Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Get a Business Plan for Your Ice Cream Truck Start Up


When starting a new business, it is always best to start with a well-researched and thorough plan to help guide you toward success.  An ice cream truck business plan will be the blue-print you will use to help you reach the long- and short-term goals of your new company.  

Why do I need an ice cream truck business plan?
You would be unlikely to set off on any sort of journey without first knowing why you are going, what sort of things you might encounter along the way, and how you are going to reach your destination. Starting a new business is an exciting journey and an ice cream truck business plan provides you with the data and ice cream truck market research that you need in order to have a successful journey to a profitable and exciting new corporation.  Without a detailed plan in place, you will be running your new ice cream truck without a very valuable, and necessary, tool.  Research shows that about 95% of all small companies fail with in the first 5 years. The best thing that you can do to avoid becoming part of that statistic is to have a solid ice cream truck business plan in place before you start.  

Now that you know the value of having an ice cream truck plan, you have 4 options:

1.    You can write it yourself. 
Writing a good plan for your company takes many hours of industry research and data analysis. You will need to know where and how to find ice cream market information, interpret that information and then compile it all into a professional, legible document. If you are great at research and data collection and are willing to put in the time necessary to write your plan yourself, then this might be a good option for you. 

2.    You can use a generic template.
There are several generic templates on the internet which you can be downloaded and then completed with your information. The problem with this type of template is that the information within it won’t be specific to the ice cream truck business. It is a simple and inexpensive way to get a business plan, but what good will it really do you in the long run?

3.    You can hire a independent consultant.
A professional consultant can create exactly the right type of strategy on paper for your ice cream truck business and with it you will have the right tool to help your new company succeed. The downside is that consultants charge as much as $100 an hour which means you can end up paying as much as $10,000 for a thoroughly researched and detailed strategy.

4.    Purchase an industry specific plan template.
The fourth option in creating a strategic plan for an ice cream truck venture is sort of hybrid of the first three options. An ice cream truck business plan already has the industry specific research and data compilation done for you and is downloadable from the internet at a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional consultant. Using this type of template is a simple, yet valuable option when getting started with your new venture.

No comments: