To create the IsaDressing: Add Greens™, IsaLean™ Shake, grapefruit, olive oil, water, vinegar, and pepper to a single-serve blender and blend on high speed for 10 seconds. Set aside.
Divide salad greens, turkey, egg, tomatoes, avocado, and Whey Thins™ evenly between two serving bowls. Top each salad with 3 tablespoons of the salad dressing before serving.
Notes
Tip: Refrigerate the remaining dressing in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Prep Time – 5 mins, Cook Time – 2 mins, Total Time – 7 mins
Ingredients
2scoopsCreamy Dutch Chocolate IsaLean® Shake
1/8tspbaking powder
3tbspunsweetened applesauce
3tbspunsweetened almond milk
1/4tspvanilla extract
1/4cupsliced fresh strawberries
Instructions
In a 12-ounce microwave-safe mug, whisk together IsaLean™ Shake and baking powder with a fork. Add applesauce, almond milk, and vanilla extract, whisking until smooth.
Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Let the cake rest for 1 minute. Garnish with strawberries.
Notes
For an even greater treat, place 1/2 of an IsaDelight® chocolate on top of the cake after cooking.
“This tastes like a lava cake dessert that I would eat at a fine restaurant!”
We drank the holiday Kool-Aid, and now we’re full of warmth, cheer, and yes, sweets. We’re feeling optimistic as January approaches. This is totally the year we’re going to save money, meditate, or learn to speak French.
But the stats aren’t in our favor: Fewer than 10 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually keep them. “It’s just a wish,” says Edwin Locke, Ph.D., one of the pioneers of goal-setting theory. “If you’re going to be serious, you have to plan, keep records, and you may even need outside help.”The good news is that Locke and other researchers have conducted decades of research to figure out the foolproof way to make and achieve goals. All that science boils down to seven steps, which we’ve shared in the handy, printable checklist below.One question to ask before you get started: Are you ready? Sure, it sounds obvious or even a little silly, but you really need to figure out if you’re prepared to make a change, says Caroline Adams Miller, a goal-setting expert and author of Creating Your Best Life. If the answer is “yes,” start with step one below:
1. Pick one (and only one) goal.
If you’re picking a self-regulation goal—one where you have to keep saying no to yourself, such as drinking less coffee or cutting down on sweets—it’s important to focus on just one thing. “Self regulation is a limited resource,” Miller says. “We wake up with a certain amount and it gets depleted when you call upon it.” That’s why it’s easy to pass on the donut at breakfast but not so simple to say no to the bag of chips while watching TV after work.
2. Make it specific and challenging.
Once you settle on a goal, make sure it’s not too easy. Sure, it feels great to cross something off our checklist and know we’ve completed what we set out to accomplish, but if we lowball our goals, they aren’t motivating, Locke says. Study after study has shown that the goals we stick with are specific—preferably something that can be measured—and challenging.
3. Ask: Are you learning or doing?
Now that you’ve got a concrete goal, it’s time to figure out if this is something you already know how to do or something you need to learn. Say you’re trying to save money and you know you want to have $2,500 in the bank by the end of the year—that’s something you’re doing. Tracking your progress on this is fairly easy.
If you still need to figure out how much money you want to save or even the best way for you to save money, you’ve got a learning goal. Metrics are much harder on this. It requires more guess and check. Maybe one meeting with a financial planner is just what you need, or maybe you want to take a full course. Miller says you need to keep asking: Is it working? Am I getting closer to achieving my goal?
4. Break it into smaller, short-term goals.
Keeping with the theme of saving money, your goal will seem a lot easier when you take something big (like saving $2,500 in one year) and break it into more manageable chunks (like saving $208 per month). That way you can keep tabs on your progress throughout the year, Locke says.
5. Look who’s around you.
It sounds a little far-fetched and New Age-y to say we become the average of the people we surround ourselves with. But there’s solid science to back up it up! It’s called the social contagion theory, the idea that the people around us have a major influence on how we act. If you want to lose weight, it doesn’t help to hang around people who love fast food, and if you want to save money, it’s best to limit time with friends who like to go shopping, Miller says.
6. Prime your environment.
Hanging around the right people is only half of setting yourself up for success. You also need to surround yourself with the rightthings. That means getting rid of tempting triggers while also adding cues to remind us of our long-term goals. Computer passwords are a perfect example. (Serena Williams is known for doing this.) If you’re saving up for a trip to Paris, your password could be “France2016,” Miller says.
7. Add accountability.
Feedback is an essential part of successfully achieving your goals. Part of that can involve metrics—did you save the money you said you would this month? But it also helps to have people around who keep you honest, Miller says. That could be a walking buddy or a standing date with a friend to hang out at home on Friday night instead of spending money at a restaurant or bar.
A business plan is a document that details a company’s goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A business plan is a document describing a company’s business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company’s short- and long-term objectives.
There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.
Understanding Business Plans
Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.
A business plan can help it focus on its goals even if it isn’t looking to raise additional money. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that “Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs.”
Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan.
There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company’s executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.
Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.
While it’s a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it’s also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader’s attention to the end.
How to Write a Business Plan
While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it’s best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.
Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.
Common Elements of a Business Plan
The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it’s best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.
These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:
Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company’s leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology. Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you’re making.
The best business plans aren’t generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.
2 Types of Business Plans
Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.
Traditional business plans: These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result, they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
Lean startup business plans: These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.
Why Do Business Plans Fail?
A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn’t have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.
How Often Should a Business Plan Be Updated?
How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.
What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?
The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn’t have much information to provide yet.
Sections can include a value proposition; the company’s major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.
The Bottom Line
A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don’t think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.