3.
Re: Business Plan help Jun 11, 2008 5:03 PM
in response to:
mharvey
My suggestion is to do the Sales Forecast first -- it's basically a month-to-month projection of how much money you'll have coming in. For your business, I think it would make sense to categorize this by type of service/product (tats, piecings, jewelry items, etc.) and/or by booth/artist. Estimating how much you'll make month by month for each category allows you to think about and plan for any seasonal highs and lows in your business, for periods of time when an artist might be on vacation or unavailable, etc.
Do the P&L next. It lets you figure all the costs associated with sales in each of the categories above, and allows you to break those costs down (into merchandise, supplies, equipment, etc.). It also allows you to estimate your overall operating expenses (salaries, rent, utilities, advertising, etc.) from month to month. It's a lot of trouble, but worth it because as you work through it, you'll be more accurate about thinking of how various things (weather, holidays, college breaks, military leaves, etc.) might affect your income and your expenses. Finally, it lets you determine is you're really going to make enough money to operate profitably, or if your going to have to find ways to increase sales or decrease costs in order to make it.
If you don't like the templates you're using, try the ones that SCORE provides:
http://www.score.org/template_gallery.htm
l
I hope that helps you move forward. Best wishes.
