Every small business plan has two parts to it:
- Words and
- Numbers
Most small business owners feel more comfortable in preparing the words because they can describe quite easily their business but when it comes to the numbers they feel more like a fish out of water.
I find that words are less exacting than numbers so the area where you are likely to fail in your business plan is calculating the numbers accurately.
So should you write the words first or try and calculate the numbers?
Both are important because the plan is like a good song.
The words and music must go together.
So you can start on whichever feels more comfortable but remember they must come together before the plan is finished.
In order to complete the numbers for the plan you will need to make some assumptions because a plan by its very nature is a document about the future.
This means making intelligent estimates of what you think the future will bring and converting those into a set of numbers which make sense.
Do you understand the current numbers for your business?
If not it will be very difficult to predict the future correctly.
What’s your story in preparing your business plan?
Which part did you find easier:- words or numbers?
