The one thing I would like to make clear about the business Summary is that it is not just some one paragraph summery it is a well though out overview of your business, that is broken down in segments and we will discuss these segments to the summary.
You want to give a deduce statement in the business summary of the following elements.
· Company history · Company objectives · Product/service offerings · The market · Competitive advantage (A persuasive statement of why and how the business will succeed) · Projected growth for the company and the market · Key management team members · Funding requirements, including a timeline and details on how the funds will be used
Understand the summary is just that, so you want to limit yourself to two to three sentences that will give an appeal about each segment that later detailed in the body of the plan. By the time your finished with the summary you should have no less than one yet no more than two page(s).
Now you will have some that will tell you to go ahead and write the summary first. I personally advise that the summary is done last. By the time, you complete the plan you well seasoned in the plan you will be
ready to write a well-informed summary that has a great appeal to the reader.
Make sure you describe the business your in. If you are already in a business, explain the history of the business. An established business should also talk about success and accomplishments. Make sure to discuss short-term goals and objectives in your summary.
You then want to discuss your strategy to your reach these goals and objectives. Next, you want to give clear description of your business products or services; such as is the product or services in proto-type stage or ready to go to manufacturing. Then you want to discuss how you are going to take your product or service to market.
When you summarize the market of your business, you want to discuss the target audience of your business. Now if your business is currently running, you want to discuss your customer base; this includes your major customers or clients. You also want to talk about how much of the market you own. For new start-up business, you want to talk about your company market potential here.
The next part of your summary you want to talk about your business competitive advantage of your business. You want to talk about things like how your product or services are better than or more advance than your competitors do.
Next, you will want to discuss your business management team.
You want to begin by talking about their skills and qualifications. This is very important to discuss. If your business already ran by a management team then discuss the history of successfully managing your business and benchmark achievements.
Finally, you want to discuss financials in the summary. OH YEA! The fun stuff, numbers! You want to give a timeline of how your business funds used in the operation of your business. You want to talk about projected revenues based on projected markets. You want to talk about your timeline on profitability based on your projected revenues and markets.
Lastly dealing with the financials, you want to discuss in brief your business current or projected cash flow and balance sheet(s).