The Business Plan "Executive Summary".

The first thing when writing a business plan for a media type company would be(or any company for that matter) "what is the point". It may seem obvious but it's a crucial first step and it's harder than it may seem.

Take my company...
What is the point of my company that I have with my two friends? What is that the ACN Network is supposed to do, and how does it make money?

This is what I have had to ask myself and then clearly answer. I have to keep asking myself this question from time to time. Because believe it or not it evolves.

One of the ways that I was able to help myself work through the answer to this quesiton was by doing and Executive Summary which is the first step in my business plan.

My basic outline of my business plan is in the summary and it looks like this.

Executive Summary:

• Introduction (One sentence about who and what you are)

• Products and Services (One Sentence maybe two, no more than three about what you do(mine has one))

• Target Market (General Demographic target)

• Competitive Position (In your market, field how do you stack up against the competition? Is their a gap in the market for what you plan to do?(Two three sentences at most)

• Goals and objectives (Use bullets 3 goals 3 objectives. Give a time frame for each.)

• Management (The structure of your business, who is doing what. Give a little bit as to why, maybe how the word the description of "who".)

• Finaces (Overall day to day cost, overhead before day one and on day 1. Make a cash flow chart and projections. Projections should be monthly quarterly and yearly.)
  

This whole thing should be clear, to the point and no more than two pages. Most of the information up to "Management" will fit onto the first page.

The second page in my report is my financials. Keep in mind the details in the finacial section will be covered in much greater detail later in the plan and the nuts and bolts numbers covered in the Appendix at the end of the business plan. Keep it straight forward and simple, typically an investor won't look at anything else during the pitch. If he has not seen the plan before you pitch, then those are the only two pages the investors will likely look at during your meeting anyway. They should be able to get enough information from that and your pitch to know if they want to buy in.

That's all for now.