Company Growth Strategy: 7 Key Steps for Business Growth & Expansion

Sujan Patel

Published: May 01, 2024

A concrete business growth strategy is more than a marketing effort. It’s a crucial cog in your business machine. Without one, you’re at the mercy of a fickle consumer base and market fluctuations.

graphic showing person building a business growth strategy

So, how do you plan to grow?

If you’re unsure about the steps needed to craft an effective growth strategy, we’ve got you covered.

Download Now: Free Growth Strategy Template

Table of Contents

Why You Need a Business Growth Plan

Business growth, types of business growth, business growth strategy, types of business growth strategies, product growth strategy, how to grow a company successfully, growth strategy examples.

We know the why is important — so why do we think building a business growth plan is so crucial, even for established businesses? There are so many reasons, but here are three that apply to almost all businesses at some point:

  • Funding. Functionally, most businesses are always on the lookout for investors, and you’ll have an advantage if you can present a solid growth plan to convince them. Most expect it.
  • Insurance. Growth creates financial padding, like a forcefield to protect your business when unexpected issues crop up. The economic upheaval for brick-and-mortar businesses in 2020 is a perfect example.
  • Credibility and creditability. For brand new businesses, getting a loan and making sure you can pay back your bank is at the top of the priority list. There’s no real profit until that debt is managed. Having a growth plan will not only help you secure a business loan, it will be there to refer to so you’ll know what to do to continue making your payments.

Business growth is a stage where an organization experiences unprecedented and sustained increases in market reach and profit avenues. This can happen when a company increases revenue, produces more products or services, or expands its customer base.

For the majority of businesses, growth is the main objective. With that in mind, business decisions are often made based on what would contribute to the company’s continued growth and overall success. There are several methods that can facilitate growth which we’ll explain more about below.

market growth in a business plan

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As a business owner, you’ll have several avenues for growth. Business growth can be broken down into the following categories:

With organic growth, a company expands through its own operations using its own internal resources. This is in contrast to having to seek out external resources to facilitate growth.

An example of organic growth is making production more efficient so you can produce more within a shorter time frame, which leads to increased sales. A perk of using organic growth is that it relies on self-sufficiency and avoids taking on debt. Additionally, the increased revenue created from organic growth can help fund more strategic growth methods later on. We’ll explain that below.

Example : Organic growth could be putting some of your revenue aside to purchase a second machine — doubling your production without debt. This increases your ability to take more and/or larger orders. In this way, you create more revenue to invest in a third machine or fund another growth strategy.

2. Strategic

Strategic growth involves developing initiatives that will help your business grow long-term. An example of strategic growth could be coming up with a new product or developing a market strategy to target a new audience.

Unlike organic growth, these initiatives often require a significant amount of resources and funding. Businesses often take an organic approach first in hopes that their efforts will generate enough capital to invest in future strategic growth initiatives.

Pro tip: Strategic growth can be a major endeavor depending on the size of your business. Be prepared to learn a lot, work hard at it, and see slow development. For quicker results, hire someone who knows a lot to work hard at it. Another option is to spend the money on a user-friendly platform that you or an employee can manage. Strategic growth is easily a full-time job for anyone, if not for a team of professionals.

3. Internal

An internal growth strategy seeks to optimize internal business processes to increase revenue. Similar to organic growth, this strategy relies on companies using their own internal resources. Internal growth strategy is all about using existing resources in the most purposeful way possible.

Example: Internal growth could be cutting wasteful spending and running a leaner operation by automating some of its functions instead of hiring more employees. Internal growth can be more challenging because it forces companies to look at how their processes can be improved and made more efficient rather than focusing on external factors like entering new markets to facilitate growth.

4. Mergers, Partnerships, Acquisitions

Although riskier than the other growth types, mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions can come with high rewards. There’s strength in numbers. A well-executed merger, partnership, or acquisition can help your business break into a new market. You can also expand your customer base or increase the products and services you offer.

A growth strategy is a plan that companies make to expand their business in a specific aspect, such as yearly revenue, number of customers, or number of products. Specific growth strategies can include adding new locations, investing in customer acquisition, or expanding a product line.

A company’s industry and target market influence which growth strategies it will choose. Strategize, consider the available options, and build some into your business plan. Depending on the kind of company you’re building, your growth strategy might include aspects like:

  • Adding new locations.
  • Investing in customer acquisition.
  • Franchising opportunities.
  • Product line expansions.
  • Selling products online across multiple platforms.

Pro tip: Your particular industry and target market will influence your decisions, but it’s almost universally true that new customer acquisition will play a sizable role.

That said, there are different types of overarching growth strategies you can adopt before making a specific choice, such as adding new locations. Let’s take a look.

There are several general growth strategies that your organization can pursue. Some strategies may work in tandem. For instance, a customer growth and market growth strategy will usually go hand-in-hand.

Revenue Growth Strategy

A revenue growth strategy is an organization’s plan to increase revenue over a time period, such as year-over-year. Businesses pursuing a revenue growth strategy may monitor cash flow , leverage sales forecasting reports , analyze current market trends, diminish customer acquisition costs , and pursue strategic partnerships with other businesses to improve the bottom line.

Specific revenue growth tactics may include:

  • Investing in sales training programs to boost close rates.
  • Leveraging technology to improve sales forecasting reports.
  • Using lower-cost marketing strategies to lower customer acquisition costs.
  • Continuing to train customer service reps to increase customer retention.
  • Partnering with another company to promote your products and services.

Pro tip: Revenue for the sake of personal income is often important at the start of a business (to pay the bills) and end of a business (as an enticement while selling the company). But while you look to the future with your company running, it’s wise to use revenue growth toward continued overall business growth.

Customer Growth Strategy

A customer growth strategy is an organization’s plan to boost new customer acquisitions over a time period, such as month-over-month. Businesses pursuing a customer growth strategy may be more open to making large strategic investments, as long as the investments lead to greater customer acquisitions.

For this strategy, you may track customer churn rates , calculate customer lifetime value (CLV), and leverage pricing strategies to attract more customers. You might also spend more on marketing, sales, and CX , with new customer sign-ups as the north star metric.

Specific customer growth tactics may include:

  • Investing in your marketing and sales organization’s headcount.
  • Increasing advertising and marketing spend.
  • Opening new locations in a promising market you’ve not yet reached.
  • Adding new product lines and services.
  • Adopting a discount or freemium pricing strategy .
  • Tracking metrics such as churn rates, CLV, and monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

Pro tip: Remember that it’s about people. Market research tools such as trend monitoring can help keep you aware of what your target audiences are genuinely interested in. This way, you can meet them where they are and get those customer sign-ups.

Marketing Growth Strategy

A marketing growth strategy — which is related, but not the same as, a market development strategy — is an organization’s plan to increase its total addressable market (TAM) and increase existing market share.

Businesses pursuing a marketing growth strategy will research different verticals, customer types, audiences, regions, and more to measure the viability of a market expansion.

Specific marketing growth tactics may include:

  • Rebranding the business to appeal to a new audience.
  • Launching new products to appeal to buyers in a different market.
  • Opening new locations in other regions.
  • Adopting a different marketing strategy, e.g., local marketing or event marketing , to appeal to different markets.
  • Becoming a franchisor so that individual business owners can buy franchises from you.

Pro tip: The idea here is to get a bigger slice of the pie by growing into already established markets. It differs from market development in that market development discovers or creates new markets instead of finding some space in existing ones. Most businesses are not trying to reinvent the wheel. They’re just getting a spot at the car show.

A product growth strategy is an organization’s plan to increase product usage and sign-ups or expand product lines.

This type of growth strategy requires a significant investment into the organization’s product and engineering team (at SaaS organizations). In the retail industry, a product growth strategy may look like partnering with new manufacturers to expand your product catalog.

Specific tactics may include:

  • Adding new features and benefits to existing products.
  • Adopting a freemium pricing strategy.
  • Adding new products to the existing product line.
  • Partnering with new manufacturers and providers.
  • Expanding into new markets and verticals to increase product adoption.

Not sure what all of this can look like for your business? Here are some actionable tactics for achieving growth.

  • Use a growth strategy template.
  • Choose your targeted area of growth.
  • Conduct market and industry research.
  • Set growth goals.
  • Plan your course of action.
  • Determine your growth tools and requirements.
  • Execute your plan.

1. Use a growth strategy template [Free Tool] .

market growth in a business plan

5. Plan your course of action.

Next, outline how you’ll achieve your growth goals with a detailed growth strategy. Again, we suggest writing out a detailed growth strategy plan to gain the understanding and buy-in of your team.

market growth in a business plan

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Writing a Business Growth Plan

Look ahead and plan for business growth and revenue increases.

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Table of Contents

When you run a business, it’s easy to get caught in the moment and focus only on the day in front of you. However, to be truly successful, you must look ahead and plan for growth. Many business owners create a business growth plan to map out the next one or two years and pinpoint how and when revenues will increase. 

We’ll explain more about business growth plans and share strategies for writing a business growth plan that can set you on a path to success. 

What is a business growth plan?

A business growth plan outlines where a company sees itself in the next one to two years. Business owners and leaders apply a growth mindset to create plans for expansion and increased revenues.

Business growth plans should be formatted quarterly. At the end of each quarter, the company can review the business goals it achieved and missed during that period. At this point, management can revise the business growth plan to reflect the current market standing.

What to include in a business growth plan

A business growth plan focuses specifically on expansion and how you’ll achieve it. Creating a useful plan takes time, but keeping your growth efforts on track can pay off substantially.

You should include the following elements in your growth plan:

  • A description of expansion opportunities
  • Financial goals broken down by quarter and year
  • A marketing plan that details how you’ll achieve growth
  • A financial plan to determine what capital is accessible during growth
  • A breakdown of your company’s staffing needs and responsibilities

How to write a business growth plan

To successfully write a business growth plan, you must do some forward-thinking and research. Here are some key steps to follow when writing your business growth plan.

1. Think ahead.

The future is always unpredictable. However, if you study your target market, your competition and your company’s past growth, you can plan for future expansion. The Small Business Administration (SBA) features a comprehensive guide to writing a business plan for growth.

2. Study other growth plans.

Before you start writing, review models from successful companies.

3. Discover opportunities for growth.

With some homework, you can determine if your expansion opportunities lie in creating new products , adding more services, targeting a new market, opening new business locations or going global, to name a few examples. Once you’ve identified your best options for growth, include them in your plan.

4. Evaluate your team.

Your plan should include an assessment of your employees and a look at staffing requirements to meet your growth objectives. By assessing your own skills and those of your employees, you can determine how much growth can be accomplished with your present team. You’ll also know when to ramp up the hiring process and what skill sets to look for in those new hires.

5. Find the capital.

Include detailed information on how you will fund expansion. Business.gov offers a guide on how to prepare funding requests and how to connect with SBA lenders.

6. Get the word out.

Growing your business requires a targeted marketing effort. Be sure to outline how you will effectively market your business to encourage growth and how your marketing efforts will evolve as you grow.

7. Ask for help.

Advice from other business owners who have enjoyed successful growth can be the ultimate tool in writing your growth plan.

8. Start writing.

Business plan software has streamlined the process of writing growth plans by providing templates you can fill in with information specific to your company and industry. Most software programs are geared toward general business plans; however, you can easily modify them to create a plan that focuses on growth. 

If you don’t have business plan software, don’t worry. You can create a business growth plan using Microsoft Word, Google Docs or a similar tool. For each growth opportunity, create the following sections: 

  • What is the opportunity? Is your growth opportunity a new geographic expansion, a new product or a new customer segment? How do you know there’s an opportunity? Include your market research to demonstrate the idea’s viability.
  • What factors make this opportunity valuable at this time? For example, your growth opportunity could utilize new technology, take advantage of a strategic partnership or capitalize on a consumer trend.
  • What are the risk factors for this opportunity? Identify factors that may make this growth opportunity challenging to execute. For example, challenges may include the state of the overall economy, intense competition or supply chain distribution issues. What is your plan for dealing with these challenges?
  • What is your marketing and sales plan? Identify the marketing efforts and sales processes that can help you seize this growth opportunity. Detail the marketing channel you’ll use ( social media marketing , print marketing), your message and promising sales ideas. For example, you could hire sales reps for a new geographic area or set up distribution deals with relevant brick-and-mortar or online retailers .
  • What are the costs involved in this growth area? For example, if you add a new product, you may need to buy new manufacturing equipment and raw materials. While marketing costs are a given, remember to include incremental sales costs like commissions. Outline any economies of scale or places where your existing operations make the new growth area less expensive than a stand-alone initiative.
  • How will your income, expenses and cash flow look? Project your income and expenses, and prepare a cash flow statement for the new growth area for the next three to five years. Include a break-even analysis, a sales forecast and all projected expenses to see how much the new initiative will add to the bottom line. Include how the new growth area will positively (or negatively) impact existing sales. For example, if you sell bathing suits and you decide to grow by adding cover-ups and sunglasses, you will likely sell more bathing suits. 

After completing this exercise for each growth opportunity:

  • Create a summary that accounts for all growth areas for the period.
  • Include summarized financial statements to see the entire picture and its impact on the company. 
  • Evaluate the financing you’ll need to implement the plan, and include various options and rates. 

Why are business growth plans important?

These are some of the many reasons why business growth plans are essential:

  • Market share and penetration: If your market share remains constant in a world where costs consistently increase, you’ll inevitably start recording losses instead of profits. Business growth plans help you avoid this scenario.
  • Recouping early losses: Most companies lose far more than they earn in their early years. To recoup these losses, you’ll need to grow your company to a point where it can make enough revenue to pay off your debts.
  • Future risk minimization: Growth plans also matter for established businesses. These companies can always stand to make their sales more efficient and become more liquid. Liquidity can come in handy if you need money to cover unexpected problems.
  • Appealing to investors: For most businesses, a business growth plan’s primary purpose is to find investors . Investors want to outline your company’s plans to build sales in the coming months.
  • Concrete revenue plans: Growth plans are customizable to each business and don’t have to follow a set template. However, all business growth plans must focus heavily on revenue. The plan should answer a simple question: How does your company plan to make money each quarter?

What factors impact business growth?

Consider the following crucial factors that can impact business growth:

  • Leadership: To achieve your goals, you must know the ins and outs of your business processes and how external forces impact them. Without this knowledge, you can’t direct and train your team to drive your revenue, and you will experience stagnation instead of growth.
  • Management: As a small business owner, you’re innately involved in management – obtaining funding, resources, and physical and digital infrastructure. Ineffective management will impact your ability to perform these duties and could hamstring your growth.
  • Customer loyalty: Acquiring new customers can be five times as expensive as retaining current ones, and a 5 percent boost in customer retention can increase profits by 25 percent to 95 percent. These statistics demonstrate that customer loyalty is fundamental to business growth.

What are the four major growth strategies?

There are countless growth strategies for businesses, but only four primary types. With these growth strategies, you can determine how to build on your brand.

  • Market strategy: A market strategy refers to how you plan to penetrate your target audience . This strategy isn’t intended for entering a new market or creating new products and services to boost your market share; it’s about leveraging your current offerings. For instance, can you adjust your pricing? Should you launch a new marketing campaign?
  • Development strategy: This strategy means looking into ways to break your products and services into a new market. If you can’t find the growth you want in the current market, a goal could be to expand to a new market.
  • Product strategy: Also known as “product development,” this strategy focuses on what new products and services you can target to your current market. How can you grow your business without entering new markets? What are your customers asking for?
  • Diversification strategy: Diversification means expanding both your products and target markets. This strategy is usually best for smaller companies that have the means to be versatile with the products or services they offer and what new markets they attempt to penetrate.

Max Freedman contributed to this article.

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How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

Dan Marticio

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

A lot of preparation goes into starting a business before you can open your doors to the public or launch your online store. One of your first steps should be to write a business plan . A business plan will serve as your roadmap when building your business.

Within your business plan, there’s an important section you should pay careful attention to: your market analysis. Your market analysis helps you understand your target market and how you can thrive within it.

Simply put, your market analysis shows that you’ve done your research. It also contributes to your marketing strategy by defining your target customer and researching their buying habits. Overall, a market analysis will yield invaluable data if you have limited knowledge about your market, the market has fierce competition, and if you require a business loan. In this guide, we'll explore how to conduct your own market analysis.

How to conduct a market analysis: A step-by-step guide

In your market analysis, you can expect to cover the following:

Industry outlook

Target market

Market value

Competition

Barriers to entry

Let’s dive into an in-depth look into each section:

Step 1: Define your objective

Before you begin your market analysis, it’s important to define your objective for writing a market analysis. Are you writing it for internal purposes or for external purposes?

If you were doing a market analysis for internal purposes, you might be brainstorming new products to launch or adjusting your marketing tactics. An example of an external purpose might be that you need a market analysis to get approved for a business loan .

The comprehensiveness of your market analysis will depend on your objective. If you’re preparing for a new product launch, you might focus more heavily on researching the competition. A market analysis for a loan approval would require heavy data and research into market size and growth, share potential, and pricing.

Step 2: Provide an industry outlook

An industry outlook is a general direction of where your industry is heading. Lenders want to know whether you’re targeting a growing industry or declining industry. For example, if you’re looking to sell VCRs in 2020, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.

Starting your market analysis with an industry outlook offers a preliminary view of the market and what to expect in your market analysis. When writing this section, you'll want to include:

Market size

Are you chasing big markets or are you targeting very niche markets? If you’re targeting a niche market, are there enough customers to support your business and buy your product?

Product life cycle

If you develop a product, what will its life cycle look like? Lenders want an overview of how your product will come into fruition after it’s developed and launched. In this section, you can discuss your product’s:

Research and development

Projected growth

How do you see your company performing over time? Calculating your year-over-year growth will help you and lenders see how your business has grown thus far. Calculating your projected growth shows how your business will fare in future projected market conditions.

Step 3: Determine your target market

This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential customer. Who is your ideal target customer? How can you cater your product to serve them specifically?

Don’t make the mistake of wanting to sell your product to everybody. Your target customer should be specific. For example, if you’re selling mittens, you wouldn’t want to market to warmer climates like Hawaii. You should target customers who live in colder regions. The more nuanced your target market is, the more information you’ll have to inform your business and marketing strategy.

With that in mind, your target market section should include the following points:

Demographics

This is where you leave nothing to mystery about your ideal customer. You want to know every aspect of your customer so you can best serve them. Dedicate time to researching the following demographics:

Income level

Create a customer persona

Creating a customer persona can help you better understand your customer. It can be easier to market to a person than data on paper. You can give this persona a name, background, and job. Mold this persona into your target customer.

What are your customer’s pain points? How do these pain points influence how they buy products? What matters most to them? Why do they choose one brand over another?

Research and supporting material

Information without data are just claims. To add credibility to your market analysis, you need to include data. Some methods for collecting data include:

Target group surveys

Focus groups

Reading reviews

Feedback surveys

You can also consult resources online. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau can help you find demographics in calculating your market share. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration also offer general data that can help you research your target industry.

Step 4: Calculate market value

You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value.

A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the two. It requires for you to calculate the entire market and then estimate how much of a share you expect your business to get. For example, let’s assume your target market consists of 100,000 people. If you’re optimistic and manage to get 1% of that market, you can expect to make 1,000 sales.

A bottom-up analysis is more data-driven and requires more research. You calculate the individual factors of your business and then estimate how high you can scale them to arrive at a projected market share. Some factors to consider when doing a bottom-up analysis include:

Where products are sold

Who your competition is

The price per unit

How many consumers you expect to reach

The average amount a customer would buy over time

While a bottom-up analysis requires more data than a top-down analysis, you can usually arrive at a more accurate calculation.

Step 5: Get to know your competition

Before you start a business, you need to research the level of competition within your market. Are there certain companies getting the lion’s share of the market? How can you position yourself to stand out from the competition?

There are two types of competitors that you should be aware of: direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are other businesses who sell the same product as you. If you and the company across town both sell apples, you are direct competitors.

An indirect competitor sells a different but similar product to yours. If that company across town sells oranges instead, they are an indirect competitor. Apples and oranges are different but they still target a similar market: people who eat fruits.

Also, here are some questions you want to answer when writing this section of your market analysis:

What are your competitor’s strengths?

What are your competitor’s weaknesses?

How can you cover your competitor’s weaknesses in your own business?

How can you solve the same problems better or differently than your competitors?

How can you leverage technology to better serve your customers?

How big of a threat are your competitors if you open your business?

Step 6: Identify your barriers

Writing a market analysis can help you identify some glaring barriers to starting your business. Researching these barriers will help you avoid any costly legal or business mistakes down the line. Some entry barriers to address in your marketing analysis include:

Technology: How rapid is technology advancing and can it render your product obsolete within the next five years?

Branding: You need to establish your brand identity to stand out in a saturated market.

Cost of entry: Startup costs, like renting a space and hiring employees, are expensive. Also, specialty equipment often comes with hefty price tags. (Consider researching equipment financing to help finance these purchases.)

Location: You need to secure a prime location if you’re opening a physical store.

Competition: A market with fierce competition can be a steep uphill battle (like attempting to go toe-to-toe with Apple or Amazon).

Step 7: Know the regulations

When starting a business, it’s your responsibility to research governmental and state business regulations within your market. Some regulations to keep in mind include (but aren’t limited to):

Employment and labor laws

Advertising

Environmental regulations

If you’re a newer entrepreneur and this is your first business, this part can be daunting so you might want to consult with a business attorney. A legal professional will help you identify the legal requirements specific to your business. You can also check online legal help sites like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.

Tips when writing your market analysis

We wouldn’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information needed in a market analysis. Keep in mind, though, this research is key to launching a successful business. You don’t want to cut corners, but here are a few tips to help you out when writing your market analysis:

Use visual aids

Nobody likes 30 pages of nothing but text. Using visual aids can break up those text blocks, making your market analysis more visually appealing. When discussing statistics and metrics, charts and graphs will help you better communicate your data.

Include a summary

If you’ve ever read an article from an academic journal, you’ll notice that writers include an abstract that offers the reader a preview.

Use this same tactic when writing your market analysis. It will prime the reader of your market highlights before they dive into the hard data.

Get to the point

It’s better to keep your market analysis concise than to stuff it with fluff and repetition. You’ll want to present your data, analyze it, and then tie it back into how your business can thrive within your target market.

Revisit your market analysis regularly

Markets are always changing and it's important that your business changes with your target market. Revisiting your market analysis ensures that your business operations align with changing market conditions. The best businesses are the ones that can adapt.

Why should you write a market analysis?

Your market analysis helps you look at factors within your market to determine if it’s a good fit for your business model. A market analysis will help you:

1. Learn how to analyze the market need

Markets are always shifting and it’s a good idea to identify current and projected market conditions. These trends will help you understand the size of your market and whether there are paying customers waiting for you. Doing a market analysis helps you confirm that your target market is a lucrative market.

2. Learn about your customers

The best way to serve your customer is to understand them. A market analysis will examine your customer’s buying habits, pain points, and desires. This information will aid you in developing a business that addresses those points.

3. Get approved for a business loan

Starting a business, especially if it’s your first one, requires startup funding. A good first step is to apply for a business loan with your bank or other financial institution.

A thorough market analysis shows that you’re professional, prepared, and worth the investment from lenders. This preparation inspires confidence within the lender that you can build a business and repay the loan.

4. Beat the competition

Your research will offer valuable insight and certain advantages that the competition might not have. For example, thoroughly understanding your customer’s pain points and desires will help you develop a superior product or service than your competitors. If your business is already up and running, an updated market analysis can upgrade your marketing strategy or help you launch a new product.

Final thoughts

There is a saying that the first step to cutting down a tree is to sharpen an axe. In other words, preparation is the key to success. In business, preparation increases the chances that your business will succeed, even in a competitive market.

The market analysis section of your business plan separates the entrepreneurs who have done their homework from those who haven’t. Now that you’ve learned how to write a market analysis, it’s time for you to sharpen your axe and grow a successful business. And keep in mind, if you need help crafting your business plan, you can always turn to business plan software or a free template to help you stay organized.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

On a similar note...

One blue credit card on a flat surface with coins on both sides.

Analyze your market like a pro with this step-by-step guide + insider tips

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that you already know enough about your market.

No matter how fantastic your product or service is, your business cannot succeed without sufficient market demand .

You need a clear understanding of who will buy your product or service and why .

You want to know if there is a clear market gap and a market large enough to support the survival and growth of your business.

Industry research and market analysis will help make sure that you are on the right track .

It takes time , but it is time well spent . Thank me later.

WHAT is Market Analysis?

The Market Analysis section of a business plan is also sometimes called:

  • Market Demand, Market Trends, Target Market, The Market
  • Industry Analysis & Trends, Industry & Market Analysis, Industry and Market Research

WHY Should You Do Market Analysis?

First and foremost, you need to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that there is real need and sufficient demand for your product or service in the market, now and going forward.

  • What makes you think that people will buy your products or services?
  • Can you prove it?

Your due diligence on the market opportunity and validating the problem and solution described in the Product and Service section of your business plan are crucial for the success of your venture.

Also, no company operates in a vacuum. Every business is part of a larger overall industry, the forces that affect your industry as a whole will inevitably affect your business as well.

Evaluating your industry and market increases your own knowledge of the factors that contribute to your company’s success and shows the readers of your business plan that you understand the external business conditions.

External Support

In fact, if you are seeking outside financing, potential backers will most definitely be interested in industry and market conditions and trends.

You will make a positive impression and have a better chance of getting their support if you show market analysis that strengthens your business case, combining relevant and reliable data with sound judgement.

Let’s break down how to do exactly that, step by step:

HOW To Do Market Analysis: Step-by-Step

So, let’s break up how market analysis is done into three steps:

  • Industry:  the total market
  • Target Market: specific segments of the industry that you will target
  • Target Customer: characteristics of the customers that you will focus on

Step 1: Industry Analysis

How do you define an industry.

For example, the fashion industry includes fabric suppliers, designers, companies making finished clothing, distributors, sales representatives, trade publications, retail outlets online and on the high street.

How Do You Analyze an Industry?

Briefly describe your industry, including the following considerations:

1.1. Economic Conditions

Outline the current and projected economic conditions that influence the industry your business operates in, such as:

  • Official economic indicators like GDP or inflation
  • Labour market statistics
  • Foreign trade (e.g., import and export statistics)

1.2. Industry Description

Highlight the distinct characteristic of your industry, including:

  • Market leaders , major customer groups and customer loyalty
  • Supply chain and distribution channels
  • Profitability (e.g., pricing, cost structure, margins), financials
  • Key success factors
  • Barriers to entry preventing new companies from competing in the industry

1.3. Industry Size and Growth

Estimate the size of your industry and analyze how industry growth affects your company’s prospects:

  • Current size (e.g., revenues, units sold, employment)
  • Historic and projected industry growth rate (low/medium/high)
  • Life-cycle stage /maturity (emerging/expanding/ mature/declining)

1.4. Industry Trends

  • Industry Trends: Describe the key industry trends and evaluate the potential impact of PESTEL (political / economic / social / technological / environmental / legal) changes on the industry, including the level of sensitivity to:
  • Seasonality
  • Economic cycles
  • Government regulation (e.g. environment, health and safety, international trade, performance standards, licensing/certification/fair trade/deregulation, product claims) Technological change
  • Global Trends: Outline global trends affecting your industry
  • Identify global industry concerns and opportunities
  • International markets that could help to grow your business
  • Strategic Opportunity: Highlight the strategic opportunities that exist in your industry

Step 2: Target Customer Identification

Who is a target customer.

One business can have–and often does have–more than one target customer group.

The success of your business depends on your ability to meet the needs and wants of your customers. So, in a business plan, your aim is to assure readers that:

  • Your customers actually exist
  • You know exactly who they are and what they want
  • They are ready for what you have to offer and are likely to actually buy

How Do You Identify an Ideal Target Customer?

2.1. target customer.

  • Identify the customer, remembering that the decision-maker who makes the purchase can be a different person or entity than the end-user.

2.2. Demographics

  • For consumers ( demographics ): Age, gender, income, occupation, education, family status, home ownership, lifestyle (e.g., work and leisure activities)
  • For businesses ( firmographic ): Industry, sector, years in business, ownership, size (e.g., sales, revenues, budget, employees, branches, sq footage)

2.3. Geographic Location

  • Where are your customers based, where do they buy their products/services and where do they actually use them

2.4 Purchasing Patterns

  • Identify customer behaviors, i.e., what actions they take
  • how frequently
  • and how quickly they buy

2.5. Psychographics

  • Identify customer attitudes, i.e., how they think or feel
  • Urgency, price, quality, reputation, image, convenience, availability, features, brand, customer service, return policy, sustainability, eco-friendliness, supporting local business
  • Necessity/luxury, high involvement bit ticket item / low involvement consumable

Step 3: Target Market Analysis

What is a target market.

Target market, or 'target audience', is a group of people that a business has identified as the most likely to purchase its offering, defined by demographic, psychographic, geographic and other characteristics. Target market may be broken down to target customers to customize marketing efforts.

How Do You Analyze a Target Market?

So, how many people are likely to become your customers?

To get an answer to this questions, narrow the industry into your target market with a manageable size, and identify its key characteristics, size and trends:

3.1. Target Market Description

Define your target market by:

  • Type: B2C, B2B, government, non-profits
  • Geographic reach: Specify the geographic location and reach of your target market

3.2. Market Size and Share

Estimate how large is the market for your product or service (e.g., number of customers, annual purchases in sales units and $ revenues). Explain the logic behind your calculation:

  • TAM (Total Available/Addressable/Attainable Market) is the total maximum demand for a product or service that could theoretically be generated by selling to everyone in the world who could possibly buy from you, regardless of competition and any other considerations and restrictions.
  • SAM (Serviceable Available Market) is the portion of the TAM that you could potentially address in a specific market. For example, if your product/service is only available in one country or language.
  • SOM (Service Obtainable Market / Share of Market) is the share of the SAM that you can realistically carve out for your product or service. This the target market that you will be going after and can reasonably expect to convert into a customer base.

3.3. Market Trends

Illustrate the most important themes, changes and developments happening in your market. Explain the reasons behind these trends and how they will favor your business.

3.4. Demand Growth Opportunity

Estimate future demand for your offering by translating past, current and future market demand trends and drivers into forecasts:

  • Historic growth: Check how your target market has grown in the past.
  • Drivers past: Identify what has been driving that growth in the past.
  • Drivers future: Assess whether there will be any change in influence of these and other drivers in the future.

How Big Should My Target Market Be?

Well, if the market opportunity is small, it will limit how big and successful your business can become. In fact, it may even be too small to support a successful business at all.

On the other hand, many businesses make the mistake of trying to appeal to too many target markets, which also limits their success by distracting their focus.

What If My Stats Look Bad?

Large and growing market suggests promising demand for your offering now and into the future. Nevertheless, your business can still thrive in a smaller or contracting market.

Instead of hiding from unfavorable stats, acknowledge that you are swimming against the tide and devise strategies to cope with whatever lies ahead.

Step 4: Industry and Market Analysis Research

The market analysis section of your business plan should illustrate your own industry and market knowledge as well as the key findings and conclusions from your research.

Back up your findings with external research sources (= secondary research) and results of internal market research and testing (= primary research).

What is Primary and Secondary Market Research?

Yes, there are two main types of market research – primary and secondary – and you should do both to adequately cover the market analysis section of your business plan:

  • Primary market research is original data you gather yourself, for example in the form of active fieldwork collecting specific information in your market.
  • Secondary market research involves collating information from existing data, which has been researched and shared by reliable outside sources . This is essentially passive desk research of information already published .

Unless you are working for a corporation, this exercise is not about your ability to do professional-level market research.

Instead, you just need to demonstrate fundamental understanding of your business environment and where you fit in within the market and broader industry.

Why Do You Need To Do Primary & Secondary Market Research?

There are countless ways you could go collecting industry and market research data, depending on the type of your business, what your business plan is for, and what your needs, resources and circumstances are.

For tried and tested tips on how to properly conduct your market research, read the next section of this guide that is dedicated to primary and secondary market research methods.

In any case, tell the reader how you carried out your market research. Prove what the facts are and where you got your data. Be as specific as possible. Provide statistics, numbers, and sources.

When doing secondary research, always make sure that all stats, facts and figures are from reputable sources and properly referenced in both the main text and the Appendix of your business plan. This gives more credibility to your business case as the reader has more confidence in the information provided.

Go to the Primary and Secondary Market Research post for my best tips on industry, market and competitor research.

7 TOP TIPS For Writing Market Analysis

1. realistic projections.

Above all, make sure that you are realistic in your projections about how your product or service is going to be accepted in the market, otherwise you are going to seriously undermine the credibility of your entire business case.

2. Laser Focus

Discuss only characteristic of your target market and customers that are observable, factual and meaningful, i.e. directly relate to your customers’ decision to purchase.

Always relate the data back to your business. Market statistics are meaningless until you explain where and how your company fits in.

For example, as you write about the market gap and the needs of your target customers, highlight how you are uniquely positioned to fill them.

In other words, your goal is to:

  • Present your data
  • Analyze the data
  • Tie the data back to how your business can thrive within your target market

3. Target Audience

On a similar note, tailor the market analysis to your target audience and the specific purpose at hand.

For example, if your business plan is for internal use, you may not have to go into as much detail about the market as you would have for external financiers, since your team is likely already very familiar with the business environment your company operates in.

4. Story Time

Make sure that there is a compelling storyline and logical flow to the market information presented.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” certainly applies here. Industry and market statistics are easier to understand and more impactful if presented as a chart or graph.

6. Information Overload

Keep your market analysis concise by only including pertinent information. No fluff, no repetition, no drowning the reader in a sea of redundant facts.

While you should not assume that the reader knows anything about your market, do not elaborate on unnecessary basic facts either.

Do not overload the reader in the main body of the business plan. Move everything that is not essential to telling the story into the Appendix. For example, summarize the results of market testing survey in the main body of the business plan document, but move the list of the actual survey questions into the appendix.

7. Marketing Plan

Note that market analysis and marketing plan are two different things, with two distinct chapters in a business plan.

As the name suggests, market analysis examines where you fit in within your desired industry and market. As you work thorugh this section, jot down your ideas for the marketing and strategy section of your business plan.

Final Thoughts

Remember that the very act of doing the research and analysis is a great opportunity to learn things that affect your business that you did not know before, so take your time doing the work.

Related Questions

What is the purpose of industry & market research and analysis.

The purpose of industry and market research and analysis is to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the environment of a business and to confirm that the market opportunity is sufficient for sustainable success of that business.

Why are Industry & Market Research and Analysis IMPORTANT?

Industry and market research and analysis are important because they allow you to gain knowledge of the industry, the target market you are planning to sell to, and your competition, so you can make informed strategic decisions on how to make your business succeed.

How Can Industry & Market Research and Analysis BENEFIT a Business?

Industry and market research and analysis benefit a business by uncovering opportunities and threats within its environment, including attainable market size, ideal target customers, competition and any potential difficulties on the company’s journey to success.

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How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Determined female African-American entrepreneur scaling a mountain while wearing a large backpack. Represents the journey to starting and growing a business and needi

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

  • The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

  • Raise money
  • Grow strategically
  • Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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  • What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

  • A summary of the problem you are solving
  • A description of your product or service
  • An overview of your target market
  • A brief description of your team
  • A summary of your financials
  • Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

  • Supply chain management
  • Manufacturing processes
  • Equipment and technology
  • Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

  • A description of each task
  • The proposed due date
  • Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

  • Website launch date
  • Store or office opening date
  • First significant sales
  • Break even date
  • Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

  • Conversion rates
  • Customer acquisition costs
  • Profit per customer
  • Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

  • Sole proprietor
  • Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

  • Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
  • Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
  • Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
  • Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
  • Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

  • Company logo
  • Business name
  • Value proposition (optional)
  • Business plan title
  • Completion and/or update date
  • Address and contact information
  • Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

  • Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

  • Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
  • Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
  • Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
  • Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
  • Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

  • Did you meet your sales goals?
  • Is spending following your budget?
  • Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

  • Write a brief executive summary
  • Describe your products and services.
  • Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
  • Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
  • Outline your organizational structure and management team.
  • Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
  • Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

  • 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
  • Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
  • Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
  • Failing to establish a sound business model.
  • Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

  • How will your business make money?
  • Is there a need for your product or service?
  • Who are your customers?
  • How are you different from the competition?
  • How will you reach your customers?
  • How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

Content Author: Noah Parsons

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Check out LivePlan

Table of Contents

  • Use AI to help write your plan
  • Common planning mistakes
  • Manage with your business plan
  • Templates and examples

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The Ultimate Guide to Business Growth Plan: From Vision to Execution

A business growth plan is your blueprint for taking your organization to new heights. In this guide, we’ll demystify each element of a growth business plan using simple language and share expert tips to help you create a plan that drives your organization’s growth.

  • Key Highlights
  • Unlock Hidden Growth: Dive deep into your business and market, uncover untapped potential, and brainstorm innovative strategies to fuel your expansion.
  • Build Your Winning Plan: Craft a clear roadmap with compelling goals, market-savvy strategies, and actionable sales & marketing tactics to attract and retain customers.
  • Navigate & Conquer: Streamline operations, manage risks, and adapt your plan as needed to ensure smooth sailing on your growth journey, celebrating every milestone along the way.

Identifying Growth Opportunities

1. analyze your current business:, 2. research your market:, 3. conduct brainstorming sessions:, 1. executive summary: the big picture, 2. company overview: who you are, 3. market analysis: understanding the landscape, 4. growth plan strategies: your path forward, 5. sales and marketing plan: attracting customers, 6. operational plan: managing growth, 7. financial projections: the numbers game, 8. risk assessment and mitigation: preparing for challenges, importance of business growth plans, why business growth plans matter, factors impacting business growth, crucial factors for growth:, major growth strategies, primary growth strategies:, growth plan implementation checklist:.

Before diving into crafting your business growth plan, it’s crucial to identify potential growth opportunities within your business and the broader market. Here are some strategies to help you uncover these hidden gems:

  • Review your strengths and weaknesses: Identify areas where your business excels and areas needing improvement. Analyzing your strengths and weaknesses provides valuable insights to fuel growth and identify areas for improvement.
  • Examine customer data: Analyze customer demographics, purchase history, and feedback to understand their needs and preferences. These insights can inform new product development, targeted marketing campaigns, and improved customer service.
  • Assess your performance metrics: Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, customer acquisition cost, and customer lifetime value. Analyzing these metrics helps identify areas of growth and measure the effectiveness of your existing strategies.
  • Identify industry trends: Stay informed about emerging trends and developments within your industry. This knowledge can help you anticipate market shifts and adapt your offerings accordingly. Learn more about different market research types here: Types of Market Research
  • Analyze your competitors: Research your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, product offerings, and marketing strategies. This analysis allows you to identify potential gaps in the market and develop unique selling propositions. For small businesses, check out these helpful tips for effective competitor analysis: Market Research for Small Businesses
  • Explore new market segments: Consider expanding your target audience to reach new customer segments with untapped potential. This can open up new avenues for revenue generation and market share expansion. Explore our expert market research services here: Expert Market Research Services
  • Gather your team: Engage your team members in brainstorming sessions to generate innovative growth ideas. Encourage them to think outside the box and explore unconventional approaches.
  • Utilize creativity tools: Employ various creativity tools like mind mapping, role-playing, and scenario planning to stimulate creative thinking and generate unique solutions.
  • Prioritize and evaluate ideas: After brainstorming, prioritize potential growth opportunities based on their feasibility, potential impact, and alignment with your overall business goals.

By actively identifying growth opportunities, you build a solid foundation for your growth plan and ensure you’re focusing your efforts on the areas with the highest potential for success. Need professional assistance crafting your business growth plan? Consider expert help from skilled business writers at WiseBusinessPlans.

Begin with an executive summary that provides a high-level overview of your business growth plan. Explain your vision, goals, market opportunity, competitive advantage, and financial projections in a concise and compelling manner.

  • Expert Tip 1: "Your executive summary should grab attention and convey your growth potential. It's your plan's introduction." - Sarah Smith, Business Strategist.

In company overview , provide a detailed description of your organization, including its history, legal structure, leadership team, location, and core values. Highlight your qualifications and achievements as a leader.

  • Expert Tip 2: "Your company overview showcases your expertise and the foundation on which your business growth plan is built." - John Stevens, Business Coach.

Conduct thorough research on your industry, market size, growth potential, customer segments, competitors, and perform a SWOT analysis. Demonstrate your market knowledge and insights.

  • Expert Tip 3: "A deep market analysis is your compass for growth. Know your market inside out." - Emily Turner, Market Research Specialist.

Outline the strategies and tactics you’ll employ to achieve growth. Whether it’s expanding to new markets, launching new products, or acquiring competitors, your growth strategies should be well-defined.

  • Expert Tip 4: "Your growth strategies are your roadmap to success. They provide direction and purpose." - Mark Thompson, Growth Strategist.

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Detail how you’ll attract, acquire, and retain customers. Describe your marketing channels, tactics, budget, and metrics for success. Highlight your expertise in customer acquisition.

  • Expert Tip 5: "Effective sales and marketing are pivotal for growth. Know your audience and tailor your strategies." - Laura Martinez, Marketing Expert.
  • Develop targeted marketing campaigns: Segment your audience and tailor your messaging to resonate with each segment's specific needs and interests.
  • Leverage digital marketing channels: Utilize social media platforms, email marketing, and content marketing to reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness.
  • Offer customer incentives: Implement loyalty programs, referral bonuses, and promotional offers to encourage repeat business and attract new customers.

In operational plan , explain how you’ll manage operations during the growth phase. Discuss production, supply chain, inventory management, quality control, and risk management strategies.

  • Expert Tip 6: "Operational efficiency is crucial during growth. Plan and execute smoothly." - David Reynolds, Operations Specialist.
  • Streamline your processes: Identify and eliminate bottlenecks within your operations to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
  • Invest in automation technologies: Utilize technology to automate repetitive tasks and free up resources for more strategic initiatives.
  • Implement quality control measures: Establish stringent quality control procedures to ensure consistently high-quality products and services.

Provide realistic financial projections , including income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, break-even analysis, and funding requirements. Showcase your financial acumen.

  • Expert Tip 7: "Your financial projections should reflect a solid understanding of your organization's financial health and growth potential." - Susan James, Financial Analyst.
  • Develop a detailed budget: Create a comprehensive budget outlining your projected income and expenses for the duration

Checkout our free business plan samples and examples now!

Identify potential risks and challenges associated with your growth plan and explain how you’ll mitigate them. Demonstrating your ability to navigate uncertainties is crucial.

  • Expert Tip 8: " Effective risk management is a sign of a well-prepared growth plan. Be proactive and have contingency plans in place." - Robert Clark, Risk Management Consultant.
  • Market Share & Penetration: Sustain market share to prevent losses in a dynamic economy.
  • Recouping Early Losses: Aid in recovering initial losses for sustainable profitability.
  • Future Risk Minimization: Enhance efficiency and liquidity for unexpected scenarios.
  • Investor Appeal: Crucial for attracting investors with a well-defined growth strategy.
  • Concrete Revenue Plans: Focus on revenue strategies for continual business growth.
  • Leadership: Understanding business processes and external forces is vital for leadership.
  • Effective Management: Obtaining funding, resources, and infrastructure drives growth.
  • Customer Loyalty: Retaining customers is cost-effective and fundamental for sustained growth.
  • Market Strategy: Penetrate target audience through pricing adjustments or marketing.
  • Development Strategy: Expand to new markets when growth is limited in the current market.
  • Product Strategy: Introduce new products based on existing market demands.
  • Diversification Strategy: Expand both products and target markets for versatile growth.

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Here’s a checklist to help you stay on track during the implementation phase of your growth plan:

  • 1. Define clear goals and objectives: Clearly define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals for each growth initiative. This provides direction and ensures you're measuring progress effectively.
  • 2. Develop detailed action plans: Break down each growth strategy into specific action steps with assigned roles and responsibilities. This ensures everyone understands their tasks and contributes effectively.
  • 3. Allocate resources: Allocate necessary resources, including budget, personnel, and technology, to support the implementation of your growth plan.
  • 4. Establish timelines and milestones: Set realistic timelines and milestones for each element of your plan. This helps track progress and identify areas requiring adjustments.
  • 5. Monitor performance regularly: Regularly monitor key performance indicators to track the effectiveness of your growth initiatives. This allows you to make data-driven decisions and adapt your strategies as needed.
  • 6. Communicate effectively: Communicate your growth plan to all stakeholders, including employees, investors, and partners. This ensures transparency and alignment across the organization.
  • 7. Adapt and refine your plan: Be prepared to adapt and refine your growth plan based on market changes, performance data, and feedback from stakeholders. This ensures your plan remains relevant and effective over time.
  • 8. Celebrate successes: Recognize and celebrate successes achieved along the way. This boosts morale and motivates team members to continue their efforts towards achieving the overall growth objectives.

By following this checklist, you can turn your growth plan into a reality and achieve your business goals. Remember, a successful growth plan requires consistent effort, ongoing monitoring, and a willingness to adapt your approach as needed.

Crafting a growth business plan is a strategic endeavor that requires expertise and a deep understanding of your organization’s goals and market dynamics. By simplifying each section and emphasizing clear communication, you’ll not only create a growth roadmap but also instill confidence in your stakeholders. Your growth business plan is your tool for propelling your organization toward new horizons and achieving long-term success.

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7 Growth Plan Templates to Build a Growth Strategy

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

October 20, 2023

Ever feel like you’re steering your ship without a compass? You want to grow your business, but the “how” aspect might be unclear. If you feeling lost at sea, a growth plan template could be the guiding star you’re looking for. ⭐ 

A growth plan template is a bit like a business-minded GPS, leading you through the winding roads of market trends, financial forecasts, and strategic planning . A good one will be your go-to guide for turning your big ideas and plans into a concrete roadmap to success. With a plan in place, you’ll reach your growth goals with ease. 

In this guide, we’ll show you what makes a rock-solid growth plan template and how easily it works for business owners and entrepreneurs. We’ll also set you up with growth plan templates so your organization functions more fluidly and effectively. Let’s dive in! 

What are the key components of a growth plan template?

1. clickup growth experiments whiteboard template, 2. clickup 30-60-90 day plan template, 3. clickup ansoff matrix whiteboard template, 4. clickup product development roadmap whiteboard template, 5. clickup development schedule template, 6. clickup process audit and improvement template, 7. clickup employee development plan template.

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What Is a Growth Plan Template?

A growth plan template is a preformatted document that guides businesses in outlining objectives, strategies, and actions aimed at business growth. Think of it like a strategic plan or framework for focusing on different growth elements, such as market expansion, product development, and financial projections. And it applies just as much to startups as it does to established businesses. 🙌

It serves as a roadmap, giving cohesion and clarity to your growth initiatives. Whether scaling or diversifying, a growth plan template offers a structured way to find opportunities and roadblocks. And since it provides dedicated areas for keeping track of metrics and KPIs, measuring progress and adjusting strategies is user-friendly.

Growth plan templates provide a framework for outlining a business’s growth objectives and strategies for achieving them. Here are some critical components of a growth strategy template:

  • Executive summary : An overview of the growth strategy and its goals 
  • Business overview : Details of your organization and its current operations
  • Market analysis : Research on your target market (and the current market) will inform your growth strategy. Know your customer base, know your strategy
  • Growth objectives : Clear, measurable goals tied to a timeline. This could be new customers, revenue growth, a social media strategy, or improving customer retention
  • Strategies and tactics : The actions you’ll take to achieve your growth objectives
  • Financial projections : Estimates of projected revenue and profit if growth objectives are achieved
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) : Metrics and other measurable data demonstrate the success of your growth strategy
  • Resource allocation : A list of resources needed to reach your objectives, like a new marketing strategy, business model, or financial plan
  • Risks and mitigation strategies : Assessing risks that could derail your plans and contingencies for avoiding those circumstances
  • Implementation timeline : A schedule for when milestones will be reached and objectives completed
  • Review and adjustment process : A system for reviewing and adjusting as necessary

7 Growth Plan Templates

If you haven’t turned to various strategic planning templates in your continuous effort to increase revenue, measure success, and identify new growth opportunities, then the time is now.

These pre-built assets are designed to help teams create and execute a unique business plan regardless of your industry or how many employees you’re working with. Bypass the hassle of spreadsheets and emails with a template that makes running experiments a breeze. 🌬

ClickUp makes it easy to find a business growth plan template customized to your needs. Get clarity on metrics and other KPIs vital to mapping out your organization and where you’d like it to be. A thoughtful and strategic business growth plan may be the missing piece you’re looking for. Here are seven growth plan templates to check out!

ClickUp’s Growth Experiments Whiteboard Template is a valuable resource for bringing your team together during brainstorming and growth planning sessions. With the ability to plan and act on your ideas from the same collaborative space, this template has every feature you need to follow through on an effective business growth plan.

You can customize every inch of this business growth plan template template—from the structure itself to the objects that bring it to life. Add sticky notes, Docs, media, or even live websites to your growth plan for additional context regarding your business operations. Then act on your ideas in an instant with the ability to convert any object on your board directly into an actionable task.

Plus, ClickUp Whiteboards are highly visual, meaning you can maintain a high-level view of the entire growth plan from the initial idea through implementation. 

ClickUp 30-60-90 Day Plan Template

Each department’s growth plan should align with the strategic objective of the overall company. Suppose you’re aiming to revamp a marketing plan or reach a new target market. In this case, you may need to bring on team members with different skill sets or focus on team expansion. 

ClickUp’s 30-60-90 Day Plan Template provides an actionable framework for onboarding new employees. Quickly set goals, create milestones, and identify the steps needed to integrate smoothly into a new organization. 

Custom features show you how progress is tracked at a glance, like a separate view for onboarding, which helps organize and keep track of all onboarding tasks. Or use Chat view to collaborate with stakeholders and discuss progress deftly. And with References view, store all necessary references for your plans. 

When your organization aims for more growth and diversification, a 30-60-90 plan ensures a coordinated and transparent process where everyone is on the same page. At the same time, you’re enhancing how your team operates. Having the right tool in your corner is indispensable. 

ClickUp Ansoff Matrix Whiteboard Template

Understanding the risks and rewards associated with different business growth strategies is invaluable for sound decision-making. After all, what good is a growth strategy aimed at market penetration if it could potentially compromise your business?

Use ClickUp’s Ansoff Matrix Whiteboard Template to visualize available strategic options in a way that’s simple to understand and enhances collaboration with your team. This template makes it straightforward and intuitive to identify opportunities and risks, understand which strategies are the most appropriate for your business, and compare different plans against each other to find the best fit. 💡

And it easily adapts to your organization’s level. Launching a new product or planning explosive growth in new markets? Use this template for both.

Features like tagging, nested subtasks, multiple assignees, and priority labels make project management precise and extraordinarily efficient. Being able to brainstorm, organize ideas, and create content with team members ensures everyone is working in harmony. Status labels like Open and Complete add to the frictionless workflow.

ClickUp Product Development Roadmap Whiteboard Template

If your organization is focusing on innovation, developing new products, or entering new markets, you’ll want to align those goals with your overall growth strategy. And all of that requires teamwork, planning, and clear direction. 

When you need a growth plan template that’s easily customizable, ClickUp’s Product Development Roadmap Whiteboard Template is a no-brainer. This template is designed for you to visualize, document, and track product development progress.

Features like custom fields let you manage tasks and visualize a path to product development that’s way more straightforward than a spreadsheet. Identify potential problems long before they become a fire you need to put out. Cross-team dependencies are easy to see, and engaging with stakeholders is seamless.

So whether you’re experimenting with pricing changes, improving existing products, or something in between, the key is having a comprehensive tool that keeps everyone in sync. And the right template can act as a centralized platform to empower team members in executing growth strategies effectively. 

ClickUp Development Schedule Template

Unlike a product development roadmap, which offers a high-level view of a growth strategy and its direction, a development schedule digs deep into the nitty-gritty. See it as a more granular and tactical guide for you and your team. 

Recognizing the need for meticulous planning, ClickUp’s Development Schedule Template ensures each step in your organization’s process is completed accurately and precisely. Stay on track, meet deadlines, adjust your schedule as needed, and allocate your resources and budget appropriately.

Update statuses for tasks with labels such as Done, In Progress, Needs Input, Stuck, and To Do to keep your team members informed and your projects on track. And use custom attributes like Stage, Attachment, Estimated Duration Days, Remarks, and Actual Duration Days to visualize progress at a glance.

A well-designed development schedule is much more than a sophisticated to-do list of tasks. It’s a dynamic and adaptable framework that helps you align strategic planning with tangible execution. 

ClickUp Process Audit and Improvement Template

Most organizations probably have a few processes they would like to improve or streamline in their company. And since those processes influence the scalability of a business, initiatives for expansion into new markets, and product development, it pays to keep tabs on their effectiveness. 

Use ClickUp’s Process Audit and Improvement Template to keep those tabs. The template allows you to execute quick process reviews or dive deep into how every aspect of your system functions. 🛠

Custom statuses like Not Started, In Progress, Complete, and To Do make keeping track of progress a breeze. Open two different views in different ClickUp configurations, such as the Overview and Getting Started Guide, so you and your team will have no problem jumping right into optimizing the processes that need it.

Categorize and arrange tasks to suit your needs—like audit planning, data analysis, and implementation—so you’ll clearly see the path from A to B. And combining this template with goal-tracking apps , teams and individuals will see progress on an even more detailed scale.

By conducting routine audits, you’ll optimize your processes for efficiency and productivity . Improve customer service and satisfaction by leaps and bounds. You’ll be able to create your own roadmap for taking corrective action where you need to and increase the quality of your decision-making. 

ClickUp Employee Development Plan Template

Employee development is an essential piece of any growth strategy. Your team members are one of your most valuable assets, and as your organization grows, your employees should grow with it. 

An employee development plan shows you which departments or areas need new talent and which ones may need it in the future. These plans play a role in maintaining an engaged and motivated workforce, too. Even better, you’ll improve employee retention rates and create an environment that encourages your current team members to develop into future leaders in your organization. 🌻

With ClickUp’s Employee Development Plan Template , you’ll ensure your team is always aligned on the most critical objectives. 

Start by assessing where your team members stand with their current knowledge and skill levels. Next, establish clear short and long-term goals that are personalized for each team member. Once you’re clear on the resources you need to meet those objectives, use the information you’ve gathered to create an action plan tailored to each member of your team.

The Development Status List view will assist in keeping track of how each employee’s development plan is progressing. Organize your team’s tasks into different statuses, including Done, For Review, and In Progress, so you always know where you are in your growth strategy. Having essential information all in one place also keeps stakeholders well-informed and in the loop.

The same strategy works for departments within your organization, as well. By creating individual and comprehensive development plan templates and tracking progress and performance with measurable goals, you’ll know that you’re building a successful and productive team. 

Choose the Best Growth Plan Template for Your Team

Whether you’re honing in on market share, tweaking your marketing strategy to include SEO, or brainstorming your next big move with vision board templates , a growth plan template can take your organization to new heights. 🦅

It’s not just a tool for executives and leadership in an organization. Team members benefit from a clear roadmap that aligns their day-to-day tasks with the overarching company objectives. The flexibility to customize your template means it’s adaptable, whether you’re a small business dreaming big or an established company looking for incremental improvement. 

If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool that lets you seamlessly move from product development and ideation to process audits to mapping out company growth potential and more, sign up for ClickUp — it’s Free Forever.

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How to make a business plan

Strategic planning in Miro

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

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Prepare a business plan for growth

Planning is key to any business throughout its existence. Every successful business regularly reviews its business plan to ensure it continues to meet its needs. It's sensible to review current performance on a regular basis and identify the most likely strategies for growth.

Once you've reviewed your progress and identified the key growth areas that you want to target, it's time to revisit your business plan and make it a road map to the next stages for your business.

This guide will show how you can turn your business plan from a static document into a dynamic template that will help your business both survive and thrive.

The importance of ongoing business planning

What your business plan should include, drawing up a more sophisticated business plan, plan and allocate resources effectively, use targets to implement your business plan, when and how to review your business plan.

Most potential investors will want to see a business plan before they consider funding your business. Although many businesses are tempted to use their business plans solely for this purpose, a good plan should set the course of a business over its lifespan.

A business plan plays a key role in allocating resources throughout a business. It is a tool that can help you attract new funds or that you can use as a strategy document. A good business plan reveals how you would use the bank loan or investment you are asking for.

Ongoing business planning means that you can monitor whether you are achieving your business objectives . A business plan can be used as a tool to identify where you are now and in which direction you wish your business to grow. A business plan will also ensure that you meet certain key targets and manage business priorities.

You can maximise your chances of success by adopting a continuous and regular business planning cycle that keeps the plan up-to-date. This should include regular business planning meetings which involve key people from the business.

To find out more, see our guides on how to review your business performance and how to assess your options for growth .

If you regularly assess your performance against the plans and targets you have set, you are more likely to meet your objectives. It can also signpost where and why you're going astray. Many businesses choose to assess progress every three or six months.

The assessment will also help you in discussions with banks, investors and even potential buyers of your business. Regular review is a good vehicle for showing direction and commitment to employees, customers and suppliers.

Defining your business' purpose in your business plan keeps you focused, inspires your employees and attracts customers.

Your business plan should include a summary of what your business does, how it has developed and where you want it to go. In particular, it should cover your strategy for improving your existing sales and processes to achieve the growth you desire.

You also need to make it clear what timeframe the business plan covers - this will typically be for the next 12 to 24 months.

The plan needs to include:

  • The marketing aims and objectives , for example how many new customers you want to gain and the anticipated size of your customer base at the end of the period. To find out about marketing strategy, see our guide on how to create your marketing strategy .
  • Operational information such as where your business is based, who your suppliers are and the premises and equipment needed.
  • Financial information , including profit and loss forecasts, cash flow forecasts, sales forecasts and audited accounts.
  • A summary of the business objectives, including targets and dates.
  • If yours is an owner-managed business, you may wish to include an exit plan . This includes planning the timing of your departure and the circumstances, e.g. family succession, sale of the business, floating your business or closing it down.

If you intend to present your business plan to an external audience such as investors or banks, you will also need to include:

  • your aims and objectives for each area of the business
  • details of the history of the business, including financial records from the last three years - if this isn't possible, provide details about trading to date
  • the skills and qualifications of the management involved in your business
  • information about the product or service, its distinctiveness and where it fits into the marketplace

If your business has grown to encompass a series of departments or divisions, each with its own targets and objectives, you may need to draw up a more sophisticated business plan.

The individual business plans of the departments and separate business units will need to be integrated into a single strategy document for the entire organisation.

This can be a complex exercise but it's vital if each business unit is to tread a consistent path and not conflict with the overall strategy.

This is not just an issue for large enterprises - many small firms consist of separate business units pursuing different strategies.

To draw up a business plan that marries all the separate units of an organisation requires a degree of co-ordination. It may seem obvious, but make sure all departments are using the same planning template.

Objectives for individual departments

It's important for each department to feel that they are a stakeholder in the plan. Typically, each department head will draft the unit's business plan and then agree on its final form in conjunction with other departments.

Each unit's budgets and priorities must be set so that they fit in with those of the entire organisation. Generally, individual unit plans are required to be more specific and precisely defined than the overall business plan. It's important that the objectives set for business units are realistic and deliverable. However complex it turns out to be, the individual business unit plan needs to be easily understood by the people whose job it is to make it work. They also need to be clear on how their plan fits in with that of the wider organisation.

The business plan plays a key role in allocating resources throughout a business so that the objectives set in the plan can be met.

Once you've reviewed your progress to date and identified your strategy for growth, your existing business plan may look dated and may no longer reflect your business' position and future direction.

When you are reviewing your business plan to cover the next stages, it's important to be clear on how you will allocate your resources to make your strategy work.

For example, if a particular business unit or department has been given a target, the business plan should allocate sufficient resources to achieve it. These resources may already be available within the business or may be generated by future activity.

In practice this could mean recruiting more office staff, spending more on marketing or buying more supplies or equipment. You may want to provide funds through current cash flow, generating more profit or seeking external funding. In general, it is always better to fund future growth through revenue generation.

However, you should do some precise budgeting to decide on the right level of resourcing for a particular unit or department. It's important that resources are prioritised, so that areas of a business which are key to delivering the overall aims and objectives are adequately funded. If funding isn't available this may involve making cutbacks in other areas.

A successful business plan should incorporate a set of targets and objectives.

While the overall plan may set strategic goals, these are unlikely to be achieved unless you use SMART objectives or targets, i.e. S pecific, M easurable, A chievable, R ealistic and T imely.

Targets help everyone within a business understand what they need to achieve and when they need to achieve it.

You can monitor the performance of employees, teams or a new product or service by using appropriate performance indicators . These can be:

  • sales or profit figures over a given period
  • milestones in new product development
  • productivity benchmarks for individual team members
  • market-share statistics

Targets make it clearer for individual employees to see where they fit within an organisation and what they need to do to help the business meet its objectives. Setting clear objectives and targets and closely monitoring their delivery can make the development of your business more effective. Targets and objectives should also form a key part of employee appraisals, as a means of objectively addressing individuals' progress.

Once you've drawn up your new business plan and put it into practice, it needs to be continually monitored to make sure the objectives are being achieved. This review process should follow an assessment of your progress to date and an analysis of the most promising ways to develop your business. To find out more about these stages see our guides on how to review your business performance and how to assess your options for growth .

This process is called the business plan cycle . In some businesses, the cycle may be a continuous process with the plan being regularly updated and monitored. For most businesses, an annual plan - broken down into four quarterly operating plans - is sufficient. However, if a business is heavily sales driven, it can make more sense to have a monthly operating plan, supplemented where necessary with weekly targets and reviews.

It's important to keep in mind that major events in your business' target marketplace (e.g. competitor consolidation, acquisition of a major customer) or in the broader environment (e.g. new legislation) should trigger a review of your strategic objectives.

Regardless of whether or not there are fixed time intervals in your business plan, it must be part of a rolling process, with regular assessment of performance against the plan and agreement of a revised forecast if necessary.

Original document, Prepare a business plan for growth , © Crown copyright 2009 Source: Business Link UK (now GOV.UK/Business ) Adapted for Québec by Info entrepreneurs

Our information is provided free of charge and is intended to be helpful to a large range of UK-based (gov.uk/business) and Québec-based (infoentrepreneurs.org) businesses. Because of its general nature the information cannot be taken as comprehensive and should never be used as a substitute for legal or professional advice. We cannot guarantee that the information applies to the individual circumstances of your business. Despite our best efforts it is possible that some information may be out of date.

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market growth in a business plan

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What is market growth rate & how to calculate it.

What Is Market Growth Rate & How to Calculate It?

A key way of testing the viability of your business is calculating the market growth rate. Here’s how you do it and why you should!  

Is your new business going to succeed? We all wish we knew the answer before we start. Like your new venture , FreshBooks was just a pipe dream once upon a time . 

You can’t tell the future, but you can calculate some solid predictions. One such prediction is the market growth rate. What is the market growth rate and how can it help you?

Read on, you’re in the right place.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is Market Growth Rate?

Why does market growth matter , how to calculate market growth rate, key takeaways.

Market growth rate is the predicted percentage growth for your industry over a defined period of time.

We can predict that the market growth rate for cleaning products has skyrocketed after the COVID-19 pandemic. We can also predict that the market growth rate for the cigarette industry is slow to non-existent. That customer base is surely shrinking. Major markets and consumer spending change over time. 

When you have a handy percentage metric like this at your fingertips, you can make a judgment on whether your business is worth pursuing. For example, I wouldn’t start a tobacco company today. Would you? 

market growth in a business plan

A Quick Word on Market Share

Another important aspect that we need to define is “market share”.

It’s all good and well that your industry is growing. That still doesn’t completely validate your business as a long-term player. 

For example, the cleaning product industry may be on the rise because of the coronavirus outbreak. Let’s zoom into a specific product – bars of soap. No one wants to share a bar of soap now. Fancy soap dispensers automatically drop liquid soap into your palm. Antibac gel is on every corner. Is your market share with bars of soap products viable just because the overall industry is growing?

Maybe. Maybe not.  This is an example of how consumer attitudes can affect your market share. That’s why you need to calculate the market share to build accurate business models.

The equation is: 

(Your company sales / Total industry sales) x 100

If you haven’t launched your product or business yet, you would later this slightly:

(Your projected company sales / Total industry sales) x 100 

Now let’s go back to market growth. 

Market growth matters because you want to make sure your service or product has legs. How useful will it be in the future? Will your product or service still be in demand in 5 years’ time? Are there more customers to market to than ever before? 

That’s what you’re looking for. You want to invest your time and energy into a business that has longevity. 

If you are seeking investment , the market growth rate is doubly important. Investors want to see that you have thought about the trajectory of your industry position. What factors could impact it? Does it make financial sense to build another business in this space? 

If you’re calculating the growth rate of your market as an existing established business, it’s still helpful. You’ll know if your business can still grow and thrive. Or is it time to pivot? 

Tobacco companies could seek new life in the cannabis and CBD industry for example. 

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The formula is deceptively simple:

First, you need to define the time period you are measuring. You want to calculate how much your market has grown in a given time. This could be 1 year, 3 years or 5 years. Even 10 years work if you want to see a dramatic change.

Though just as a head’s up, investors would want to see evidence of rapid growth. So the smaller the time period the better.

((Current market size – Original market size at the beginning of the defined time period) / (Original market size)) x 100 = Market growth rate

Most markets have a slow and steady annual growth. Rarely at a constant rate. Some industries are more variable than others. It’s worth doing a few calculations to compare the average growth rate in your industry over the years. You ideally want to see a trendline upwards, even if it’s slight. 

The market growth rate for your industry can help you project the future of your business. You can set realistic goals and milestones. You can verify the validity of a new business idea. You can also convince investors that your industry is only on the up and up!

For more industry insights, check out our resource hub .

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How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan

Alyssa Gregory is an entrepreneur, writer, and marketer with 20 years of experience in the business world. She is the founder of the Small Business Bonfire, a community for entrepreneurs, and has authored more than 2,500 articles for The Balance and other popular small business websites.

market growth in a business plan

The market analysis section of your business plan comes after the products or services section and should provide a detailed overview of the industry you intend to sell your product or service in, including statistics to support your claims.

In general, the market analysis section should include information about the industry, your target market, your competition, and how you intend to make a place for your own product and service. Extensive data for this section should be added to the end of the business plan as appendices, with only the most important statistics included in the market analysis section itself.

What Should a Market Analysis Include?

The market analysis section of your small business plan should include the following:

  • Industry Description and Outlook : Describe your industry both qualitatively and quantitatively by laying out the factors that make your industry an attractive place to start and grow a business. Be sure to include detailed statistics that define the industry including size, growth rate , trends, and outlook.
  • Target Market : Who is your ideal client/customer? This data should include demographics on the group you are targeting including age, gender, income level, and lifestyle preferences. This section should also include data on the size of the target market, the purchase potential and motivations of the audience, and how you intend to reach the market.
  • Market Test Results : This is where you include the results of the market research you conducted as part of your initial investigation into the market. Details about your testing process and supporting statistics should be included in the appendix.
  • Lead Time : Lead time is the amount of time it takes for an order to be fulfilled once a customer makes a purchase. This is where you provide information on the research you've completed on how long it will take to handle individual orders and large volume purchases, if applicable.
  • Competitive Analysis : Who is your competition? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competition? What are the potential roadblocks preventing you from entering the market?

7 Tips for Writing a Market Analysis

Here is a collection of tips to help you write an effective and well-rounded market analysis for your small business plan.

  • Use the Internet : Since much of the market analysis section relies on raw data, the Internet is a great place to start. Demographic data can be gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau. A series of searches can uncover information on your competition, and you can conduct a portion of your market research online.
  • Be the Customer : One of the most effective ways to gauge opportunity among your target market is to look at your products and services through the eyes of a purchaser. What is the problem that needs to be solved? How does the competition solve that problem? How will you solve the problem better or differently?
  • Cut to the Chase : It can be helpful to your business plan audience if you include a summary of the market analysis section before diving into the details. This gives the reader an idea about what's to come and helps them zero in on the most important details quickly.
  • Conduct Thorough Market Research : Put in the necessary time during the initial exploration phase to research the market and gather as much information as you can. Send out surveys, conduct focus groups, and ask for feedback when you have an opportunity. Then use the data gathered as supporting materials for your market analysis.
  • Use Visual Aids : Information that is highly number-driven, such as statistics and metrics included in the market analysis, is typically easier to grasp when it's presented visually. Use charts and graphs to illustrate the most important numbers.
  • Be Concise : In most cases, those reading your business plan already have some understanding of the market. Include the most important data and results in the market analysis section and move the support documentation and statistics to the appendix.
  • Relate Back to Your Business : All of the statistics and data you incorporate in your market analysis should be related back to your company and your products and services. When you outline the target market's needs, put the focus on how you are uniquely positioned to fulfill those needs.

Business Plan Section 5: Market Analysis

Find out the 9 components to include in the market analysis portion of your business plan, plus 6 sources for market analysis information.

Market Analysis

This is the part of your business plan where you really get to shine and show off that awesome idea you have. Of course, your product or service is the best! Now, let’s talk about how you know it’s a hit. Be prepared to show you know your market AND that it’s big enough for you to build a sustainable, successful business .

In writing up your market analysis, you’ll get to demonstrate the knowledge you’ve gained about the industry, the target market you’re planning to sell to, your competition, and how you plan to make yourself stand out.

A market analysis is just that: a look at what the relevant business environment is and where you fit in. It should give a potential lender, investor, or employee no doubt that there is a solid niche for what you’re offering, and you are definitely the person to fill it. It’s both quantitative, spelling out sales projections and other pertinent figures, and qualitative, giving a thoughtful overview of how you fit in with the competition. It needs to look into the potential size of the market, the possible customers you’ll target, and what kind of difficulties you might face as you try to become successful. Let’s break down how to do that.

What Goes Into A Business Plan Market Analysis?

Industry description and outlook.

Describe the industry with enough background so that someone who isn’t familiar with it can understand what it’s like, what the challenges are, and what the outlook is. Talk about its size, how it’s growing, and what the outlook is for the future.

Target Market

Who have you identified as your ideal client or customer ? Include demographic information on the group you’re targeting, including age, gender and income level. This is the place to talk about the size of your potential market, how much it might spend, and how you’ll reach potential customers. For example, if women aged 18 to 54 are your target market, you need to know how many of them there are in your market. Are there 500 or 500,000? It’s imperative to know. Similarly, if your product or service is geared toward a high-end clientele, you need to make sure you’re located in an area that can support it.

Market Need

What factors influence the need for your product or service? Did the need exist before or are you trying to create it? Why will customers want to do business with you, possibly choosing you over someone else? This is where you can briefly introduce the competitive edge you have, although you’ll get into that in more depth in following sections. Focus on how the product or service you’re offering satisfies what’s needed in the market.

Market Growth

While no one can predict the future, it’s important to get a possible idea of what business may be like down the road and make sales projections. Have the number of people in your target market been increasing or decreasing over the last several years? By how much per year? To make an intelligent forecast, you have to start with current conditions, then project changes over the next three to five years.

Market Trends

You need to take a look at trends the same way you look at population and demographics. Is there a shift to more natural or organic ingredients that might impact your business? How might energy prices figure in? The easy availability of the internet and smartphone technology? The questions will be different for every type of business, but it’s important to think about the types of changes that could affect your specific market. In this section, you can cite experts from the research you’ve done-a market expert, market research firm, trade association, or credible journalist.

Market Research Testing

Talk about what kind of testing and information gathering you’ve done to figure out where you stand in the market. Who have you spoken to about the viability of your product? Why are you confident of its success? Again, if you can, cite experts to back up your information.

Competitive Analysis

There’s no way to succeed unless you’ve examined your competition. It might be helpful to try analyzing your position in the market by performing a SWOT analysis. You need to figure out their strengths and the weaknesses you can exploit as you work to build your own business. You do need to be brutally honest here, and also look at what the potential roadblocks are-anything that might potentially stand in your way as you try to meet your goals and grow your business.

Barriers to Entry

Lenders and investors need to have a reasonable assurance they’ll be paid back, so they’ll want to know what would stop someone else from swooping in, doing what you do, and grabbing half the available business. Do you have technical knowledge that’s difficult to get? A specialized product no one else can manufacture? A service that takes years to perfect? It’s possible your industry has strict regulations and licensing requirements. All of these help protect you from new competition, and they’re all selling points for you.

Regulations

As we touched on above, you should cover regulations as a barrier to entry. If your field is covered by regulations, you do need to talk about how they apply to your business and how you’ll comply with them.

Six Sources for Market Analysis Information

The Market Analysis section of your business plan is far more than a theoretical exercise. Doing an analysis of the market really gives YOU the information you need to figure out whether your plans are viable, and tweak them in the early stages before you go wrong.

So, where do you start? Research is the key here, and there are several sources available.

1. The Internet

Some of the first information you need is about population and demographics: who your potential customers are, how many there are, and where they live or work. The U.S. Census Bureau has an impressive amount of these statistics available. USA.gov’s small business site is another good source for links to the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce, among others.

2. Local Chamber of Commerce

A lot of local information can be gotten from the chamber of commerce in the area where you plan to operate. Often, they can provide details into what the general business climate is like, and get even more specific about how many and what type of businesses are operating in their jurisdiction.

3. Other Resources

When actual statistical information isn’t available, you’ll often be able to put together a good picture of the market from a variety of other sources. Real estate agents can be a source of information on demographics and population trends in an area. Catalogs and marketing materials from your competition are useful. Many industry associations have a great amount of relevant information to use in putting your analysis together. Trade publications and annual reports from public corporations in your industry also contain a wealth of relevant information.

4. Customer Mindset

Take yourself out of the equation as the owner and stand in your customer’s shoes when you look at the business. As a customer, what problems do you have that need to be solved? What would you like to be able to do better, faster, or cheaper that you can’t do now? How does the competition work to solve those issues? How could this business solve them better?

5. the Competition

If you have a clothing store, visit others in your area. If you’d like to open a pizzeria, try pies from surrounding restaurants. If you’re a salon owner, park across the street and see what the store traffic is like and how customers look when they come out. Check out websites for pricing and other marketing information. Follow their Facebook pages. If you can’t be a customer of the competition, ask your customers and suppliers about them. Always be aware of what’s going on in the market.

6. Traditional Market Research

While you can gather a lot of data online, your best information will come from potential customers themselves. Send out surveys, ask for input and feedback, and conduct focus groups. You can do this yourself or hire a market research firm to do it for you.

What to Do With All That Data

Now that you’ve gathered the statistics and information and you’ve done the math to know there’s a need and customer base for your product or service, you have to show it off to your best advantage. You can start the market analysis section with a simple summary that describes your target customers and explains why you have chosen this as your market. You can also summarize how you see the market growing, and highlight one or two projections for the future.

If your information is dense with numbers and statistics, someone who reads your business plan will probably find it easier to understand if you present it as a chart or graph. You can generate them fairly easily with tools built into Google docs and free infographic apps and software .

Don’t assume that your readers have an understanding of your market, but don’t belabor simple points, either. You want to include pertinent, important information, but you don’t want to drown the reader in facts. Be concise and compelling with the market analysis, and remember that a good graphic can cover a lot of text, and help you make your point. It’s great to say you project sales to increase by 250% over the next five years, but it makes an even bigger wow when you show it in a graphic.

Always relate the data back to your business. Statistics about the market don’t mean much unless you describe how and where you fit in. As you talk about the needs of your target market, remember to focus on how you are uniquely positioned to fill them.

Don’t hesitate to break down your target market into smaller segments, especially if each is likely to respond to a different message about your product or service. You may have one market that consists of homes and another of small businesses. Perhaps you sell to both wholesale and retail customers. Talk about this in the market analysis, and describe briefly how you’ll approach each. (You will have more of an opportunity to do this in detail later in the plan.) Segmentation can help you target specific messages to specific areas, focusing in on the existing needs and how you fill them.

Remember to tailor your information to the purpose at hand. If your business plan is for internal use, you may not have to go into as much detail about the market since you and your team may already know it well. Remember, however, that the very act of doing the research may help you learn things you didn’t know, so don’t skimp on doing the work. This is a great opportunity to get information from outside that might affect your business.

It’s not about your ability to do professional-level market research; a plan intended for a bank or other lender needs to show your understanding of where your business fits into the grand scheme of things. Yes, you need to detail the information, but your main goal is to show how you’ve incorporated that knowledge into making solid decisions about the direction of your company. Use this section of your business plan to explain your understanding of your industry, your market and your individual business so that lenders and investors feel comfortable with your possibility for success.

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market growth in a business plan

What are market trends in a business plan?

Table of Contents

What are market trends?

Why do i need market trends in my business plan, how to keep up with market trends, what market trends to monitor frequently, customer behaviours, technological advances, industry regulations, how to write the market trends in your business plan, using countingup to streamline your business.

Market trends in a business plan are key pieces of information that share where your company sits in the wider picture of your industry. Your business plan should prove why your business is viable, show where you fit in the market and what customers you serve. Examining what the market looks like is a smart business move when starting out.

This article on market trends in a business plan will cover:

  • What are market trends
  • Why market trends are necessary in my business plan

Market trends are the direction changes of a specific industry and can be influenced by customer behaviours or developing technology. 

Take the mobile phone industry for example, as technology has improved over the last twenty years consumers have moved from bulky handsets to slimmer smartphones, that can do everything a computer can and more. Consumers have even gone back to the fashion of flip phones now that technology has allowed a bigger screen that can be folded to save space. This is a good example where both technology and customer demand has influenced the direction of the industry,

Acknowledging these trends when running a business ensures that you stay on the same path as the industry itself, moving with customer needs and adapting your business as the sector and technology evolve. Ignoring market trends in the long term could mean you are left behind by customers, as they may move to businesses that meet their needs more. 

Your market trend research should be part of wider market analysis in your business plan. Understanding where you fit in a sector and what separates your company from competitors will help you shape everything from your product to pricing and marketing plans.

It’s important to focus on trends in this process so you can understand what appeals to your target audience. By analysing the market landscape and trends, you will be able to serve your customers better. It will also feed into your marketing messaging and content creation strategy later on.

A market and trend analysis should be both quantitative (using numbers and statistics such as projections and financial forecasts) and qualitative (based on experience or observation). Trends will fit into both categories of research and you should be able to find data and non-numerical information to support your examination of trends when writing your business plan. 

It’s important to remember that a business plan is not set in stone. It can be a document that you regularly update to reflect changes in your industry and company.

Keeping pace in a fast-changing market is not easy – after all, you’ve got a business to run. Using social media and subscribing to relevant industry emails make it simpler to get the information you need. Doing this will allow you to stay on top of market trends to include in your initial business plan and for more long-term future planning. 

Follow influencers in your industry to see what they talk about and how they create content for the audience that you serve. This will give you an idea of what resonates with your target customers when it comes to content and the form of content the influencer tends to use (video, written blogs, imagery etc.).

Read relevant publications in your sector to find out what is making headlines. Magazines or online blogs that share up-to-date opinions and thought leadership (influential content) will help you stay on the pulse of what is currently important to the industry.

Reading detailed reports and research can be time-consuming but will give you a good overview of the industry’s current state and any new developments. You can then update your business plan to follow the trends that arise from any data you’ve seen. 

Some common areas will affect the running of your business, the trends in your business plan and the whole market landscape. Keeping on top of the following aspects and regularly checking in on them will ensure your business develops as the market does.

Your customer can make or break your business. If you don’t cater to their needs and wants, your business will not be on the radar of your target audience. 

Let’s take an example – if your target customer is under 45, and you primarily do business online, you will need to ensure your website is optimised for mobile. This is because consumer behaviours have changed in recent years, and most searches are now conducted via mobile . If you don’t pick up on this development, your business risks being left behind when competitors optimise for mobile and you don’t.

Like our previous example, customer behaviour often changes with advances in technology. As mobile phones, and then smartphones, have become more able to operate as a computer, consumers have moved to using their phones out of convenience. 

Keep on top of developments that are relevant to your business and make sure you can move with, and not against, the technology changes.

Every now and again, there will be a law change or new regulation that rocks many industries – such as GDPR in 2018. Staying up to date with regulations that could affect the way you run and market your business will save you weighty fines (especially in the case of data protection).

There may be more frequent regulation updates if you operate in an industry that requires you to follow safety guidelines or best practices, such as those that an electrician or builder will have to follow. 

Ensuring that you are up to date on precautions and rules, as well as renewing any professional certifications you need to operate, will ensure your business plan reflects the changing face of your industry.

Using your research on your target customers and the sector,  use the following steps to write up the market trends section of your business plan:

  • Current market overview, including which company has the biggest share or most influence
  • Where you fit in that market, what gives your business a competitive edge.
  • Current trends that impact your business operation
  • Any upcoming trends that may impact your business or the products/services you offer
  • Outline any plans on how you will keep up with trends
  • Upcoming regulatory changes

You can then follow this with your competitor research in your business plan, to give a full picture of your industry and where you fit in.

Now that you have the answers to questions like ‘what are market trends in a business plan’, you will be able to prepare a thorough market analysis to set up your new venture for success. 

Countingup can help your new business by making your business accounting simple, too. Countingup is the business account with built-in accounting software. The app is helping thousands of business owners across the UK save time and money by automating the time consuming parts of accounting. Find out more here and get started today.

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Six strategies for growth outperformance

Growth is the lifeblood of any successful business, but achieving growth that is both profitable and sustainable has proved especially difficult in recent years. Business leaders need a strategic approach that combines courage, innovation, and a willingness to make bold moves. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, McKinsey partners Rebecca Doherty and Kate Siegel and senior partner Jill Zucker share their insights on how companies can grow faster and more consistently than their peers. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length. For more discussions on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform .

Sean Brown: This may seem like a naive question, but why does growth matter?

Jill Zucker: Growth drives performance. It drives culture. It drives employee satisfaction. It helps you retain the best talent. And it fosters innovation in the marketplace. But it’s important to grow profitably. Top-line-only growth tends to catch up with you over time. And while most organizations aspire to grow, we find that growth is quite hard to achieve. Only 25 percent of companies grow sustainably over time. But if you can achieve it, that growth is rewarded, with sustainable growth outperformers generating seven percentage points more annual total shareholder returns than their peers.

Sean Brown: What does it take to be a growth outperformer?

Jill Zucker: We studied what drives growth at more than 4,000 companies around the globe, and we found a set of ingredients that are true across industries. We recognize the challenges that companies are facing today because of the global economy, so our research spans a period of ebbs and flows in the economy.

The first thing that we found is that it’s important to wake up in the morning and actively choose growth. We meet many executives who say they want their companies to grow, but they don’t allocate resources to support that growth over time.

You also need the courage to make bold moves, even in a time of economic uncertainty. In previous decades, you could choose not to pursue growth in a temporarily challenging environment. These challenging events, however, have become so pervasive that we need to have a through-cycle growth mindset. During the financial crisis, the gap between those companies that chose growth and those that stuck to maintaining the core business was reasonably narrow, but as the economy settled, that gap significantly widened. You saw a much steeper growth curve among those that had made bold bets during the downturn.

Sean Brown: How do you ensure that the pathways you choose lead you to the intended destination?

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Jill Zucker: You need to lay the foundation for more dynamic resource allocation, by which we mean both capital and talent. It means being careful in your culture to shut off projects without shutting off the talent. Just because a talented executive pursued a good experiment that didn’t work out doesn’t mean the executive should leave. Talent remains scarce in many business areas, so it’s important to allocate it to growth projects. It also means allocating resources to areas you are convinced will grow and eliminating the hobbies.

Secondly, you need to think about inorganic opportunities—both acquisitions and divestitures. The third part of the foundation is building functional capabilities, whether it’s marketing or digital or innovation.

Sean Brown: What strategies do you find growth outperformers pursue?

Rebecca Doherty: We looked at what companies have done both during the uncertainty over the past five years as well as over the longer term and found six differentiating strategies. One of the timeless approaches is to continue innovating in the core. Eighty percent of growth comes from maximizing the value of your core [exhibit]. But that’s not enough to put you in the echelon of companies that achieve growth on a sustained basis. To achieve that remaining 20 percent, you need to move into adjacencies in your value stream, such as new geographies, and build breakout businesses.

The third timeless element is putting people at the heart of what you do, whether it’s day-to-day growth or a broader transformation. Having your core people involved in growth initiatives with an ownership mindset is critical.

The three strategies that have emerged in more recent years include building an innovation culture , using sustainability as an accelerant to growth, and portfolio reallocation, including what we call shrinking to grow. The bold moves you make could include divesting assets where you may not be the best owner and then reallocating those resources toward growth opportunities.

Sean Brown: You talked about the timeless growth strategies. What makes them timeless?

Rebecca Doherty: The ratio of growth that comes from the core versus adjacencies or breakout business is pretty consistent over time. We’ve also found that companies that grow in all directions over a ten-year period have double the chance of outperforming their peers.

Sean Brown: How do the strongest growers embed an innovation culture?

Rebecca Doherty: We ran an executive survey of more than 1,000 companies, and I was surprised, frankly, to see how important innovation is across all the growth paths. Historically, people think of innovation as a way to turbocharge the core business. But leading growers look just as much at innovating new offerings and permeating that mindset through the company.

Sean Brown: Many companies still see sustainability more as a cost than a growth generator. How do you envision it accelerating growth?

About QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI arm, helps companies transform using the power of technology, technical expertise, and industry experts. With thousands of practitioners at QuantumBlack (data engineers, data scientists, product managers, designers, and software engineers) and McKinsey (industry and domain experts), we are working to solve the world’s most important AI challenges. QuantumBlack Labs is our center of technology development and client innovation, which has been driving cutting-edge advancements and developments in AI through locations across the globe.

Rebecca Doherty: We’ve found that if you already have growth and profitability in place, sustainability can be that extra punch  that gives you a lift over your competitors. Sustainable growth is not a substitute for profitability, but companies that have been able to embed sustainability in their businesses have been rewarded. Perhaps intuitively, those that deliver growth and profits show a five-percentage-point outperformance in TSR. If you add ESG [environmental, social, and governance] into the mix—and this isn’t dabbling but integrating ESG priorities into your strategy and sharing the messages with investors—you see seven points of outperformance. In some sectors such as retail, you have brands that have brought sustainability into the core and have done strings of acquisitions over the years to drive impact.

Sean Brown: How do you balance the bets on breakout or adjacent growth against building up the core? If 80 percent of the growth comes from the core, should that much of your investment go there as well?

Rebecca Doherty: It depends in part on the maturity of the business and where you are on the growth curve. If it’s early, you should focus on propelling that core growth strategy. If it’s a mature business and you’re only making incremental gains, maybe you look to invest beyond the core. How much you invest does matter, though. Companies sometimes simply take last year’s budget and tweak it by a few percent. For a breakout business, sometimes you need to invest more—and not just more money. I worked with one company that put its chief technology officer into the new business to help grow it. The initial investment in dollars wasn’t large but the investment in talent was.

You should also think about the investment in stage gates. Some bets may require a large up-front investment, and you will not see much revenue for a while. Others, you could start with smaller investments, and the funding could grow proportionately with revenue. Different profiles can work, but it’s important to have a sound business plan, understand the operational and financial milestones, and be willing to pull the plug if it’s not panning out—which is a bold move in itself.

Sean Brown: Reallocation of resources includes both people and capital, but people tend to have incentives. How do you maintain incentives when you’re moving somebody from a stable business into a riskier growth project?

Rebecca Doherty: It ties to what Jill said earlier: a failed business doesn’t mean a failed executive. The culture needs to reward risk taking, and management has to accept that you won’t have 100 percent success. In terms of incentives, you can align an individual’s incentives to delivering the project, but also implement incentives that reward thinking about what is best for the broader company.

Jill Zucker: We see some management teams reward managers uniformly on EPS [earnings-per-share] growth of the business or total shareholder return, and therefore whether you’re innovating or you’re maximizing the core, you are rewarded equally. It’s not about giving more money to one person or another but about what will grow the total shareholder return. This encourages managers to give up some capital for innovation if they believe that doing so will improve the company’s growth.

Sean Brown: Can you elaborate on how companies should pursue growth through adjacencies?

Kate Siegel: Finding growth outside your core business is challenging, so we looked at how growth outperformers approach adjacencies. Our sample was about 250 companies that had announced significant adjacency moves over the past 20 years. We found four types of rationales, or approaches, that underpinned these moves. The first was based on customer relationships and the knowledge of customers’ pain points. The second was capabilities, where companies could use their existing assets, people, or processes in new markets. Expansion into the value chain—going upstream or downstream to capture various synergies—was another rationale. The last one was finding opportunities for disruption and business model innovation. What’s interesting is that the more approaches they used, the higher the reward, and that included both outperformers and other companies.

Sean Brown: How do companies identify those adjacencies? Is it based on experience and team discussions, or do they use tools?

Kate Siegel: There is a variety of data you can scan on trends, technologies, changes in preferences. You can also consider similarities of your offerings to certain businesses and capabilities. For example, we recently helped a software company that was struggling with high competition find diversification opportunities. We used AI to scan unstructured online data to identify more than 500 growth ideas based on the value creation approaches . Another set of AI analyses helped prioritize the opportunities based on trends, news mentions, momentum, and patent intensity to give the management team a short list of ideas. The company then considered which were the best fit, what talent they would need, or whether the market was big enough. One of these ideas was one they hadn’t talked about before. AI is a powerful tool for challenging orthodoxies.

Sean Brown: One strategy we haven’t yet touched on is shrinking to grow. What does that mean?

Kate Siegel: We know only about 10 percent of companies are able to maintain positive growth rates across a decade. But suppose you don’t have this consistent growth engine. The next-best strategy is to periodically prune back your portfolio and then grow healthily from a new base. You divest parts of the business one or two years out of the decade, but in every other year, you grow from that new base. We’ve seen that work in some conglomerates, where they regularly look at their portfolio to see if there are less attractive assets they could divest and then reinvest the proceeds into ones that could be better platforms.

Sean Brown: What if the businesses you want to prune have some star performers? How are companies thinking about that talent dimension?

Kate Siegel: Divestitures typically have key-member clauses to ensure business continuity, but you can take steps to understand which talent you would like to retain. The worst thing you can do is not think about talent when you sell a business, because it could have the best technology officer for a new growth entity you plan to reinvest in.

Rebecca Doherty: When we consider an acquisition, we often think about it as one plus one equals more than two. Likewise, when we think about divestitures or spinouts, it’s usually not two minus one equals one, because you’re not the best owner of the business, and someone else might be, or it might flourish on its own. Separations might not only give you proceeds to reinvest but also help the other entity perform better.

Sean Brown: Once you have laid out the various growth paths and developed strategies, you need to execute them well. What does excellence look like for execution?

Kate Siegel: People are at the heart of a successful transformation. Transformations that activate the full organization are eight times more likely to succeed. In addition, those in which more than 20 percent of employees owned transformation initiatives saw nearly twice the excess shareholder return than their peers did. Once you have the right aspiration mindsets and culture, with clarity on the growth pathways, the most important thing is to involve as many people as possible in the growth effort. That includes getting everyone aligned on the growth aspiration, building the skills they need, having leaders consistently talk about the growth targets, and implementing processes to verify whether the bets are working.

Sean Brown: Are you optimistic that companies can revive growth?

Jill Zucker: There is not a single company I can point to that’s not focused on growth today, despite the economic backdrop. When I think back to other periods of economic uncertainty, the hunkering down, the fixation on the core, the focus on efficiency were much more at the forefront. Now, growth remains a priority.

Jill Zucker   is a senior partner in  McKinsey’s New York office,  Kate Siegel  is a partner in the Detroit office, and  Rebecca Doherty is a partner in the Bay Area office.  Sean Brown is global director of communications for the Strategy & Corporate Finance Practice and is based in the Boston office.

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8 Growth Plan Examples for Your Business

Table of Contents

When it comes to business growth, companies have plenty of opportunities to invest. But because there are so many options of where and how to invest, deciding what’s right for your organization can be overwhelming.

This article covers eight growth plan examples to reach a more extensive customer base, surpass competitors, and expand your business.

What Are Business Growth Plan Strategies?

Business growth plan strategies help a company grow, allowing the company to potentially become stronger, larger, and more profitable. Growth might occur through raising capital from strategic investors, developing new products, and reducing advertising costs to lead to a better outcome.

Business growth plans are dynamic tools used by management to grow the company’s size and market share. But the plan itself is typically designed with investors in mind. This is so that investors may understand how the company they’ve invested in intends to spend their money and develop as a business. A thorough business growth plan will achieve that objective.

Why Are Growth Strategies Important?

A growth strategy is a set of actions and decisions meant to increase the size of your business over a specified period of time. This can be anything from opening a new store to entering a new market in order to gain market share. This can result in a growth in revenue, profit, or other variables of your business.

Moreover, growth plans provide your business with a goal and long-term direction. You can maintain your focus on the future by laying out a plan of action for areas where your business might be improved.

Through these growth strategies, You may enhance upon what is already effective and make changes to things that require improvement.

Finding the most effective plan for your business is vital because no growth strategies are universal. However, breaking down your ideas into smaller bits will help you analyze scopes of improvement and accomplish specific objectives.

Types of Growth Plans for Your Business

The types of growth plan vary based on what goals you’re trying to meet. An effective growth plan is one that is as specific as your goal and as flexible as your team. The most common types of business plans are:

Market Strategy

Growth plans should be designed around the market strategy; these range from a target market approach to a revenue-generating strategy. If you have just begun your company, these strategies might be simple and small to keep the company’s growth manageable.

Speak to your current and potential customers to learn what they want and are looking for while formulating your strategy.

Development Strategy

A development strategy tries to open up a new market for the goods and services offered by your business. This comprises creating consumer profiles and looking for new market segments and demographics to target with marketing and advertising.

Product Strategy

A product strategy plan helps entrepreneurs find new and innovative products for their company and develop a marketing plan to generate sales.

Such a plan aims to balance the need for a creative new product with the need for stability and scalability. A product strategy plan also helps the entrepreneur create a successful product launch, ensuring strong sales.

Diversification

Development and product strategy are both elements of diversification. Chunking down product sales can be an excellent way to grow your business by diversifying your offerings.

You can increase your revenue by getting into other markets and pricing your product differently. You can also increase your influence by providing a similar product in another market with the same benefits. This will help you interact with new customers and create opportunities for new sales.

market growth in a business plan

Top 8 Growth Plan Examples

A growth plan is a business development strategy designed to help an enterprise grow and increase profitability. It helps plan out long-term and short-term goals and focuses on how an enterprise can grow cash flow, sales, and other metrics.

Following a suitable growth plan can help you reach a more significant portion of the market share. Below are the top eight growth strategies frequently used by businesses.

1. Start Promotions

Promotion starts with community engagement. This can be accomplished through social media marketing and is key at any stage of your company’s growth plan. Building brand awareness and incorporating social advertising into your current marketing mix will help propel you to the next level.

2. Viral Loops

Viral loops are a marketing technique designed to generate word-of-mouth advertising. Viral loops work by creating a loop, which is a back-and-forth process that establishes and reinforces a relationship between two or more people.

3. Check Pricing

Pricing is a marketing activity that relies on the knowledge and experience of your business’s goals and the market’s needs. Companies could use low prices as a growth strategy. Consumers are frequently drawn to your brand when you provide a more affordable option than your competitors.

4. Ensure Quality

A business reflects its quality by measuring its team and customers, as well as its ability to generate revenue and competitive advantage. Businesses that frequently concentrate on raising the quality of their goods and services reap the rewards.

With a business plan, you can create a quality company culture. As a result, you can have an efficient sales and marketing strategy with increased customer trust and recommendations.

5. Word of Mouth

Word of mouth can be a great growth strategy. If you need it to be, you need to promote your products or services in a way that brings in talk.

Provide perks for influential people in your industry, such as celebrities, influencers, and top journalists. They will most likely help promote your product for you. All the more reason to learn leadership skills!

6. Strong Branding

If you want your business to grow, it’s vital that you have a strong brand. Building a strong brand means not just promoting your business but also guaranteeing your customer a consistent experience and the trust of a brand.

One way to implement a strong brand is by creating a unique value proposition for your customers that other companies cannot offer.

7. Targeted Emails

Targeted emails are an effective way of determining the most effective way of improving your business. They can be sent to targeted customers, departments, employees, and clients. They may be sent to a group of people in a personalized manner using keyword phrases that reflect their role or level of importance. You may send emails based on age, shopping habits, and region to increase engagement through relevancy.

8. Customer Experience

Good customer experience is not just about a great product. It’s also about how you and your team create unforgettable interactions with customers, investors, and partners.

You can do this by offering a live chat feature for customers on your website. You can also send personalized emails thanking customers and suggesting additional products based on past purchases.

These methods boost customer loyalty, increasing your possibility of gaining repeat customers.

Growing a business is not easy. Today we have thousands of ways to build a business and build an exit strategy. But we must have business growth plans to help guide our decisions in the short and long term. So before you strategize your first growth plan, go through these top 8 examples and analyze the areas of improvement for your business expansion.

8 Growth Plan Examples for Your Business

Abir Ghenaiet

Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.

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Global expansion strategies: how to take your business to new markets successfully.

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Jason Miller helps influential brands and celebrities create generational wealth with their businesses | CEO, Strategic Advisor Board .

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s ready to take your business ventures from domestic to global, read on to learn about how to research, create financial and strategic plans, and use marketing to get to global success. These are some of the steps I used when breaking into markets with my company, Strategic Advisor Board.

The obvious reason to go global is with access to more people, you will most likely experience revenue growth. But one of the biggest reasons I recommend doing this is due to risk diversification by not relying solely on one market for your business revenue; this is important because of ongoing changes to the economy. According to research, "shareholders do, in fact, reward companies who grow faster outside of the U.S ."

Expanding to new markets can lead to economies of scale and lower production costs due to bulk purchasing and more streamlined production. Your business could also have access to new talent and resources which could lead to more innovation and creativity as well as tapping into local raw materials. Here is how to do it:

Research & Adaptation

I would argue that this is the most important part of the process and maybe the most in-depth of expanding globally because so much of what you find out determines if it’s a smart company decision to make the move. Research your new market to determine whether your product/service will perform well there but also find out tax and regulatory info. You may be exempt from certain taxes if you open your business to new borders.

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Find out if you have a target market in the new area you’re looking at, and if they’d be receptive to your products/services. Make sure you take into account the different cultural aspects that could affect the marketability of your product. Do research on any competitors in the area and figure out what your unique selling proposition is. All this information you’ve gathered will help with making your decision.

Financial Planning

Before you can decide to expand, you need to see if you can afford it. Before creating any sort of budget, find out all the costs associated with expanding. Start with looking at the operational expenses such as infrastructure for office or warehouse spaces and supply chain costs. Supply chain costs can include storage of inventory, or transportation costs of your products to and from manufacturing centers to stores or directly to clients.

Find out if any tariffs or customs fees would affect the profitability of your product. You may want to insure your goods, so look into the costs of doing that as well as how much you should put aside for contingency funds to have on hand for any unforeseen expansion costs.

Strategic Planning

In this part of the process, you will create a roadmap starting with defining clear objectives for your expansion. Then developing a strategy that consists of how to enter the market, including looking into joint ventures, mergers, franchising or partnerships.

Your strategic plan also needs to include adaptive planning. This means you’re flexible in your plan so you can accommodate any unforeseen changes, difficulties or challenges that may occur in the marketplace. Since markets are dynamic and continuously shift, it’s important your strategies adjust as well to include any changing political, economic or cultural conditions. Include these factors in the risk management portion of the plan. Also, include a timeline with realistic expectations of short-term and long-term goals.

Marketing & Talent Management

The marketing strategy you’ve been using domestically may not work globally. It’s a skill to be able to build a consistent brand image while making sure you’re connecting with and being respectful of local market preferences.

One of the best things about having a business operating on a global scale is access to top talent. Hiring the correct talent that goes with your brand’s values and mission is important across all your business locations. That being said, HR policies may be different from domestic HR laws in the workplace. Look into getting work visa support if you need employees to work on international projects.

Global expansion isn’t easy and there’s a lot to consider, but if you’re willing to accept the challenge, there are certain strategies to help you achieve success. Extensive research is the most important to start with. Understand what the new market potential will be like, and find out what the taxes and culture look like. Evaluate how receptive your product will be to locals and what makes it unique. Financial planning is crucial in the early stages and you should assess everything from operational and supply chain costs to insuring your goods. Strategic planning is the roadmap to follow and should include clear objectives, a comprehensive entry strategy, timelines, and adaptive planning. The last steps include using marketing that sits well with locals and hiring top talent to help with the transition. Expanding your company isn’t easy, but if you do your research and plan accordingly, you’ll be on the right track to global success.

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Monthly Expenses for an Assisted Living Center

Written by Dave Lavinsky

monthly expenses for an assisted living center

Operating an assisted living center involves managing various expenses to ensure high-quality care and a comfortable living environment for residents. Developing a comprehensive assisted living facility business plan helps in categorizing and managing these costs, which include staffing, facility, food and supplies, marketing and administrative, and regulatory compliance expenses.

Understanding and controlling these costs is crucial for maintaining profitability and providing excellent services. This article provides a detailed breakdown of the typical monthly expenses for an assisted living center, offering insights into effective financial management strategies.

Download our Ultimate Assisted Living Business Plan Template here >

Starting an assisted living facility involves understanding and managing various monthly expenses to ensure sustainability and quality care for residents.

Staffing Costs

Staffing is the most significant expense for an assisted living center and thus, greatly affects your assisted living center’s profit margins . These costs typically accounting for 40% to 60% of total operating costs. Key staff roles include caregivers, nurses, administrative staff, housekeeping, and maintenance personnel.

  • Caregivers: Caregivers provide direct assistance to residents with activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, and medication management. They often work in shifts to ensure 24/7 coverage. Example Monthly Cost: 20 full-time caregivers at $2,500 each: $50,000
  • Nurses: Nurses provide medical oversight and handle residents’ health care needs. Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) and Registered Nurses (RNs) are commonly employed. Example Monthly Cost: 5 full-time nurses at $4,000 each: $20,000
  • Administrative Staff: Administrative staff manage the day-to-day operations, including admissions, billing, human resources, and compliance with regulations. Example Monthly Cost: 3 full-time administrators at $3,500 each: $10,500
  • Housekeeping and Maintenance: Housekeeping staff ensure the facility is clean and well-maintained, while maintenance staff address repairs and general upkeep. Example Monthly Cost: 5 full-time housekeeping and maintenance staff at $2,800 each: $14,000
  • Food Service Staff: Food service staff prepare and serve meals to residents, catering to various dietary needs and preferences. Example Monthly Cost: 5 full-time food service staff at $2,800 each: $14,000

  Total Monthly Staffing Costs: $108,500  

Facility Costs

Facility costs include expenses related to the physical building and infrastructure. These costs can vary significantly based on the location, size, and age of the facility.

  • Rent or Mortgage Payments: Monthly payments for the property or lease, which can vary widely based on the location and market conditions. Example Monthly Cost: Rent or mortgage: $40,000
  • Utilities: Costs for electricity, water, gas, heating, and cooling. Energy-efficient upgrades can help reduce these expenses. Example Monthly Cost: Utilities: $10,000
  • Insurance: Comprehensive insurance coverage, including liability, property, and workers’ compensation. Example Monthly Cost: Insurance: $5,000
  • Maintenance and Repairs: Regular maintenance and repairs are essential to keep the facility in good condition and ensure safety. Example Monthly Cost: Maintenance and repairs: $5,000

  Total Monthly Facility Costs: $60,000  

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Food and supplies.

Providing meals and daily living supplies is a substantial expense. This category includes food, kitchen supplies, cleaning products, and medical supplies.

  • Food: The cost of food varies based on the number of residents and their dietary requirements. Providing nutritious, varied meals is essential for resident satisfaction and health. Example Monthly Cost: Food: $20,000
  • Kitchen Supplies: Items such as utensils, cookware, and other kitchen essentials. Example Monthly Cost: Kitchen supplies: $2,000
  • Cleaning Products: Necessary for maintaining hygiene and cleanliness throughout the facility. Example Monthly Cost: Cleaning products: $2,000
  • Medical Supplies: Includes medication, first aid supplies, and other health-related items. Example Monthly Cost: Medical supplies: $3,000

  Total Monthly Food and Supplies Costs: $27,000  

Marketing and Administrative Costs

Ongoing marketing efforts are necessary to attract new residents, while administrative costs cover various operational expenses.

  • Marketing: Efforts include digital marketing, community outreach, and traditional advertising to maintain high occupancy rates. Example Monthly Cost: Marketing: $5,000
  • Office Supplies: Essential items such as paper, printers, and other office equipment. Example Monthly Cost: Office supplies: $1,000
  • Technology: Costs for software, hardware, and IT support to manage operations efficiently. Example Monthly Cost: Technology: $2,000
  • Legal and Professional Fees: Legal services, accounting, and other professional fees. Example Monthly Cost: Legal and professional fees: $3,000

  Total Monthly Marketing and Administrative Costs: $11,000  

Regulatory Compliance

Assisted living centers must comply with various state and federal regulations, which involve costs for licensing, inspections, staff training, and maintaining health and safety standards.

  • Licensing and Inspections: Regular fees for maintaining licenses and undergoing inspections to ensure compliance with regulatory standards. Example Monthly Cost: Licensing and inspections: $1,000
  • Staff Training: Ongoing training to ensure staff are up-to-date with the latest care practices and regulatory requirements. Example Monthly Cost: Staff training: $2,000

  Total Monthly Regulatory Compliance Costs: $3,000  

Total Monthly Expenses

Adding up all these costs gives us a comprehensive view of the total monthly expenses for an assisted living center.

Total Monthly Staffing Costs: $108,500

Total Monthly Facility Costs: $60,000

Total Monthly Food and Supplies Costs: $27,000

Total Monthly Marketing and Administrative Costs: $11,000

Total Monthly Regulatory Compliance Costs: $3,000

Total Monthly Expenses: $209,500

These costs reflect an average sized assisted living center. Costs will be higher for a larger facility and less for a smaller one.

In addition to the startup costs required to open an assisted living facility , running an assisted living center involves significant monthly expenses, from staffing and facility costs to food, supplies, marketing, administrative, and regulatory compliance costs. Understanding these expenses is crucial for effective financial management and ensuring the sustainability and profitability of the assisted living facility . By carefully managing these costs and optimizing operations, assisted living centers can provide high-quality care to their residents while maintaining financial health.

Assisted Living Facility Business Plan PDF

Download our assisted living facility business plan pdf here. This is a free assisted living business plan example to help you get started on your own assisted living business plan.

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5 reasons the stock market is headed for a 4% gain in June, according to Fundstrat

  • The S&P 500 is primed to rise 4% in June, according to Fundstrat's Tom Lee.
  • Lee highlighted five catalysts that could drive the stock market higher next month.

"We see positive supports for stocks in June, hence, buy the dip (if it comes)," Lee said.

Insider Today

The stock market is poised to rise another 4% in June after jumping 5% in May, according to a Tuesday note from Fundstrat's Tom Lee.

Lee said the S&P 500 could jump to 5,500 within the next month, driven by five positive market catalysts.

The first catalyst is bullish seasonals. Since 1927, there have been 17 instances when stocks were up in the first quarter of the year and then saw a decline in April. This setup, which has happened already this year, bodes well for strong gains in May and June.

Lee highlighted that the win ratio of stocks rising in June is 100%, with a median gain of 3.9%. Such a gain would send the S&P 500 to new all-time highs. 

"The seasonal argument alone is positive," Lee said. "That's why we think there's still gas in the tank."

The second catalyst is inflation, or rather continued disinflation, according to Lee, who is expecting several favorable inflation data points over the next few weeks. That starts with Friday's release of April Core PCE, followed by the release of May CPI on June 12. 

A continued decline in used car prices, a surge in new car inventories, and declining trends in owners' equivalent rent all give Lee confidence that inflation should continue to move lower. If that does happen, the likelihood of rate cuts should rise in the second half of the year.

"I think the odds of the number of Fed cuts by the end of the year is actually going to start creeping up again," Lee said. 

The market currently expects just one interest rate cut in 2024, and if more rate cuts begin to get priced into the market, that should act as a tailwind for stocks. 

The third catalyst is investors' low utilization of leverage, which suggests the type of euphoria often seen at market peaks is nowhere to be found. Lee highlighted that NYSE margin debt of $775.5 billion is still 17% below its 2021 peak of $936 billion.

The fourth catalyst to push stocks higher in June is the record $6 trillion sitting in cash on the sidelines. But Nvidia's blowout earnings results last week could jolt investors to finally put that cash to work and buy stocks, according to Lee.

Finally, the fifth catalyst that should push stocks higher in June is solid corporate earnings results, which show that profits continue to rise.

"Earnings season shows the fundamental story of the economy is intact and I think AI is getting stronger," Lee said.

With 97% of S&P 500 companies having reported first-quarter results, earnings per share have beaten consensus estimates by 3%, and while the earnings gains were led by the Magnificent Seven stocks, the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 delivered solid results, according to data from Bank of America.

"Moreover, despite concerns around high expectations for 2H, earnings estimates for the remainder of 2024 slightly rose QTD," Bank of America said in a Tuesday note.

market growth in a business plan

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  1. Company Growth Strategy: 7 Key Steps for Business Growth & Expansion

    4. Mergers, Partnerships, Acquisitions. Although riskier than the other growth types, mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions can come with high rewards. There's strength in numbers. A well-executed merger, partnership, or acquisition can help your business break into a new market.

  2. How to Write a Business Growth Plan

    3. Discover opportunities for growth. With some homework, you can determine if your expansion opportunities lie in creating new products, adding more services, targeting a new market, opening new business locations or going global, to name a few examples. Once you've identified your best options for growth, include them in your plan. 4.

  3. How to Write a Market Analysis for a Business Plan

    Step 4: Calculate market value. You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value. A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the ...

  4. WHAT is Market Analysis?

    7 TOP TIPS For Writing Market Analysis. 1. Realistic Projections. Above all, make sure that you are realistic in your projections about how your product or service is going to be accepted in the market, otherwise you are going to seriously undermine the credibility of your entire business case. 2.

  5. How to Create a Business Growth Plan for 2022

    Open a new location. Purchase another business. Increase employee headcount. Leverage social media partnerships. Focus on organic growth strategies (e.g. SEO and content marketing) 5. Create SMART goals and use a growth strategy template. Setting SMART goals —goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound—is key ...

  6. How to Write and Conduct a Market Analysis

    A market is the total sum of prospective buyers, individuals, or organizations that are willing and able to purchase a business's potential offering. A market analysis is a detailed assessment of the market you intend to enter. It provides insight into the size and value of the market, potential customer segments, and their buying patterns.

  7. How to Write a Growth-Oriented Business Plan

    Change is the opportunity to grow. 2. Execution. Strategy is meaningless without execution. Execution tactics are the steps, the activities, the decisions you make and paths you take to execute on strategy. Execution tactics are the key elements of a marketing plan, product plan, and finance plan.

  8. How to Write a Business Plan: Guide + Examples

    Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It's also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. After completing your plan, you can ...

  9. Write your business plan

    Common items to include are credit histories, resumes, product pictures, letters of reference, licenses, permits, patents, legal documents, and other contracts. Example traditional business plans. Before you write your business plan, read the following example business plans written by fictional business owners.

  10. Business Growth Plan Guide: Propel Your Success

    Explain your vision, goals, market opportunity, competitive advantage, and financial projections in a concise and compelling manner. Expert Tip 1: "Your executive summary should grab attention and convey your growth potential. It's your plan's introduction." - Sarah Smith, Business Strategist. 2.

  11. How to do a market analysis for your business plan

    The industry analysis is the section of your business plan where you demonstrate your knowledge about the general characteristics of the type of business you're in. You should be able to present statistics about the size of the industry, such as total U.S. sales in the last year and industry growth rate over the last few years.

  12. How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan

    Formatting the Market Analysis Section of Your Business Plan. Now that you understand the different components of the market analysis, let's take a look at how you should structure this section in your business plan. Your market analysis should be divided into two sections: the industry overview and market size & competition.

  13. 7 Growth Plan Templates to Build a Growth Strategy

    A growth plan template is a preformatted document that guides businesses in outlining objectives, strategies, and actions aimed at business growth. Think of it like a strategic plan or framework for focusing on different growth elements, such as market expansion, product development, and financial projections.

  14. How To Make A Business Plan: Step By Step Guide

    Growth-business plan. A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

  15. Prepare a business plan for growth

    Use targets to implement your business plan. A successful business plan should incorporate a set of targets and objectives. While the overall plan may set strategic goals, these are unlikely to be achieved unless you use SMART objectives or targets, i.e. S pecific, M easurable, A chievable, R ealistic and T imely.

  16. What Is Market Growth Rate & How to Calculate It?

    So the smaller the time period the better. ( (Current market size - Original market size at the beginning of the defined time period) / (Original market size)) x 100 = Market growth rate. Most markets have a slow and steady annual growth. Rarely at a constant rate. Some industries are more variable than others.

  17. How to Write the Market Analysis in a Business Plan

    The market analysis section of your small business plan should include the following: Industry Description and Outlook: Describe your industry both qualitatively and quantitatively by laying out the factors that make your industry an attractive place to start and grow a business. Be sure to include detailed statistics that define the industry ...

  18. Business Plan Section 5: Market Analysis

    Business Plan Section 5: Market Analysis. Find out the 9 components to include in the market analysis portion of your business plan, plus 6 sources for market analysis information. This is the part of your business plan where you really get to shine and show off that awesome idea you have. Of course, your product or service is the best!

  19. What Is Business Growth? (Definition, Strategies and Steps)

    A business growth plan is a thorough framework that includes objectives, strategies and plans for achieving business growth goals. Usually, these plans span a year or two. They can help business development managers, company executives and other stakeholders implement growth strategies and measure success.

  20. What are market trends in a business plan?

    Starting a business. Market trends in a business plan are key pieces of information that share where your company sits in the wider picture of your industry. Your business plan should prove why your business is viable, show where you fit in the market and what customers you serve. Examining what the market looks like is a smart business move ...

  21. Business growth: The leader's blueprint

    Expand the core business. Growth begins with the core, and growth leaders understand the importance of optimizing their current core business. With more than 80 percent of total revenue growth, on average, derived from the core, achieving excellence in current operations is crucial. 6 Statistics in this section are based on McKinsey's analysis of data from Corporate Performance Analytics by ...

  22. Six strategies for growth outperformance

    Growth is the lifeblood of any successful business, but achieving growth that is both profitable and sustainable has proved especially difficult in recent years. Business leaders need a strategic approach that combines courage, innovation, and a willingness to make bold moves. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, McKinsey partners Rebecca Doherty and Kate Siegel and senior ...

  23. 8 Growth Plan Examples for Your Business

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