Preparing a Business Plan – Components of a Business Strategy

Who do you want to help or serve with your business? What issue or problem does your product or service solve? What is the composite of the profile of the members of your target audience? What do these questions have to do with business planning?

In Starting to Plan

All of the above questions need to be answered directly or indirectly in some part of the plan that identifies your business strategy. At some point, the plan needs to be as detailed as possible and written even if it is not written initially. A record needs to be made of ideas that are attempted that were unsuccessful because of market timing or lack of resources.

Start a checklist that is expanded from the executive summary draft. On the checklist, make sure that you include information that is needed for funding sources. Information needed for making decisions for starting, developing and growing the business should also be included. “As texts that represent a given organization’s strat­egy, strategic plans are of course specific to that organization, and yet the notion has a generic quality that draws on shared institutional understandings of what such a text should include (its substance), how it should be structured (its form) and what it is intended to achieve (its communicative purposes)” (Cornut, Giroux & Langley, 2012, 22). Keep in mind that time spent in business planning could make the difference between a successful business venture and one the struggles and eventually fails. Be prepared to do research to find needed information. Remember if all you do is copy what everyone else is doing you may risk ending up with only the level of success of everyone else.

Identify the personal brand of the CEO in order to insure that it is in line with the business brand. The vision and mission should show its relationship to the target market in the marketing message that is cohesive on the web and in printed materials like mailing pieces, letterhead and business cards.

Plan Inclusions

The master copy of the business plan will include information and sections that may not be contain in other versions for some audiences. The purpose of having a plan that includes everything is to create a resource to be shared with specific audiences for specific purposes at the appropriate time. There may be a risk in sharing the entire plan to the wrong audience. Therefore, it will be necessary to cut some of the information out of the plan according to the audience for which it is intended.

Work in process

The business plan of a thriving business is expected to be forever changing to reflect the current operating activities of the business based on what ideas have been tried and adjusted to best serve the stakeholders of the firm. When the business plan stops being a changeable document, the business is endanger of stopping its growth and development processes.

References

Cornut, F., Giroux, H. & Langley, A. (2012).The strategic plan as a genre. Discourse & Communication, 6, 1, 21-54.

Components of a Business Letter

A letter is a form of written communication widely used across the world. Different types of letters are used in different situations. For example, formal letters are used for official purposes, whereas informal letters are meant for family and friends.

A business letter is a type of formal letter. It is used for the exchange of information between various business agents, i.e. customers, owners, suppliers, government officials, etc.

Every such type of letter has a set of components common to different styles of business writing. The components are:

1. Origin of the letter – This section includes the name, address and other contact details, such as the phone number and e-mail, of the sender. For the recipient, this is also the return address of the letter.

2. Letter date – It refers to the date on which the letter was written. The date is generally written in the “Begin with the month, use a comma” format (March 5, 2011) or “Begin with the day, no comma” format (5 March 2011).

3. Mailing details of the recipient – This section includes the complete name, address and title of the recipient.

4. Point of reference – If the letter is in response to any specific detail asked by the recipient, then it needs to be mentioned. For example: the bill number or the branch code, etc.

5. Subject of the letter – It is a one-liner indicating the purpose of the letter.

6. Salutation – It includes words for greeting the recipient. For instance, Dear Sir or Madam.

7. Body of the letter – It contains the content of the letter.

8. Complimentary close/complimentary closing – It is a phrase that appears at the end of the letter but before the signature of the sender. It helps in closing the letter in a non-abrupt manner and also shows respect for the recipient of the letter. Some commonly used complimentary closings are ‘Yours faithfully’, ‘Yours Sincerely’, and ‘Regards’.

9. Signature of the sender – This section includes the signature and name of the sender. It may also include the designation of the sender.

10. Enclosures – If any additional document or documents is sent with the letter, then their number and title is mentioned in the enclosure section.

11. CC – ‘CC’ means courtesy copies. It is an optional section that includes the list of people and their addresses who will require the copy of the letter along with the enclosures, if any.

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