BUSINESS PLAN 101: Company Description

The second page of the business plan, Company Description, is covered in this week's installment of BUSINESS 101: How to Effectively Write a Business Plan. It will teach you the importance of the Company Description page of your business plan, what information should be included, and provide an example of a successful Company Description page I created.

The Company Description page is immensely important as it directly follows the Executive Summary and establishes the business concept in the investors' eyes.

As time is extremely important to these individuals, some potential investors may just read the first two pages of your Business Plan and then decide the entire merit on these two pages.

The Company Description is one of these two pages (Executive Summary being the other). As a result, it needs to effectively and efficiently describe your business concept so that the potential investors can understand the features and benefits of your business concept and most importantly drive home your business model. [NOT: FRP]

These potential investors need to know how you plan on making money with your business and the differential attributes of your business model.

To have an efficient and effective Company Description page, you must include the correct, relevant information in your Company Description page and have images and diagrams that make the section easy for the potential investors to read and understand.

The flow of your Company Description page is extremely important. You want to make sure the potential investors keeps reading past the first two pages. To do this, limit the amount of paragraphs to three and include several helpful images and figures to supplement the written information. You can fit a lot of information in one page if you plan your paragraphs and include useful and information packed images and figures.

An effective Company Description page includes information about:

• BUSINESS TYPE [BT] -What will the business do? What is the legal structure of your business?
• BUSINESS LOCATION [BL] -Where will the business operate? Where will you interact with your customers?
• COMPANY PURPOSE [CP] - Why are you starting this business? What is the vision for the business? What need are you fulfilling?

As you can see, most of the information you need in your Company Description page can be found in your Executive Summary page. However as I recommended in the first installment of this series, you should write your Executive Summary last. So, you will not have it to use as a guide to build your Company Description page.

As a result, this is usually the first page you write when you start the process of creating a business plan. Make sure to take your time and do plenty of market research to streamline your business model and concept.

Including images such as a company logo and/or slogan really helps potential investors grasp the branding of the company and shows you have put in the time and resources to create professional company branding.

In this section, you will see an original, successful Company Description I wrote and receive a comprehensive analysis of the three paragraphs you should include in your Company Description page. The analysis includes tags that links to the three types of information described above in Part One that you need in your Company Description.

FIRST PARAGRAPH
Incorporated in the state of North Carolina, Full Tank Petroleum LLC is a limited liability corporation providing marine fuel (90 Octane gasoline & diesel fuel) delivery services to individuals and communities in the Lake Norman, North Carolina area. [BT] Company headquarters and warehouse will be located in the Cornelius/Mooresville/Davidson area. [BL]

This first paragraph effectively states the Business Type and Business Location in two efficient sentences. The first sentence covers what the business will do, what geographic markets, and the legal structure. The second sentence clearly states the planned Company Location. In my related business plan, I included the real estate literature of the proposed business location in the Appendices of the business plan so that the potentials investors know exactly where the business will be located.

SECOND PARAGRAPH
The Company’s mission is to become an innovative, marine gasoline delivery service company aimed at offering a low cost fueling alternative at a convenience unmatched by our competition. We strive to enhance the overall boating experience of our customers through our high-quality delivery & premium marine services. We aim to become a regionally recognized brand name, capitalizing on the sustained interest in the marine gasoline industry in the region. Our development goals are for rapid growth and expansion while maintaining annual profitability. [CP]

This second paragraph's main job is to relay to the potential investors the specific vision you have for your business, steps to achieve it, and why you the business should exist in the first place. The first sentence clearly states the Company's Mission Statement following it up with the steps to achieve this purpose in the following three sentences. The potential investors need to understand your vision to truly understand you businesses enough to pull the trigger and invest. This is where you do it.

THIRD PARAGRAPH
The Company primarily offers gasoline delivery services to the millions of watercraft located in Southeastern United States. These services are targeted to watercraft owners living in the waterfront communities and watercraft storage facilities located on Lake Norman, Lake Wylie, Lake Gaston, Lake Lanier, and the canals of Cape Coral. The gasoline is delivered at the customer’s convenience whether it is a one-time delivery or a regularly scheduled contract delivery. [CP]

This last paragraph's purpose is to summarize the aforementioned information in an effective way so that the potential investors retains the critical information about your business. You see this in sentence one above. The other purpose of this last paragraph is to transition the reader to the Market Description part of your business plan which is next. You can see sentence two above fulfills this purpose.

This concludes the second installment of @chiefmappster 's BUSINESS 101: How to Effectively Write a Business Plan. Stay tuned for next week's post describing page three of your business plan, Market Description.

If you want to see how to effectively write the Executive Summary of your business plan go here: https://steemit.com/howto/@chiefmappster/business-plan-101-executive-summary

Just think if you do one section a week, you will have your business plan done the same time as this series ends :)

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Thank you as always for your time and attention.

Namaste

@chiefmappster