Be Sure To Include Industry Metrics In Your Business Plan
If you are a business plan writer planning how to start a new business, you have to make some assumptions. For those assumptions to have some credibility, you should be aware of industry metrics. Unless the business you are starting is truly the first of its kind on the planet, you should be able to find some metrics based on what is typical for the type of business you are planning. As an example, fast service restaurants likely have developed correlations between traffic and sales. There is a reason why these types of restaurants are located on busy streets. A certain amount of the cars that are passing will stop and each car that stops will make an average purchase. These three numbers - the traffic count, the percentage of those cars that will pull in and the average purchase per car should give you an average sales figure to benchmark your own projections against. If you plan on stopping more cars than average or sell more to each car than average, you should have an explanation of these projections in your business plan. Another example can...