Executive Summary
Your 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.
Your executive summary should get the reader’s attention quickly. Tell them what kind of roofing business you own and how things are going. For example, are you a new business, do you have a roofing business that you want to grow, or do you own a chain of roofing businesses?
Next, give an overview of every part of your plan that comes after this one.
- Talk about the business of roofing in general.
- Talk about the kind of roofing business you have.
- Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of the people you’d like to buy from you.
- Give a quick summary of your plan for marketing. Find out who on your team is the most important.
- Tell what you want to do with your money.
Company Overview
In your business summary, you will explain what kind of roofing business you have.
For example, you could specialize in one of the following types of roofing companies:
- This kind of roofer specializes in putting up roofing materials made of tar.
- Metal roofs: This type of roofer specializes in installing metal panels.
- Single-ply roofing: People who do single-ply roofing install or replace flat and foam roofs as their specialty.
- This type of roofer is an expert at putting on or replacing shingles and tiles.
In the company overview, you should say what kind of roofing business you will run and give some background on the business.
Include answers to things like:
- When did you start your business, and why?
- What important steps have you taken so far? Milestones could include the number of customers served, the number of roofing jobs finished, making X amount of money, etc.
Your legal stuff Are you set up as an S-Corporation? An LLC? A single-person business? Tell us about your legal structure.
Industry Analysis
In your industry or market analysis, you need to give an overview of the roofing business.
This might seem useless, but there are more than one way to use it.
First of all, learning about the business of roofing gives you knowledge. It helps you understand the market better.
Second, doing market research can help you make a better marketing plan, especially if you look for trends in the market.
The third reason is to prove that you know what you’re talking about. This is what you do by doing your research and putting it in your plan.
In the industry analysis section of your business plan for a roofing business, you should answer the following questions:
- How much money does the business that does roofs make?
- Is the market getting smaller or bigger?
- Who are your biggest market competitors?
- Who are the most important suppliers in the market?
- What kinds of changes are happening in business?
- How do you think the business will grow over the next 5–10 years?
- How large should the market be? That is, how big is the market that your roof business could serve? You can get this number by figuring 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 roofing business plan, you should talk about the customers you serve or expect to serve.
Different types of customers include people, schools, families, and corporations.
As you might guess, the type of roofing business you run will depend a lot on the type(s) of customers you choose. People would react differently to marketing campaigns than, say, corporations.
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 the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the people you want to help.
Psychographic profiles can tell you what your customers want and need. The more you can figure out what these needs are and how to meet them, the easier it will be to get 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 roofing companies that compete directly with us.
Indirect competitors are other things that customers can buy besides your product or service that aren’t in direct competition with it. This includes other types of contractors who do roofing work, large construction companies that do roofing work, and stores where people who want to do it themselves can buy the materials they need. You should also talk about competitions like this.
For each of these competitors, give an overview of their business 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, such as
- Which kinds of clients do they work with?
- What kind of business do they own?
- How much do they cost (is it high, low, etc.)?
- What can they do well?
- How do they fall short?
- For the last two questions, try to answer from the point of view of your customers. Don’t be afraid to ask the customers of your competitors what they like and don’t like about them.
The last part of your competitive analysis is to list the ways you are better than your competitors. For example:
- Will you make it easier for people to buy what you have to offer?
- Will you sell or do things that your rivals 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
Usually, a marketing plan has four parts: the product, its price, where it will be sold, and how it will be promoted. In your roofing business’s marketing plan, you should do the following:
Product: In the “Products” section, you should say again what kind of roofing business you are. Then, describe the goods or services you’ll be selling. Do you, for instance, install flat roofs, roofs with tiles, or shingles? And do you only install new things, or do you also install things that need fixing?
Price: List your prices and how they compare to those of your competitors. In your plan, the product and price sections are basically where you list the products or services you offer and how much they cost.
Place refers to the location of your roofing company. Write down the location of your business and how it will affect how well it does. For example, is your roofing business in a busy shopping area, a business district, a separate office, or only online? Talk about why your website might be the best place for your customers.
Promotions: In the last part of your roofing marketing plan, you’ll write down how you’ll get potential customers to come to your place of business (s). Here are some ideas for how to promote your business:
- Put ads in local newspapers, magazines, or radio stations.
- Reach out to websites.
- Distribute flyers
- Engage in email marketing
- Put up ads on social media websites
- Improve your website’s SEO (search engine optimization) for the keywords you want to rank for.
Operations Plan
You wrote about your goals in other parts of your business plan. In the operations plan, you talk about how you’ll reach those goals. There should be two different parts to your operations plan.
Everyday short-term processes include everything you need to do to run your roofing business, like answering the phone, scheduling roofing jobs, billing and collecting payments, and so on.
Long-term goals are the steps you want to take to get there. These could be dates like when you think you’ll get your Xth customer or when you hope to make $X. It could also be when you want to add a new city to your roofing business.
Management Team
A strong management team will show how successful your roofing business could be. 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 roofing company before. 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 would have between two and eight members. These people could give you advice that would help your business. They would answer questions and give planning tips. If you have to, try to find advisory board members who have successfully run a roofing business or a small medical practice.
Financial Plan
Your 5-year financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement. For the first year, it should be broken down monthly or quarterlyly, and after that, it should be done annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, your balance sheet, and your cash flow statement.
Income Statement
Most people call an income statement a P&L, which stands for Profit and Loss. It shows how much money you made and how much it cost you, so you can see if you made a profit.
When making your income statement, you have to make some assumptions. For example, will you hire 5 roofers? Will each roofer finish one job per day? How much will sales increase each year? 2% or 10%? As you might expect, the assumptions you make will have a big impact on your business’s financial projections. Do as much research as you can to try to find facts that support what you think.
Balance Sheet
Balance sheets show you what you own and what you owe. Balance sheets may have a lot of information on them, but try to focus on the most important parts. For example, if you spend $50,000 on building up your roofing business, you won’t start making money right away. Instead, it’s an asset that you hope will bring in money for years to come. In the same way, you don’t have to pay back a $50,000 check right away if someone gives it to you. You’ll have to pay that back over time instead.
Report of Cash Flow
Your cash flow statement will help you figure out 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 money.
When making your Income Statement and Balance Sheets, make sure to include some of the most important costs of starting or growing a roofing business:
- Cost of office tools and supplies
- Payroll or salaries paid to employees
- Commercial insurance
- Taxes
- When you’re starting a new business, you’ll also have to pay for things like legal fees, permits, software, and equipment.