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HELP WITH BUSINESS PLAN

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momon121

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Mar 30, 2010
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My brother works for a reputable mobile phone operator and the internal staff have been given an opportunity to be franchise owners without any initial start up cost.

One of the requirements is to provide a detailed business plan to the owners. We have little experience writing detailed business plans.

We would be extremely grateful if the trusted members on this forum could kindly guide and support us. We are also willing to pay for such services and any recommendations here would be welcomed.

Regards
 
Examine any contracts hard - get commercial solicitor advice. A franchise can cost you dearly if you do not know what you are doing or what you are agreeing.
 
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Is there any companies on here that can provide a service to write business plan and check contracts ??
 
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The question you should be asking yourself is WHY?

If its such a great deal, why are they giving it away?

If they already know the business, why would they need a business plan, surely part of the franchise will be guiding you through the process?

Finally, a business plan is usually guesswork and may well having little bearing on how the business will work (or fail).

Main elements are what you will sell and at what price (which they already know).
Who your competitors are (which they already know), your marketing strategy (which will be what they are already providing from their core marketing activity).

I would hazard a guess that they want to unload a load of existing shops to gullible (but enthusiastic) staff members.

Just call me an old cynic.
 
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billmccallum1957 said:
The question you should be asking yourself is WHY?

If its such a great deal, why are they giving it away?

If they already know the business, why would they need a business plan, surely part of the franchise will be guiding you through the process?

Finally, a business plan is usually guesswork and may well having little bearing on how the business will work (or fail).

Main elements are what you will sell and at what price (which they already know).
Who your competitors are (which they already know), your marketing strategy (which will be what they are already providing from their core marketing activity).

I would hazard a guess that they want to unload a load of existing shops to gullible (but enthusiastic) staff members.

Just call me an old cynic.
Click to expand...

To be honest the Network Operator is not the best performing provider however franchise shop that my brother is eyeing up has great potential due to ongoing investment and expansion in the city.

We are aware of the above what you have mentioned Bill and to some extent your assumption would be correct.
 
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As a starter, I’d say that nobody should ever write a business plan specifically for a third party. Your business plan should be written for you, then possibly tweaked to meet the needs or requirements of said third party

Templates will help and professionals can give quality input on specific content but my suggestion would be that you write the first draft yourselves

Broadly there are 3 areas to cover

Operations
Marketing
Finance (including all-important cash flow projections)

In this case the interesting part will be your and the franchises resepecive views, since they will have s direct hand in all 3 aspects
 
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momon121 said:
To be honest the Network Operator is not the best performing provider however franchise shop that my brother is eyeing up has great potential due to ongoing investment and expansion in the city.

We are aware of the above what you have mentioned Bill and to some extent your assumption would be correct.
Click to expand...


Every business ever sold has great potential.
In the eyes of the seller at least. Few utilise that great potential prior to selling - which would boost their potential business value - so ask yourself why.
If you can see potential to grow then will your competition see the same potential?

As I often say about a business, question everything. The seller is not on your side.
 
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The business plan is a must by the Franchisor. I’m guessing it’s see if the potential franchisee has the financial and vision to operate.

I will be directly helping my brother there will be no 3rd party involved however if there are professional services that help customers write business plan they we will welcome such recommendation.

I’m not sure if this is any help my brother mentioned that all the staff recieve an internal email regarding the franchise opportunitiy and the list of stores that were available were not high performing stores. So Bill may be write in saying that the company just wants to unload under performing stores? Why my brother is keen is because the city that the store is in has seen lots of investment and has a high number of university students
 
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momon121 said:
The business plan is a must by the Franchisor. I’m guessing it’s see if the potential franchisee has the financial and vision to operate.

I will be directly helping my brother there will be no 3rd party involved however if there are professional services that help customers write business plan they we will welcome such recommendation.

I’m not sure if this is any help my brother mentioned that all the staff recieve an internal email regarding the franchise opportunitiy and the list of stores that were available were not high performing stores. So Bill may be write in saying that the company just wants to unload under performing stores? Why my brother is keen is because the city that the store is in has seen lots of investment and has a high number of university students
Click to expand...

There are consultants and business services that will write business plans, they will charge a fee of course.
They are simple enough to do from templates and sample plans on the internet.

High number of university students = half a year with no almost university students. Do they get a mobile phone before they go to uni / back to uni or do they get one while at uni?
If including university students as an advantage then useful if can dig figures up from the store regarding custom from university students.
 
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A business plan either written or worked with a outside person is a bad idea, you need to know what your market is how you will get the customers and the costs

If you work with others they will most likely influence you and at best confuse the plan with their own ideas

You will be running the company and responsible for it's success

If you look on some of the posts on this forum you can see the totally different opinions given which often is extreme in both directions
 
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Chris we have all the data that’s required so there will be no room for any influence from outside however more specifically we are in search of somebody who can present the information in a more structured and convincing format
 
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The person to present in a more structured and convincing format is anyone with a word processor. Better results from people used to writing business plans but to be honest a lot of business people I have met do have the knowledge of what to write in one, while not everyone even has one written.
 
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We’ve had a look at few templates and they all appear similar we just avoid errors and have all the wordings on the plan spot on or are we focusing too much on the business plan
 
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I’m nearly in the process of completing my business plan and wanted to thank everyone.

I’ve attached some figure sheets, please could you kindly have a look at the areas of reducing costings.

We have propsoed the following:-

For 2016/2017 the store used 230 hours per week based on 5.8 FTE. As you may have noticed, as part of cutting cost i have reduced the weekly hours from 230 to 193. Ofcourse this would not be possible to carry out straight away as staff are already on allocated contracted hours. However, this would be the plan to move the business forward.


I estimate the cost of saving in wages will be £17,316 based on rate of pay at £9.00 p/h


Also there will be costs cut as detailed below

Cleaning 3 hours - From £4,900 to Zero

Window Cleaning - from £1,400 to £520

COSHH - cost would remain to £300

Nice to haves/misuse - from £1,000 to zero

Bonuses - cost would remain to £11,715 (this figure can fluctuate depending on performance)

Contractors - from £3,505 to zero

Overtime - from £5,518 to £3,000

BAU travel - cost would remain to £792 depending on the amount of training

Stationary - cost would remain to £313 but may change

Petty Cash - cost would remain to £49 but may change

staff Phones - from £252 to Zero


Total estimated saving £30,371
 
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eki36w
 
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The hours being cut - have you factored in any employer NI saving?

Cleaning - presumably someone is still going to be doing this? Part of normal job? Or business owner doing it for free?

Window cleaning - again someone needs to do it. In house with external company once a week? Easy enough to do with a couple of tools, a bucket and some water. Does take a little time.

Contractors - are you able to cover what they were doing?

Rest look ok to me.

Ultimately a business plan is of most use to the business person - both as a way of getting ideas and costs written down and as a guide for the future in what you want to achieve.
Figures tend to be subject to change anyway, as time goes on you can plug actual figures you are now generating into the plan to update it.
It can be a living document, changing every month or quarter and being part of what you aim to achieve.
 
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The potentially largest savings would be in stock purchases, do you keep asking for quantity discounts or look around for other suppliers

Regarding sales can you make even a small increase to the price you sell at, even 2% can really add up to a lot over a year

Can you improve the way you treat customers, service is a major selling point
 
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You really need to focus on your figures, they don't make sense.

Cleaning 3 hours a week @ £4900 works out over £31 per hour. Even if you dispense with a part time cleaner, you still have to pay someone to do it, either as part of an existing role or in addition to it.

Your image https://ibb.co/eki36w Shows Costs of £217,019, but required cashflow of £108,509!!!
 
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Chris Ashdown said:
The potentially largest savings would be in stock purchases, do you keep asking for quantity discounts or look around for other suppliers

Regarding sales can you make even a small increase to the price you sell at, even 2% can really add up to a lot over a year

Can you improve the way you treat customers, service is a major selling point
Click to expand...
Regarding the sales it’s something that we cannot influence, the price will be dictated by Vodafone to keep everything in uniform with other stores and all stock and accessories will be supplied by Vodafone
 
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billmccallum1957 said:
You really need to focus on your figures, they don't make sense.

Cleaning 3 hours a week @ £4900 works out over £31 per hour. Even if you dispense with a part time cleaner, you still have to pay someone to do it, either as part of an existing role or in addition to it.

Your image https://ibb.co/eki36w Shows Costs of £217,019, but required cashflow of £108,509!!!
Click to expand...

Thanks Bill and revising the figure again, thank you so much for highlighting that for me.

Currently in the stores they 9 employees including full time and part time
Current staffing:-

3x 40hr
1x 30hr
2x 24hr
1x 14hr
1x 12hr

We hope to propose the following in our business plan to show savings and efficiency.


2n9mg6x.jpg
 
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On the agreement the franchisor requires £108,509 of funds for the initial running which is the required cash flow however the fixed cost is £217,019. I’m slightly puzzled now as to where they got this exact figure from?
 
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One questions gents, as for our competitors such as Carphonewarehouse they will have same contract for £5 less a month. How can we convince our customers to sign up with us as oppose with CPW. We believe this will be some of the question being asked ?
 
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momon121 said:
One questions gents, as for our competitors such as Carphonewarehouse they will have same contract for £5 less a month. How can we convince our customers to sign up with us as oppose with CPW. We believe this will be some of the question being asked ?
Click to expand...

The exact same contract, same service etc? If the price is the deciding factor then buyer will go for cheapest option.
For those people you cannot convince them. You can allow them to convince themselves.
 
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Thanks Mr D and everyone. Once again I have benefited so much from everyone’s input. I’m always learning and i feel shy that I have nothing to offer except immense gratitude and appreciation
 
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