Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 500 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their trading companies.
If you’re unfamiliar with creating a trading business plan, you may think creating one will be a time-consuming and frustrating process. For most entrepreneurs it is, but for you, it won’t be since we’re here to help. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great plan.
In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write a trading business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.
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A business plan provides a snapshot of your trading company as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.
If you’re looking to start a trading company or grow your existing company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your trading business to improve your chances of success. Your business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.
With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a trading company are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for trading companies.
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If you want to start a trading business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your trading business plan.
Your executive summary provides an introduction to your trading business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.
The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of trading company you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a trading business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of trading companies?
Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.
In your company overview, you will detail what type of trading business you are operating.
For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of trading businesses:
In addition to explaining the type of trading business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.
Include answers to questions such as:
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In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the trading industry.
While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.
First, researching the trading industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.
Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.
The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.
The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section:
The customer analysis section must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.
The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, schools, families, and corporations.
As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of trading business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.
Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.
Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.
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Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.
Direct competitors are other trading businesses.
Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes other types of retailers or wholesalers, re-sellers, and dropshippers. You need to mention such competition as well.
For each such competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as
With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.
The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:
Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.
Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a trading company, your marketing strategy should include the following:
Product: In the product section, you should reiterate the type of trading company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you sell jewelry, clothing, or household goods?
Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their prices.
Place: Place refers to the site of your trading company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your trading business located in a busy retail district, a business district, a standalone facility, or purely online? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.
Promotions: The final part of your trading marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:
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If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.
While the earlier sections of your plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.
Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your trading business, including answering calls, scheduling shipments, ordering inventory, and collecting payments, etc.
Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to acquire your Xth customer, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your trading business to a new city.
To demonstrate your trading business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.
Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing trading businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.
If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing a trading business.
Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.
An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.
In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you charge per item or per pound and will you offer discounts for bulk orders? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.
Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your trading business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.
Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and traders don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.
When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a trading business:
Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your facility location lease or a list of your suppliers.
Writing a business plan for your trading business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will understand the trading industry, your competition, and your customers. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful trading business.
Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Trading business plan?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
Click here to finish your Trading business plan today.
Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.
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