Loans by the US Small Business Administration (SBA) have turned the dreams of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs into reality.
Good news? You too can achieve your business goals with the support of an SBA loan.
One of the key requirements for securing such a loan is submitting a comprehensive business plan—a document offering an in-depth overview of your business idea and its sustainability.
Don’t worry.
Writing an SBA plan is quite easy. With this blog post, we will guide you through the process and offer a free SBA business plan template to make it even easier.
But before that…
What is an SBA Business Plan?
An SBA plan is a professional document outlining your business objectives and strategies along with a detailed action plan to execute them. This plan is specifically used by small business owners to apply for SBA loans and grants.
Like a traditional plan, an SBA plan offers a detailed overview of your entire business. It includes sections about the target market, competition, products and services, operations, marketing strategy, management team, and finances.
While there’s no fixed format, using an SBA business plan template to write your SBA plan is recommended.
Importance of an SBA business plan
Writing a business plan is helpful for organizations to get a clear understanding of their business idea and its viability. However, that’s not it.
Here are a few reasons that make your SBA plan extremely important:
- Helps secure SBA loans and even funding from investors.
- Establishes clear goals and milestones to help you stay focused.
- Offers a clear business vision and a strategic roadmap to achieve your goals.
- Solidifies your business idea by compelling you to address missing gaps.
- Establishes credibility amongst lenders and fosters growth amongst stakeholders.
- Instills clarity amongst team members bringing them all on the same page.
All in all, a well-detailed SBA plan builds the foundation for you to launch and build a successful business.
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How to write an SBA business plan
As with traditional plans, an SBA business plan also follows a similar format. The SBA business plan template contains nine major sections, including:
1. Executive summary
An executive summary is a concise summary of your SBA business plan.
It highlights high-value points of your plan to help the readers get a quick gist of your business and its strategies.
The executive summary of your plan can touch on the following aspects:
- Business introduction: Start your executive summary by briefly introducing your business to your readers.
- Description of business opportunity: Describe the business opportunity by highlighting the problem you’re solving for your target customers.
- Target market: Mention your target customers to whom you’ll sell your product or service.
- The solution you offer: Explain how your product or service is the ideal solution for the problem your target customer is facing.
- Market competition: Identify your potential competitors and mention them.
- Marketing and sales strategy: Describe how you will market your product and mention your sales channels.
- Financial projections: This is essentially a forecast of future expenses and revenues.
- Execution of your plan: Explain how you will implement your plan and strategize all your objectives.
2. Company description
In this company overview section of your SBA business plan, you will describe what your company does and every detail about your company. It includes your target customers, your business partners, your competitors, and more.
Below are the major key points to include in the company description section:
- Identity and objective: Mention your company’s identity and what your company does. You may also include your company’s ethics and values.
- Company’s offerings: Define in detail what your company offers. Explain the product or service that you’re selling.
- The problem you solve: Specify the problem you chose to solve to cater to the needs of your customers.
- Target customers: State which section of the people you have targeted. You should also mention your customers’ priorities and values.
- Your strengths: Outline your competitive advantage over other players in the market. You can also list your competitors and mention how you’re different from them.
- Partners: Introduce your business partners and offer details such as the partnership period, their contribution, etc.
3. Market analysis
In this section, you write a detailed analysis of the market in which your business operates. The following are the market research data you should include in your SBA business plan:
- Briefly explain what other companies in your industries are doing
- Outline the strengths and advantages of your competition
- Specify the market trends occurring in your market
- Examine what makes the companies in your industry successful.
- Demonstrate your competitive advantages to outrun your competition
- Research strategic advantages of competitors like the ideal location, cheap procurement of raw materials, etc.
4. Organization and management
In this section, you will define the business structure. This includes the legal and organizational structure of your business along with the management practices you follow.
Legal structure
Here, you describe the legal structure of your business.
Is it going to be a sole proprietorship, limited partnership, limited liability company(LLC), or C or S corporation? Explain in complete detail how you’ll structure your business legally and how it’ll impact your business operations.
Organizational chart
Attach an organizational chart outlining the internal structure and hierarchy of your business. Also explain the roles, responsibilities, and relationships between individuals in the company.
5. Service or product
In this section, you give a complete description of the product or service you’re selling to your customers. The following are the key aspects that this section of your SBA business plan should have:
- Describe in detail the product or service you’re providing to your targeted customer base.
- Explain the pricing of your product. You should also mention all the costs that have contributed to the final price of the product.
- List down all the possible uses of your product and how your customers will benefit from it.
- Discuss the product life-cycle of your product. Explain in detail the four stages of a product life-cycle: Introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.
- Include a plan mentioning how you will handle the intellectual properties, copyright, and patent filings.
- Mention all or any research and developments you have regarding your business.
6. Marketing and sales
In this sales and marketing section, outline your marketing strategies, sales channels, and the budget for both. Ensure that you include the following important points in this section:
- Write a detailed plan of how you’ll market your product to draw your customers
- Provide the details of the sales process and mention the sales channels you’re choosing.
- Mention the details of your budget regarding marketing and sales of the product
- Discuss the goals of your marketing and sales strategies
- Review and address your pricing strategy as it affects your marketing and sales.
7. Funding request
The most prominent reason why entrepreneurs create an SBA business plan is to make lenders believe that they are a viable and reliable business venture. This section is simply for putting forward your funding requests.
The following should be included in this section:
- Specify how much funding you’ll require to run your business for the next five years
- Explain briefly how you’ll use the provided funding
- Mention what type of funding you’re looking for
- Add a detailed description of your future financial plans. This includes debt repayment plans, cash flow management, budgeting expenses, etc.
8. Financial Projection
The purpose of financial projection is to help the readers assess your company’s financial stability. This section includes the current financial reports of your business and future projections.
It’s focused on convincing potential funders that your company is financially stable and solvent. The below information should be included in your SBA business plan:
- Income statements for the past three to five years
- Balance sheets of the past three to five years
- Cash flow statements for the past three to five years
- Business collaterals
- Financial projections for the next five years:
- Projected income statements
- Projected balance sheets
- Projected cash flow statements
- Budgeted capital expenditures
The ideal way to represent future projections is by using monthly or quarterly projections in the first year and annual projections for the years afterward.
Explain how the projections and the information represented are relevant to your funding request. Consider the SBA loan rates and the guarantee fee while projecting your new payment amounts.
9. Appendix
The Appendix is the last section of your SBA business plan. It contains all the additional and supporting documents, important to explain a specific aspect of your business.
It could also include documents that are exclusive to a particular lender that may not fit into the predefined outline of a business plan.
Usually, the common information in an appendix includes:
- Credit history
- Resumes
- Product photos
- Letters of reference
- Licenses and permits
- Patents
- Legal documents
That’s it. Those were all the sections that an SBA business plan should include.
Resources for writing an SBA business plan
Here are a few additional resources to help you write your SBA business plan efficiently.
U. S. Small Business Administration
The SBA business planning tool offers step-by-step guidance and tips to write a fully detailed business plan. Entrepreneurs can also take online lessons on the SBA learning platform to enhance their understanding of business planning.
Apart from these, there’s an SBA’s business guide that helps with business planning, launch, and funding.
SCORE.org
SCORE is a non-profit resource partner with SBA. It has the largest network of mentors for small businesses in the US.
Business owners can request mentorship on this platform to get advice on financial and business planning. These mentors can also assist with valuable knowledge on writing a solid business plan.
One can also choose to attend workshops and online webinars hosted by these industry veterans to strengthen their understanding of business.
Local Small Business Development Centers (SBDC)
SBDC offers training and advice to small businesses for free or extremely low fees. The experts at SBDC can help with business planning and financial management. Most SBDCs host regular sessions on writing a business plan. Some of these experts can also review your business plan and offer valuable feedback.
Women’s Business Centers (WBC)
WBC is again a resource partner at SBA offering low-cost business counseling and training to women wanting to launch, grow, or plan their business. Their one-on-one counseling and group sessions also offer help for writing a business plan.
These resources make it easier for entrepreneurs to write their business plans even with no prior experience.
Download the SBA Business Plan Template
Need help writing your SBA business plan from scratch? Here you go—download this SBA business plan template and get started.
This template is designed specifically for businesses planning to apply for SBA loans. The step-by-step guide, examples, and tips in this template will help you prepare an actionable plan that meets all the essential guidelines.
Conclusion
Writing a perfect business plan can be tricky, especially when you have to present it to lenders. However, once you understand what the lenders look for in a business plan, the process gets quite easier.
Fortunately, Upmetrics can simplify this process of business and financial planning with its AI-powered app. It offers step-by-step guidance, 400+ fully customizable templates, and AI assistance to help you write a solid business plan in minutes.
So why wait? Build your SBA business plan today!
