It’s Time to Adjust Your Business Plan for Inflation

A good business plan guides you through each stage of starting and managing your business. You’ll use your business plan as a roadmap for how to structure, run, and grow your new business. It’s a way to think through the key elements of your business. Business plans can help you get funding or bring on new business partners. Investors want to feel confident they’ll see a return on their investment. Your business plan is the tool you’ll use to convince people that working with you — or investing in your company — is a smart choice. If you have any questions, contact our office at 413.475.7283 or Complete our online quote form today!

There is a lot of talk these days in the media about inflation, and since it is a part of normal economic cycles it is worth exploring as a business owner. The resulting effect of inflation on the business is in the value of cash, revenue, expenses, and assets. Business owners should have a plan for inflationary cycles. The plan should include metrics you will use to measure success and any actionable next steps that should take place and at what point during the cycles.

There’s no right or wrong way to write a business plan. What’s important is that your plan meets your needs. Most business plans fall into one of two common categories: traditional or lean startup.

Traditional business plans are more common, use a standard structure, and encourage you to go into detail in each section. They tend to require more work upfront and can be dozens of pages long.

Lean startup business plans are less common but still use a standard structure. They focus on summarizing only the most important points of the key elements of your plan. They can take as little as one hour to make and are typically only one page.

Traditional Business Plan Format

When you write your business plan, you don’t have to stick to the exact business plan outline. Instead, use the sections that make the most sense for your business and your needs. Traditional business plans use some combination of these nine sections.

Executive summary
Company description
Market analysis
Organization and management
Service or product line
Marketing and sales
Funding request
Financial projections

Lean Startup Format

You might prefer a lean startup format if you want to explain or start your business quickly, your business is relatively simple, or you plan to regularly change and refine your business plan.

Key partnerships
Key activities
Key resources
Value proposition
Customer relationships
Customer segments
Channels
Cost structure
Revenue streams

When building a business plan there are a lot of moving parts. Many decisions are made on collections of information and other decisions. Any errors or assumptions in that information can have drastic effects on the profitability of the business. Reliable, accurate books are key.

At Encharter Insurance, we are here to help you with a business insurance quote or any claim. Call us at 413.475.7283 or visit our website at encharter.com to discuss your business insurance and deductible needs. We can provide coverage from many insurance carriers so you receive the insurance for your budget and needs!