Get a Vision & Mission before you Plan

Before starting to write a business plan, you must have established a clear vision and direction for the business. Without these, your detailed plan will lack focus and it will roam around in whatever direction
your latest idea or your keyboard (or pen) takes you. Instead, you need to start with some serious strategic thinking about a vision and mission.

First, you need to develop a realistic Vision for the business. This should be presented as a pen picture of the business in three or more years time in terms of its likely physical appearance, size, activities etc. Answer the question: "if someone from Mars visited the business, what would they see (or sense)?" Consider its future
products, markets, customers, processes, location, staffing etc. Here is a fictitious vision:

AnyBiz will be operating from a xxx sq. ft. unit near xxx Town. It will have annualized sales of $xxx and be profitable. It will employ xxx people mainly engaged in R and D, marketing, support and admin.
AnyBiz will offer xxx core products and provide added-value services to a large customer base throughout the xxx market segments and in xxx countries overseas. AnyBiz's offerings will be technically advanced
and offer many clear-cut advantages and improvements over competitors' possible offerings. AnyBiz will continue to expand through organic growth and acquisitions in related technology/market segments. It will have recently received mezzanine finance prior to a public offering.

Next up is a Mission statement. This indicates the purposes of the business, for example, "to design, develop, manufacture and market specific product lines for sale on the basis of certain features to meet the identified needs of specified customer groups via certain distribution channels in particular geographic areas". A statement along these lines indicates what the business is about and is infinitely clearer than saying, for instance, "we're in electronics" or worse still, "we are in business to make money" (assuming that the business is not a mint !). Here is a fictitious mission statement:

AnyBiz designs, develops and markets advanced systems for specialist data capture and transaction processing management. These web-based systems work with specialist hardware supplied by major integrators. They are sold to small, medium and large-sized companies within the xxx industries for a range of specialist applications. AnyBiz's systems are distinguished from competition by their sophisticated interfaces, scalability and ease of modification and are extensively patented. Sales are made directly and through major distributors/OEMs in the home market and overseas.

For more help on preparing a strategic plan, see Developing a Strategic Business Plan, Devising
Business Strategies and the free On-line Strategic Planner for creating a 3-page strategic plan.