Executive Summary
The executive summary is the first part of your business plan, but you usually write it last because it is a summary of all the important parts of your plan.
Your Executive Summary should quickly get the attention of the reader. Tell them what kind of moving business you have and how it’s doing. For instance, are you a new business, do you own a moving company that you want to grow, or do you run a chain of moving companies?
Then, give an overview of each part of your plan that comes after this one. For example, describe in a few words the business of a moving company. Talk about what kind of moving company you own. Detail your direct competitors. Give an outline of the people you want to buy from you. Give a brief overview of your marketing plan. Find the important people on your team. And give an overview of how you plan to manage your money.
Company Analysis
In your business analysis, you will say what kind of moving business you have.
For example, you could own one of the following moving companies:
- Service of Packing Moving Company: This type of moving company focuses on safely packing items and moving them from a home or storage unit into a car or trailer. They sometimes also help unload, but they don’t offer cars, trailers, or transport services.
- Local Moving Company: This kind of business helps people move locally, within a certain distance, by packing and/or transporting their belongings.
- Long Distance Moving Company: This type of moving company helps people who are moving over long distances or across the country pack and/or move their things.
In the section of your business plan called “Company Analysis,” you need to describe what kind of moving business you will run and give some history about it.
Include the answers to such questions as:
- When and why did you start your business?
- What big steps have you taken so far? Some milestones include the number of customers served, the number of good reviews, etc.
- Your legal structure. Do you have an S-Corp set up for your business? An LLC? A one-person company? Tell us about your justice system.
Industry Analysis
In your industry analysis, you have to describe the moving company business as a whole.
This might seem useless, but there are more than one way to use it.
First of all, learning about the business of moving companies gives you knowledge. It helps you understand the market better.
Second, market research can help you come up with a better plan, especially if it shows you market trends.
Doing market research is also a good way to show your readers that you know what you are talking about. This is what you do by doing your research and putting it in your plan.
In the industry analysis section of your moving company’s business plan, you should answer these questions:
- How much money does the moving company’s business make?
- Is the market getting smaller or bigger?
- Who are your biggest competitors in the market?
- Who are the most important market providers?
- What new things are happening in the business world?
- How do you think the market will change in the next 5–10 years?
- What is the right size for the market? That is, how big is the area your moving company could serve? You can figure out such a number by finding out how big the market is in the whole country and then applying that number to the people in your area.
Customer Analysis
In the “Customer Analysis” section of your moving company’s business plan, you must talk about the customers you serve or expect to serve.
Some examples of customer segments are single people, couples, families, homeowners, renters, and people who run their own businesses.
As you might expect, the type of moving company you run will depend a lot on which customer segment(s) you choose. People respond to marketing campaigns in different ways than, say, families.
Try to figure out who your ideal customers are by looking at their demographics and how they think and feel. In terms of demographics, you should talk about your customers’ ages, genders, locations, and levels of income. Because most moving companies mostly work with people in their own city or town, it is easy to find this kind of information on government websites.
Psychographic profiles can tell you what your customers want and need. If you can understand and describe these needs well, it will be easier to find new customers and keep the ones you already have.
Competitive Analysis
In your competitive analysis, you should find out who your direct competitors are and then focus on them.
There are other moving companies who are direct competitors.
Customers can also buy from indirect competitors instead of direct competitors. This means renting trucks and trailers. You should also talk about competitions like this.
When it comes to direct competition, you should list the other moving companies that you are in direct competition with. Most likely, your main competitors will be the moving companies that are closest to you.
Give an overview of each of their businesses and a list of their strengths and weaknesses. You won’t know everything about your competitors unless you have worked for one of them. But you should be able to learn important facts about them, like:
- What kind of clients do they work with?
- What kind of moves can they help with?
- What is the price range (high, low, etc.)?
- What are their strengths?
- What do they not do well?
Try to answer the last two questions from the point of view of your customers. Don’t be afraid to ask customers of your competitors what they like and dislike about them.
The last part of your competitive analysis is to list the ways you are better than your competitors. For example:
- Will you provide better packing and moving services?
- Will you provide services that your competitors don’t?
- Will you give your customers better service?
- Your prices will be better, right?
In this part of your plan, you should think of ways you can do better than your competitors and write them down.
Marketing Plan
A marketing plan usually has four parts: the product, its price, where it will be sold, and how it will be advertised. In your marketing plan for your moving company business plan, you should do the following:
Product: In the product section, you should write again about the type of moving company you talked about in your Company Analysis. Then, be specific about the products you will be selling. For example, do you offer any other services besides moving? Do you ship, rent cars or trailers, or anything else?
Price: Write down your prices and a comparison to those of your competitors. In the “product” and “price” parts of your marketing plan, you mostly talk about the services you offer and how much they cost.
Place: This means where your moving company is. Write down where you are and how your location will impact your success. For instance, is your moving company in a busy shopping area, shopping mall, etc.? Talk about why your place might be the best option for your customers.
Promotions: This is the last piece of your marketing plan for your moving company. Here, you’ll write down how you’ll bring customers to your place of business (s). Here are some ideas on how to promote your business:
- Putting up ads in newspapers and magazines in the area
- Trying to get in contact with local sites
- Flyers
- Social media marketing
- Local radio advertising
Operations Plan
In the other parts of your business plan, you talked about your plans. In the operations plan, you explain how you will reach those goals. Your plan for operations should include two different parts.
Daily short-term processes include everything you need to do to run your moving company, like talking to potential customers, scheduling moves, doing moves, and keeping equipment in good shape.
Long-term goals are the steps you need to take to get there. This could be when you think you’ll sell your 100th move or when you hope to make $X. It could also happen when you want to move your moving business to a new city.
Management Team
You need a strong management team to show that your moving company can be successful. Show the backgrounds of your key players, with a focus on the skills and experiences that prove they can help a company grow.
You or someone on your team should have run a moving company in the past. If so, talk about what you’ve learned and what you’ve done. But you should also talk about any business experience you have that you think will help your business do well.
If you don’t have a strong enough team, you might want to put together an advisory board. A board of advisors could have anywhere from 2 to 8 members. These people would help you with your business as mentors. They would answer questions and give planning tips. If you need to, look for people for your advisory board who have run successful moving companies or small businesses.
Financial Plan
Your financial plan should include a summary of your finances for the next five years. For the first year, this should be broken down monthly or quarterly. After that, it should be done
annually. Your
Income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement are all part of your financial statements. A profit and loss statement, or P&L, is what most people call an income statement. It shows how much money you made and how much it cost you, so you can tell if you made a profit or not.
When you make a profit and loss statement, you need to make some assumptions. For example, will you sell 30 new moves each month or every three months? By how much will sales grow every year? 2% or 10%? As you might expect, your assumptions will have a big impact on the financial projections for your business. Do as much research as you can to try to back up your ideas with facts.
Balance sheets show you what your assets are and what your debts are. Balance sheets can have a lot of information on them, but try to find the most important parts. For instance, if you put $50,000 into building up your moving business, you won’t make money right away. Instead, it’s something that you hope will make you money for years to come. Also, you do not have to pay back a check from a bank for $50,000 right away. Instead, you will have to pay that back over time.
Cash Flow Statement: Your cash flow statement will tell you how much money you need to start or grow your business and make sure you never run out of money. Most business owners and entrepreneurs don’t know that you can make money but still go bankrupt if you run out of cash.
When you make your Income Statement and Balance Sheet, make sure to include some of the most important costs of starting or growing a moving company, like:
- Location build-out costs, which include fees for design, construction, etc.
- The price of tools and materials
- Staff pay or salaries Insurance for businesses
- Fees and permits
- Legal expenses
