Once your company starts doing well, it is easy to relax your standards and return to your previous mistakes. A successful business turnaround plan depends on consistency and persistence. You must keep maintain your focus on efficiency, creditor prioritization, and cash flow rather than returning to basic sales.

Think Long-Term
Business turnaround plans may have quick results but you must adhere to them for the long-run; otherwise, you will return to poor cash flow, missed payments, and other problem areas you had faced prior to your business turnaround plan’s inception.

Within your forecasts, you should have a time-line of expected financial growth. You must maintain that forecast and make certain amends to repair any divergences. It doesn’t matter if you are less profitable than you intended – figure out where the plan went wrong and then amend it with precision so that you can reach your original forecasts.

The business turnaround can be flexible in this instance; however, if you ignore the fact that you are not hitting your targets, then you may wind up with other crises down the line. You must execute your plan closely but with the understanding that some flexibility may be required.

Be Realistic
A successful business owner needs to be realistic and practical and must be aware of when it is appropriate to keep the business, to expand it, or even to sell it. Should your business turnaround plan be successful, you will have likely learned from your previous mistakes and the financial picture will be brighter for you company’s finances.

It is possible your revenue will go down during the first few months of your turnaround plan, yet you will be more profitable due to your business’ reorganization. This positive cash flow will build on itself until a point where your revenue grows high enough for you to consider expanding or selling.

Be Prepared for Expansion
Should you consider expanding the company, it may behoove you to build another business turnaround plan, albeit different in nature. This time, you have a thriving practice; however, a smart business owner knows that expansion can be a logistical nightmare and must be done with a controlled and well-thought plan. You may have to talk to your creditors again and cut some of your debts. You may have to look into your company’s finances and once again flesh out any problem areas you may have.

This may be a different kind of business turnaround, one where you are already a profitable company, yet you still owe it to your firm to be as methodical and practical as you were before. Your business turnaround plan worked once, it should work again.

Finally, you may be ready to sell your company. In this situation, you need not burden yourself with another business turnaround plan, but rather investigate who would be an interested buyer and what would be a reasonable price. Of course, a business turnaround plan may still be in order so that your company is even more desirable to would-be buyers. It all depends on your present finances, your need to sell, and your willingness to once again go through this reorganization process.

It might be the best time to make your very own business plan to place things in order to be able to reach your business goals and objectives. There are ten different sections of a business plan and I will discuss briefly each of this to serve as a guide.

One of the very important things that you will have to include in your business plan is the Executive Summary. Although this section goes at the last part of your plan, it is very important not to miss this one since this summarizes all the key elements of your entire business plan and will give the reader a clearer picture of your business’ structure.

The next key element is the Company Analysis. This will help investors know a bit of your company’s past performance and this will serve as a portfolio of your company’s achievements and success. Include all your big accomplishments in this section and boast your company’s advantage compared to its competitors.

The next section of your business plan is the Industry Analysis. In this section, you will have to clearly identify which sector your business is currently playing in or plans to be part of. Show, in this section, how well you know your industry and give details as much as possible. You can also include a summary of how you picture your company’s place in the industry.

Next is the Market Analysis, also called the Customer Analysis. This section will show your target market for your products and services. Identify your customers and show that you understand your customers well. Show credible data if necessary to support your claims.

Another section of your business plan is the Competitive Analysis. Show in this section how well you know your competition. Include a summary of companies that offer similar services and products to yours. Alternatives of your products should also be included and show your advantages over your competition.

Management Analysis is also an important section of your business plan. This identifies your business’s legal structure and management. You can introduce your board of directors here. Important people that are in the management that have an impressive history should be mentioned here.

Another section to be included is your Operations Plan. This will show how you are currently running your business at the moment. Show a detailed plan of your next product release and how you will sell it, future hiring of additional employees and specific timelines for different actions. Show to your investors the possibility of a higher profit and raise their confidence of investing in your business.

Next important section is the Marketing Plan. This is where you will show how you intend to price, sell and promote your products. Show details of your products and services and how you plan to market it including advertising and promotional activities that are open to you.

To make your investors believe in the current state of your company, you will have to provide them with a financial report of your company. Financial statements and funding requirements for future projects should be delivered including a financial statement analysis. All of this will be included in the Financial Plan section of your business plan.

The rest of the data that needs to be presented and other materials that are not included in the above sections will be place in the Appendices and Exhibits sections of your business plan. All other information that will raise the credibility of your company, including legal document, studies and images shall be included here.

Most companies that are worthy of raising venture capital have proprietary Intellectual Property (IP). In fact, the quality of the IP and the management team are often the two most important aspects of a venture capitalist’s investment decision. The challenge that many ventures face, however, is that most investors will not sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and NDAs are critical to maintaining the proprietary nature of the IP. This article details the appropriate strategy for addressing proprietary IP in your business plan in order to attract investor attention while retaining the confidentiality of your inventions.

Focus on the Benefits of and Applications of the IP: The business plan should not discuss the confidential aspects of the IP. Rather, the plan should discuss the benefits of the IP. Remember that even the most amazing of technologies will not excite investors unless it has tangible benefits to customers.

The business plan first needs to discuss the products and services into which the IP will be integrated. It then must detail the benefits that these products and services have to customers and differentiate them from competitive products. When applicable, it is helpful to include non-confidential drawings and backup materials of the products and services in the Appendix.

Focus on Customer Needs and the Relevant Market Size: The business plan must also discuss how the benefits of the IP fulfill a large customer need. To accomplish this, the plan needs to detail customer wants and needs and prove that the company’s offerings specifically meet these needs.

Secondly, the plan needs to discuss the marketplace in which the IP is offered and the size of this marketplace. Critical to this analysis is determining the relevant market size. The relevant market size equals a company’s sales if it were to capture 100% of its specific niche of the market. For example, a medical device’s market size would not be the trillion dollar healthcare market, but rather the sales of all competing medical devices.

Focus on Competition and Competitive Differentiation: Your business plan must also prove that your IP is better than competitive inventions. In identifying competitors, note that listing no or few competitors has a negative connotation. It implies that there may not be a large enough customer need to support the company’s products and/or services. On the other hand, should there be too many competitors, then the market may be too saturated to support the profitability of a new entrant. The answer — any company that also serves the customer needs that you serve should be considered a competitor.

The business plan should detail both the positive and negative aspects of competitors’ IP and products/services and validate that your offerings are either superior in general, or are superior in serving a specific customer niche.

Prove that you can Execute on the Opportunity: As importantly as proving the quality of the IP and that a vast market exists for its applications, the business plan most prove that the company can successfully execute on the opportunity.

The plan should detail the company’s past accomplishments, including descriptions and dates when prior funding rounds were received, products and services were launched, revenue milestones were reached, key partnerships were executed, etc.

When a company is a complete start-up, and no milestones have been accomplished, the plan should focus on past accomplishments of the management team as an indicator of the company’s ability to execute successfully.

Results: Getting Investors to Sign the NDA: If you are able to convince the prospective investor that the IP is integrated into a product/service which yields real customer benefits in a large market, then the investor will take the quality of the invention for granted when reviewing the plan. Later, during the due diligence process, the investor will review the actual technology. At this point, a discussion regarding signing an NDA would be appropriate.