Question:
Does anyone have a business plan that they would be willing to share. I need a model for the business plan we are doing for our boarding/training/breeding business. I've been advised that a plan will help in case of IRS inquiries.

Answer:
Does anyone have a business plan that they would be willing to share. I -need a model for the business plan we are doing for our -boarding/training/breeding business. I've been advised that a plan will -help in case of IRS inquiries

. Business plans are individual. Information for the basis of your plan comes from whatever market you serve. The goals of your business plan are your own.

Example: Your goal is to achieve 5% of the market share of all boarding business; 10% of all the training business within x miles or within your county or state; and your goal is to sell x number of horses per year to a particular market.

To design your plan, you will need to know your market in each of those areas. You can obtain information to help you through county and local governments and for horses through your breed location and perhaps obtain information on the number of horses in your target area. You'll need to define your market and your target such as recreational people.

A basic business plan includes:

purpose corporation charter organization state of the industry state of business marketability business objectives key strategies opportunities finances budget

So, let's say in your area there are 20 stables with 400 stalls available. There are 5,000 horses in your county and 2% of horse owners board somewhere. Your goal is to supply 30 stalls and you are marketing to those 2% horse owners. You'll need to develop a good marketing plan and financial plan to increase your marketing share to the point of increased income.

That'll give you an idea of what a business plan is all about. Business plans are usually done on a short-term and long term basis with the capability of changing things throughout the time period. For example, your marketing plan of taking out full page ads twice a year in the local horse paper is only bringing in 10 phone calls a year and results in only one new boarder. So, you might want to take a different approach in your marketing plan within the budget allocated.

If all this confuses you, then contact the nearest school of higher education and request information on business courses that cover business plans. You'll need finance, accounting, marketing and research for your main information along with advertising (design) and other areas of interest to you.

There are people (some are lawyers which is who did ours) that write business plans for a fee for small businesses who can't afford to hire a consultant on a full time basis.  The gentleman who did ours was a very friendly very reasonable guy who also had very reasonable rates. =)  What it boils down to, is that these are your goals if you achieve your goals and plans, and generally they are set up in phases, such as phase one acquisition, phase two, management, etc that's a pretty broad idea, but it can get sort hairy when you're writing in clauses that deal with state income tax laws and whatnot because of laws governing depreciation, and tax write offs. (your business plan does not have to be as specific as these, however a lot leave VERY little to opinion, you know how those IRS crack diggers are!).  But anyhow, there is like a 30 dollar program called, I think, Business Plan(ner), which will write the business plan after asking you some pretty specific goals and expectations.