Modish Biz Tips

Retail: Brick by Brick- Good Presentation

{Photo by frippy.}

Its our last post in the Business Plan Challenge! We know a number of you are following along and writing as we go. At this point you have the bulk of your plan completed. Congrats!

After all that hard work, we have a few tips on how to present your Business Plan in a professional manner:

Use a staple, not a folder - It's important to put your best foot forward when presenting your business to a bank, but use a simple staple to keep your plan together. A folder creates more bulk and can become a nuisance instead of a benefit to the reader.

Title Page - The first page of your business plan should include the name of your business and your name and contact information. It should also state the date the plan was created or updated and copyright information.

Table of Contents - Located after the Title Page, a table of contents is included for the reader to easily flip to important sections.

Financial Statements - Your prepared Financial Statements are attached at the end of your business plan. They can be printed off as spreadsheets but need to be numbered and included in the Table of Contents.

Appendix -  The appendix is optional, but it can be used to include outside information that supports your business case. For our Business Plan we included a few articles from respected  publications that supported and clarified our business idea. The Appendix should be no more than 10 pages and is numbered and included in the Table of Contents.

We wish you luck with your business and writing your plan!

We've been working away behind the scenes on our retail shop, and we'll be back soon to talk retail with you!

Lili Nedved and Henry Sinha are opening a brick and mortar retail store in Vancouver, Canada. With lots experience staying up late and working on Lili’s handbag business, iglubu, Henry was recently promoted from an Electrical Engineer to Director of Fabric Organization. Lili hopes her Finance degree will give her the edge in the competition for Employee of the Month.

Retail: Brick by Brick - Executive Summary

{Photo by Wowzzaa. Your business is all about balance.}

The last and final piece to complete the Business Plan Challenge is the Executive Summary. The Executive Summary is the last part of the Business Plan you will write, but is the very first part of the Plan that is read. It is similar to an introduction and gives an overview of the business concept and Business Plan.

Some Executive Summary pointers:
- Only one page in length
- Focus on the highlights and should attract attention to your business idea
- Be positive, don't give the reader any reason to question your idea
- Be creative
- Consider opening with a thought provoking question or statistic

Your Executive Summary must:
- Be clear about the name of your business, and what it does
- Highlight your market research and your business' competitive advantages
- Describe the skills and experience the owner has that adds to business' success
- Use Financial Projections. Describe sales and profits for first and second year
- Describe how much funding is required and the financing source

As you can see, with only one page to cover all this information, each topic must be addressed succinctly and only the most important information included.

There you have it! From here, you have all the information you need to write a Business Plan! If you've been working along with us, you are very close to completing your plan! Congrats!

Next time we'll answer any of your questions and discuss putting your plan all together.

Lili Nedved and Henry Sinha are opening a brick and mortar retail store in Vancouver, Canada. With lots experience staying up late and working on Lili’s handbag business, iglubu, Henry was recently promoted from an Electrical Engineer to Director of Fabric Organization. Lili hopes her Finance degree will give her the edge in the competition for Employee of the Month.

Retail: Brick by Brick- Balance Sheet

{Photo by flowers & machinery}

Another tool that a business owner can use to measure the success of their business is the Balance Sheet. The Balance Sheet is also the final financial projection required for the Business Plan Challenge! Like the Income Statement, the Balance Sheet is based on the Cash Flow Statement and presents the financial picture of a business in a different way.

As obvious as it may sound, the Balance Sheet is intended to show how "balanced" your business really is. Its based on a simple equation that you may have seen before:

Total Assets = Total Liabilities + Owner's Equity

What does this really mean? Well, an asset is anything with monetary value that is owned by the business. A Liability is a debt or obligation of the business. Owner's Equity is whatever value is left after the debts are paid. In short, after paying off the business' debt, the only value that remains for the owner is the balance of the assets. The three must balance.

We've found another template for you to use to create your Balance Sheet. You can download it here from SCORE. The template has 2 columns: Beginning and End.  We recommend amending your template to reflect the traditional 3 column format. The first column would be Opening or Day One of your business, then a column for the End of Year One, and finally the End of Year Two.

The template is very straight forward and the information comes from your Income Statement or Cash Flow Projections. One important note, when you complete your spreadsheet the Total Assets line must equal the Total Liabilities and Equity!

That is it for the Financial Statements! Next week we will talk about the Executive Summary and after that our Challenge and your Business Plan will be complete.

Lili Nedved and Henry Sinha are opening a brick and mortar retail store in Vancouver, Canada. With lots experience staying up late and working on Lili’s handbag business, iglubu, Henry was recently promoted from an Electrical Engineer to Director of Fabric Organization. Lili hopes her Finance degree will give her the edge in the competition for Employee of the Month.

Retail: Brick by Brick- Income Statement

{Photo by zen}

After your Cash Flow Statements are complete, the next step in the Business Plan Challenge is to tackle the Income Statement of your business plan.

Before we get into the nitty gritty details of the Income Statement, lets go over what an Income Statement is and what you can learn from it for you business. To start, the Income Statement (sometimes called the Profit and Loss Statement) measures the success of your business over the course of 2 years with the first year divided into quarters. The good news is it's the same information stated in the Cash Flow Statement, but it is organized into larger periods of time. Having your Cash Flow condensed as an Income Statement allows you to easily pick up on positive or negative trends in your business.

The Income Statement has 5 main sections:

Retail: Brick by Brick- Cash Flow Questions

{Photo by Libby Loo}

Last week we covered the Cash Flow Statement in the Business Plan Challenge. There was a great question in the comments that we thought others might be interested in the answer to and a bit more information about projections. Kendra asked:

"I have a question about figuring out what are best case, worst case, and realistic sales for an online store? I can't base it on foot traffic or compare to other businesses, so I'm not sure how to estimate these sales without insider knowledge. Do you have any recommendations about how I might research this so that at least my guesses are educated (and not wild!) Thanks so much for the great guidance!"

Like we said, great question Kendra! The easiest of the three to project is the worst case scenario. Basically, you're seeing how much money you might be spending without taking in any sales at all. We projected a very slow start up without any sales for 6 months and then very slow growth. This cash flow will prepare you for the worst possible sales and prepare you for spending a lot more money then you take in.

Your best case is more of a gamble, and honestly a bit wild. This is the case we dream about for all of us! If you're making your own items to sell online, it would be interesting to know how much money you could make at full capacity without hiring employees. Also, if/when you do hire employees, how much extra income will that generate for your business? With this projection, try and find out how big you can be and still handle the work. If the best case comes true, you'll have a better understanding of what your life might look like!

For your realistic cash flow here are a few things that can help:

RETAIL: Brick by Brick- Financial Part 2

{photo by Chief Ten Bears}

We're back again today to continue to talk about Business Plans. Our focus in the last post and for the next few posts is your Financial Plan. If you're reading all of our posts, you'll remember that last week we talked a bit about forecasting sales.

In our last post we linked to a Cash Flow Spreadsheet from the Women's Enterprise Center in British Columbia. We wanted to point out that even though the spreadsheet is from Canada, it is applicable to both American and Canadian companies.

Today we are going to go through putting together your Cash Flow spreadsheet. Once your spreadsheet is completed, you will need to print it out and attach it to your business plan.

Completing your Cash Flow Spreadsheet: