Develop Your Business Plan

Training › Small Enterprise training

One concise business plan that takes your business from the stage it is at to the next one.

For businesses that are already trading. Instead of six separate courses, you build one cross-cutting plan: marketing, people, buying, costing, finances and capital. A workbook does the calculations for you. Adapted for Zimbabwean conditions from the International Labour Organization’s Start Your Business programme.

Who it is for

• Owners of trading businesses with no current written business plan
• Members who have completed Growth Strategy
• Owners preparing to apply for a loan or bring in an investor

What you will do

About 16 hours in all: roughly 6 on screen and 10 gathering figures and writing your own plan. Most learners finish within three to four weeks.

1. Welcome (15 minutes). What a business plan is for, and how the course works.
2. You and your business model (1 hour 15 minutes). Your abilities as an entrepreneur, what a plan contains, and your business model in writing.
3. Your marketing plan (3.5 hours). Market research, the seven Ps of the marketing mix, and your sales estimate.
4. People, organisation and the law (1.5 hours). The staff your plan needs and what they cost, your legal form, responsibilities and insurance.
5. Buying, and greening your business (1 hour). What you must buy to grow, and how reducing, reusing and recycling raises your profit.
6. Costing your goods and services (2 hours 45 minutes). What each product really costs you, and whether your prices leave a profit.
7. Financial planning (3 hours). Your sales, cost and profit plans, and the cash flow plan that keeps you from running out of money.
8. Capital (1 hour 15 minutes). How much your plan needs for investment and working capital, and where it will come from.
9. Finalise, present and act (1.5 hours). Test your plan, write the executive summary, plan the actions and send your Business Plan for review.

What you leave with

• A complete Business Plan with an executive summary, ready to show a lender or investor
• The business plan workbook (Excel) with your own figures in it
• A Certificate of Completion when your plan is approved, and a Certificate of Competence once the plan is in use

Two ways to take it

How the self-paced course works

• Work on your phone or computer, in short sessions. Your answers are saved as you go.
• Every exercise is about your own business, not a textbook case.
• An AI coach comments on your key answers and asks the questions a consultant would ask.
• A SMEAZ consultant reviews your finished work and replies with comments.
• Your certificate carries a number and a QR code that anyone can check on our website.

Start the course Choose how to attend

What comes next

Strengthen one area at a time with the six Improve Your Business modules on the Small Enterprise training page.

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