Growing Your

Home Based Agency

Part 7 - Components of a Written Business Plan

By Sherrie Funk

Okay, after seven long months, you’ve done your agency analysis, your market analysis and marketing and sales plan, your management and operations plans and your financial plans. Now what?
After determining the purpose of your plan, and conducting background preparation, it’s time to consider the elements that you’ll include in the actual written document and the format your plan will take. A business plan for a travel agency has a number of major elements or sections, each of which serves a particular purpose in the overall presentation of your plan.

Cover Page
This page identifies you and your agency and dates the plan. If you have spent any time and effort at all on an agency logo, slogan, or other identifying graphic or text, the cover page is the place to highlight it. If you haven’t considered these basic marketing tools, we strongly suggest that you do so. Building an identity is vital if you want people to recognize and remember your agency.
In addition, the cover sheet contains all the usual and appropriate identification information about the agency. This includes agency address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, Web site address, etc.
The cover sheet should state the date that the plan was prepared. It should identify the person to contact regarding any questions about the plan (generally, you). You may also want to assign a unique serial number and add a notation that the document contains confidential information proprietary to your agency and that it is not for distribution or disclosure to others without permission. You should also copyright the document.

The Table of Contents
The table of contents should clearly and simply lead a reader to each of the sections in the document. Be sure that page numbers are accurately reflected. If the plan is long, consider dividing it up into subsections, if that will make it easier for readers to find specific documents. For shorter plans, just numbering the pages in sequence is fine.

The Executive Summary
The executive summary is the most important section of your business plan. Its purpose is to summarize the highlights of your plan, and to provide a brief snapshot of the agency. It must be concise, specific, well-written and much less than one page.
The summary emphasizes those factors that will make the agency a success. It must give the reader a fix on the size and type of agency for which the plan is written, its management, and the types of travel suppliers it represents. It should briefly present some basic information about the travel industry, the size of your target market and company financial goals in terms of revenue and profits and indicate any funding required.
For a new agency, credibility and excitement are key elements of the executive summary. If your business plan is designed to help you get a loan, the executive summary must include some information on the amount and purpose of the funds you are seeking, and indicate how you intend to pay the money back.
If your readers don’t understand your plan at first, they won’t understand it at all. Your executive summary will be at the beginning of your plan, but will be the last part that you write. Without a doubt, the executive summary is the single most important portion of your business plan. If you can’t prepare a clear, concise and compelling condensation of your business plan right up front, no one will spend time wading through the rest of your plan.

Agency Summary
This section provides agency-specific information, describing the agency’s organization, ownership, mission, objectives and history. If location is important in your agency, you can include a description of your facilities here.

Market Analysis
This section (even if multi-part, it should be only one section) presents an analysis of the travel industry, target market, and competition that the agency faces.

Supplier or Service Description
This section describes exactly what your agency will offer its customers.

Marketing and Sales Plans
These sections set forth the marketing strategy that the agency will follow, and provide details of your marketing activities to support sales.

Operations and Management Plans
Depending on the size of your agency, your operations and management plans may include customer service, accounting/bookkeeping, and document processing,

Financial Plans
This section includes your projections (and historical financial information, if you have it) that demonstrate how the agency can be expected to do financially if the business plan’s assumptions are sound.

The Appendix
This is the place to present supporting documents, statistical analysis, marketing materials and samples, resumes of key employees, etc. The appendix is the place for all of those items that aren’t part of the plan itself, but that are helpful or persuasive to someone reading the plan. While it will appear at the very end of your plan, we mention it here to remind you that you can add to it as you develop each section of your plan.
Your plan is intended to present a concise summary of your agency; in the process of creating it, you’ll uncover a lot of interesting information that won’t actually be included in the plan itself. If you think it is likely that a reader will seek further information regarding some portion of your plan, you can include the appropriate supporting material in the appendix.
The appendix may also house sample marketing materials such as ads, letters of reference from clients, direct mail pieces you have designed, etc. If you are just starting out, consider including resumés of key employees if you are relying on their skill and experience. Consider material for inclusion only if you believe that it adds to or clarifies the rest of the plan. Avoid the temptation to include this information in the body of the plan, thereby diluting the message. If the message stimulates interest, the reader will consult the appendices.
Now, get to work putting everything you’ve done over the past seven months into a narrative form, and your business plan will be complete.

Sherrie Funk and husband Charlie own Just Cruisin! Plus, Nashville. They founded the Travel Agent Management Academy to educate owners and managers about the techniques that have been instrumental to their agency’s success.