In the agribusiness industry, your business plan isn’t just an outline of what you want to do – it’s the roadmap that will allow you to turn your dreams into reality. Yet if you want to get approved for loans or investors, this plan needs to be top-notch. How can you make sure yours has everything it needs?
Here are seven secrets to writing a killer agribusiness business plan that will help get your startup off the ground.
1) Study the Market
If you’re serious about starting your own agribusiness, there’s a lot of groundwork you’ll need to lay before putting together an actual business plan. First, find out what similar companies are making and what their margins are. Are they profitable? If so, why? If not, why not? What price points seem to be performing well? By getting answers to these questions up front, you can make sure your plans for growth have more realistic expectations of market conditions.
2) Know Your Competition
The agribusiness industry is large and varied. Farmers need financial services and education. Agricultural consultants need access to capital. Food manufacturers want organic produce from local farmers, as well as efficient ways of delivering their goods. When writing your business plan, it’s important to know what everyone else is doing, because everyone wants their product or service to be unique—but it never really is.
Take time before you write your plan to familiarize yourself with what’s out there in other agribusiness plans, then figure out how you’re going to make yours stand out by providing something that no one else can offer (or by tackling an overlooked niche).
3) Write a One Page Executive Summary
The executive summary is also called an elevator pitch in reference to its length. The summary should be no longer than three paragraphs and cover: who, what, why, where, when and how. In other words, it should tell about your business (who), what you do (what), why it’s necessary or useful (why), where you do it (where) and how you plan on doing it (how).
These are all questions an investor would ask themselves when deciding whether or not to invest in your company so if your one-page executive summary answers these questions successfully then chances are good that your prospect will fund your company.
4) Use Data
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has plenty of helpful information on its website. In addition, there are plenty of ways that you can collect and analyze data to determine how successful your agribusiness will be if you decide to move forward with your idea. The online tool Small Business Trends has an in-depth guide on how business owners can use data to help their plans come together.
5) Create an Executive Summary
The executive summary is written at or near the beginning of your business plan. It’s typically one or two pages and designed as an overview of your entire plan, similar to what you’d find in an outline. Executive summaries usually have three parts: the problem, the solution and our company. When writing it, make sure that your main points are succinct and clear, especially if you have many known unknowns (i.e., facts about your business that you don’t know but need to learn before writing other sections).
The point is for investors—or anyone else reading it—to immediately see that you’re a capable business owner with relevant experience who knows how to tackle complex issues.
6) The Elevator Pitch
Most investors have no more than 30 seconds to decide whether or not they’re interested in what you’re pitching. The elevator pitch is all about convincing people of your idea, quickly and succinctly. Keep your pitch focused on what is unique about your product or service and why it will be successful in its market. One big tip: If you’re looking for funding, don’t spend time talking about why you started your business.
We already know that you founded it for yourself because starting a business is hard—which means most people won’t do it if they aren’t motivated by passion and belief in their idea!
7) Get Feedback
If you don’t have expertise in your industry or business-plan template experience, it can be tough to know if you’re on track. The best way around that is by asking someone who does. Most cities have an agricultural extension office where you can get feedback from knowledgeable sources and work through any holes in your plan. If you need an objective opinion, consider hiring a business plan coach who will assess your business plan for free.
Conclusion
Your business plan can be as simple or as complex as you want. Start by addressing key questions and using them to create sections for your plan: an executive summary, marketing overview, sales forecast, human resources strategy, and product or service descriptions. Then flesh out your answers in these sections using relevant tables and graphs. Whatever you do, avoid fluff—your initial draft should have a minimum of extraneous information.
