So, you are ready to start your business. Your dream has pushed you to the cliff and you are ready to jump. And you’ve heard that you need to have a business plan. But what is that? How do you put one together? What do you need to have in your plan? There are actually seven key sections to business plans that every serious startups business needs to have to guarantee success. And here is what they are.

• 1. Business Summary This is a simple straight-forward look at your company. It includes the name and location as well as your mission statement. Anyone who reads this will quickly get a feel for what your business is about.
  
  
• 2. Business Description This is a more technical expansion of section one. It includes the full legal name of your business, a brief history, and a projected aim or outcome. This is where you clearly set your company’s goals and main objectives down on paper.
  
  
• 3. Products or Services In this section, you explain what service your company will provide or what product you will offer in order to achieve the goals you described in section two. You should also include your patents, copyrights, etc. in this section.
  
  
• 4. Market Analysis This is where you will identify your intended market. You will identify who you will serve or to whom you will sell. You identify the demographic so you know who to market your business to.
  
  
• 5. Strategy Analysis In this section, you determine the how. You focus on the strategies and systems you will use in order to effectively deliver what your business promises to the demographic you aim to reach.
  
  
• 6. Organization and Leadership This is the part of your plan where you determine the key roles throughout the structure of your company. You develop your departments and the branches of each department in this part of your business plan. (You don’t need to fill in the chart with names of actual individuals at this point. This is simply the guide you will use to know specifically what roles you need to fill once you begin hiring people to help you lead your organization.)
  
  
• 7. Financial Plan In this section, you will provide the historical financial data (if you are revamping an already established company) as well as your future financial goals and demands. This is the part of your business that many people commonly refer to as “the books.”