Why write a business plan? Why do we plan anything? For success of course.
The humble business plan is the blueprint for your business. It can be as complicated as you need it to be, or as simple for you to grow with. You can change them, amend and add to them as you grow. A business plan is essentially a guide to the ideal business you want to create and reach for. You wouldn’t build a home without blueprints, you shouldn’t start a new business without one either.
Philosophy aside, creating a business will help you confront real fears, risk and put it on paper, so to speak. It is a great time to test the feasibility of your business idea. Oftentimes we jump head first into new ventures that sound exciting or promising, but it's important to really be more considerate of what is possible. If you can take the time to create a business plan and work through the realities, you can decide if that business is a good fit for you, possible or even just marketable. Sometimes you can have a great idea, but it might not be worth the cost to produce it, market it and sell it. Making a plan gives you a full picture of your concept.
Now, in the case of starting your own independent insurance agency, we truly believe in building a business plan ahead of time to give our agents the best chance at building a long term company. We also want to reflect on this each year and provide review opportunities, goal setting and growth classes. We are big on learning here at SAI.
Insurance is a little different, you don’t control your products or cost - our multitude of A+ carriers decide that. However, setting up a business plan will give you a great sense of vision and help you establish the next best steps. Our goal is to always help our agents know the next best step (and then help them complete it).
“The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer
So what is in a business plan? We go in depth over the basic sections in a typical business plan - as well as insurance specific items in our article: Building your Business Plan Road Map.