail, as shown below:
For many businesses, these descriptions may be all you need. To help you decide on the scope of your marketing plan, you may find these articles helpful:
If you require more in-depth sales and marketing details in your business plan, you can easily customize your LivePlan outline to include a custom chapter with custom sections for all the details you like. You can even import images of charts you've created if you like.