The Importance of a Business Plan for Your Fashion Business

Regardless of the industry you’re in, if you are serious about your business, you will invest the time, effort and money into creating a painstakingly detailed plan for how the business idea in your head will translate into reality and a thoughtful strategy for its success. A professional business plan is not only the foundation for a successful business, but it’s a necessity if you’re looking for investments and/or a business loan. One of the best things that you can do for your business is invest in business consulting services to help you with this. Without a business plan written properly, your business is going to struggle on. Instead of struggling, get the advice from the experts that can make all the difference to how you become successful.

These are some of the standard sections in most business plans and should be included in your business plan for your fashion business.

Executive Summary

Everyone refers to the Executive Summary section of the business plan as your “elevator pitch,” i.e.,  “tell us your idea, where you are now, what you want to accomplish and how you’ll do it.”

The two are similar, and the cliché advice about practicing and shaping your elevator pitch is a good idea; however, you would likely have an elevator pitch before you have to make a business plan, whereas an executive summary should be the last section of the business plan that you write.

As the name suggests, executive summaries are written for major stakeholders and investors who are very busy and only need to hear the highlights to know if a business is the right investment for them.

One of the most, if not the most important section of a business plan, if you need funding, is the financial projections, which you can’t know until you’ve done the math. An executive summary must include that hard data.

Company Overview

This section is for the founder’s vision and mission statement and should ideally answer the question, “why are you starting this business?” 

Also included in this section should be bios of the founder and those of the partners and/or executive team – relevant experience, education, past jobs, unique skills, etc.

Market Analysis

This is where you show and prove by providing extensive market research done, if possible, by a reputable third party. 

This section should detail the size of the market, established players, your unique selling proposition (i.e., how you will differentiate yourself), the demographic(s) you’ll be targeting and an analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis), among other relevant market data.

Manufacturing

At the point that you’re writing a business plan, you should have suppliers lined up and be basically ready to start production. In this section, if your business is going to be selling embroidered shirts in Montreal, this is where you name the supplier of your custom embroidery service in Montreal, the price per unit, the number of units, logistics, etc.

Financials

This is the financial plan of your business and should include all sources of funding and the financial statements that make the most sense based on your operations. Typical statements include a balance statement, breakeven analysis, projected profits and losses and projected cash flow.

Sales& Distribution

In either your market analysis section, product description section or this one, you should have detailed and realistic buyer personas based on your target markets and a fully realized and detailed plan on how you will market to them. 

You should also include where you will sell your goods, how you will deliver them to customers and how often you will fulfil orders (for corporate clients).

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