Small businesses in the construction industry have the second highest failure rate of all industries. A survey of builder and remodeler members of the National Association of Home Builders revealed that fewer than 12 percent had a written business plan, fewer than 15 percent had written operating budgets, less than 18 percent had written mission statements, and almost 70 percent had no formal planning procedures.

Your business plan is the most important management tool you have. It defines your strategy, tactics, and specific activities for execution, including dates and deadlines, budgets and cash flow. It will guide you regarding the types of projects to pursue, how you market your company, the people to hire and the funding needed to succeed. Planning establishes your short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term goals and outlines how you can achieve those goals by breaking down long-range plans into manageable short-term goals that everyone on your team can identify and support.

Your business plan will help you focus strategy, manage milestones, manage metrics, assign and track responsibilities and performance, and manage money using projections for sales, costs, expenses, and cash.

Plan To Profit provides a blueprint you can follow to develop a working business plan. It walks you step by step through the process starting with market research and analysis, followed by developing your product and service, marketing and sales, operations, leadership team and staffing, and goals and action plans. It guides you in creating your financial forecasts and budgets and your vision, mission, core values, and unique selling proposition. It includes a Microsoft® Excel® workbook which contains financial statement worksheets that you can fill in and use to complete your pro forma financial statements.