Easily put together a business plan with Mural

In the summer of 2019, I was job hunting while on a bullet train in Japan, as one does. I was looking for remote roles while preparing to move to Portugal, and found a great position at Workplaceless, a remote training company. I emailed Tammy Bjelland, the owner, right away.

I got the job, and well, you know what happens next: Six months later, Covid, and everyone went remote. While everyone else was struggling to figure out their Zoom settings, Tammy was years ahead. She founded Workplaceless in 2017 when she saw an increasing demand for skills training in distributed workplaces. 

Tammy says, “At the time, remote work was gaining momentum, but there was a noticeable gap in resources to help individuals and teams thrive in this new environment.” 

Could her timing be any better?

I checked in with Tammy recently to understand more about her experience as an entrepreneur during this chaotic time. One thing she shared was ‌how a business plan was essential as she established and grew her company:

“Writing a business plan was a critical step in bringing the vision to life. It allowed me to clearly define the mission, outline the goals, and map out the strategies needed to meet the unique challenges of remote work. This plan not only provided a strong foundation but also served as a guide to stay focused and navigate the complexities of growing a business in a rapidly evolving landscape.”

Creating a business plan is important, and entrepreneurs are 16% more likely to achieve viability if they write one, according to Harvard Business Review. Let’s talk about what makes a good business plan, and I’ll include a step-by-step guide for designing yours in Mural.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document that maps out your company’s goals and how you’ll achieve them. It paints a picture of your business, your products, ideal customers, and plans for marketing. A financial section with revenue predictions and expense and cash flow estimates is important if you’re on the lookout for investors.

Essential components of a business plan

A well-written business plan should contain:

• Executive summary: A quick snapshot of your business, its goals, and how you plan to achieve them. This section provides an engaging overview meant to capture the interest of investors, partners, and stakeholders.
• Company description: Explain who you are, your mission, vision, history, and structure. Show what makes your company unique and why you stand out from the competition. 
• Market analysis: Highlight market trends, your target market, and the competitive landscape. Provide data on market size, expected growth, customer segments, and a look at your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Organization structure: Include details about ownership, the management team, and board members. Share the qualifications of your team to show why you’re well-equipped to succeed.
• Products or services: Cover what you offer, the benefits, and how you stand out in the market. Include any unique technologies, patents, or intellectual property that you have. 
• Marketing and sales strategy: Outline your plans to attract and keep customers. This includes your marketing channels, sales tactics, pricing strategy, promotional activities, and how you plan to acquire customers.
• Funding: Specify your current funding needs (if any), future financial plans, and how the funds will be used. Break down your funding request into specific amounts and explain their uses.
• Financial projections: Provide detailed income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets for the next 3-5 years. Include sales forecasts, expense budgets, and a break-even analysis to show your financial outlook.

Write about your company in a way that sells your story, gets your audience excited, and shows how your products are different. 

Benefits of business planning

Creating a business plan provides strategic direction, acting as a roadmap that guides your growth and aligns your team with common goals. When you intentionally bring together diverse perspectives and expertise, collaboration improves the quality of your plan.

Performance tracking via benchmarks means you can measure progress and make timely adjustments. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of businesses fail in the first year. Keep an eye on potential challenges to be more prepared for any obstacles. 

You’ll also make data-driven decisions using market and financial analysis, instead of relying on your gut (or your heart, per B.J. Novak’s “girl who gave good advice”). 

Tammy shares why business planning was useful to her:

“Creating a business plan is really helpful because it forces you to succinctly articulate the key aspects of what makes a business a business — how do you make money? What value do you bring to your customers? The information you put into your business plan is information you can use to share about your business to others. It also helps you stay focused on the things that matter.”

How to make a business plan with Mural: A 7-step guide

So, how do you create your business plan? Here’s a seven-step guide.

Step 1: Grab a template to modify

Start by designing the basics of your business plan using a simple template like the business model canvas. 

Tammy’s advice? Poke around and look for something close to what you need. “I like to explore multiple examples of what I want to create, then choose the Mural template that offers the most similar structure of what I’m looking for. Then I customize the Mural, adding, changing, or removing sections as needed.”

If you already have information documented about your business, make sure it’s consolidated in a single source of truth. Pull together your executive summary as an overview, and your company mission, vision, and company structure in a single mural.

Make sure the template works for you. Add or change categories as needed, and adjust it to fit the tone of your business. Add company colors, logos, or images to make it feel unique to your organization.

 Step 2: Write or refine your company description

Take this opportunity to refine or improve how you describe your company. Gather key team members or advisors, and try a collaborative session using the round robin method, where everyone chimes in with their opinions. Or, get feedback on your existing content. Have your stakeholders offer their feedback using rose, thorn, bud on what’s working, what’s not working, and possibilities for improvement.

Make sure to include:

• Company name and location
• Organizational structure 
• Mission statement
• Vision statements 
• History of the organization
• Legal structure

Step 3: Plan out your goals and milestones

Depending where you are with your short-term and long-term goal setting, you may need to do a bit of planning. Use the OKR planning template to build out your goals more concretely. 

Tammy says, “Using Mural for OKR planning is incredibly helpful. It makes it easy to add and rearrange content to clearly visualize steps, track progress, and highlight relationships between goals. It’s flexible, so everything can evolve smoothly as priorities shift.”

Align your goals with concrete milestones on a timeline to monitor your business’s progress. We used the one year roadmap template a ton at Workplaceless to think through product launches, but you might use yours to plan out funding rounds and revenue benchmarks, too.

Step 4: Conduct market research

Gather insights on your target market and competitors. You might already have business personas created, or other documents from your market research. Add them to your business plan.

A comprehensive way to consider and present your market position is through a SWOT analysis. Use our SWOT analysis template to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Step 5: Organize your financials

Your business plan will include high-level snapshots of your financials, but you’ll first need to project costs, revenue, and profitability. Use spreadsheets to detail your financial assumptions, create sales forecasts, and calculate your break-even point. From there, you can add link dashboards to your mural, paste screenshots, or copy key information onto interactive stickies.

Step 6: Build out your business plan

Now that you’ve done some initial prework, it’s time to build out the details of your business plan. Populate your business model canvas in Mural to outline key elements like: 

• Customer segments: Define specific personas by considering demographics and behaviors. Map the customer journey to identify key touchpoints.
• Value proposition: Outline the unique benefits your product or service provides to address customer needs.
• Channels: List all communication methods for promoting your business, such as digital marketing, social media, content marketing, or traditional advertising methods.
• Customer relationships: Specify how you will interact with customers, such as through customer support or loyalty programs.
• Revenue streams: List how you will generate revenue, whether through subscriptions, sales, advertising or other sources.
• Resources: Note all technology, equipment, human resources, intellectual property, and physical assets. Make sure to list key team members and their qualifications.
• Activities: Describe activities essential for business operations, like product development, manufacturing, marketing, and customer service.
• Partnerships: Include key external collaborators such as suppliers, distributors, or complementary businesses.
• Cost structure: List all costs related to running your business, including salaries, rent, utilities, and marketing expenses.

Great advice from Tammy: “The simpler the format, the easier it will be to review, use, and update. Early on, a mentor of mine shared the Lean Canvas with me, and it’s a format I recommend starting with. (It’s a Mural template as well!)”

And remember to think about your audience, says Tammy: “Your business plan might need to be a specific format depending on if you are using it for a specific purpose, such as applying for a business loan or raising money from investors.” 

Here’s an example of what a business plan looks like when it’s completed:

Step 7: Review and adjust your business plan

Now is a good time to write or improve your executive summary. Review your entire plan, and if you wish, synthesize it using our AI Summarize feature to get your summary started.

Regularly revisit and refine your plan to ensure it stays relevant with market changes. Of course, continue to gather reactions and feedback from your team and stakeholders.

Visual and collaborative business planning with Mural

As you build your plan, you’ll want to get guidance, feedback, and support from other people along the way. Tammy says she mostly used Mural for internal planning and goal setting. “It allows for more creativity than traditional content creation tools. The visual space helped us track and refine our ideas, and facilitated team alignment.”

Each stage of your business planning requires different support from others. Here’s how you can use Mural during your design, collaboration, and presentation stages.

Design: Visualize using templates and features

Beyond the basic template, think through how different features can be used to visualize different elements of your business plan to make it more engaging. For example, mind maps can easily show connections, like how different departments are connected to company goals. Or flowcharts can clarify the steps in a product launch process.

Take advantage of the features to make your business plan mural work for your specific needs.

Collaborate: Request feedback from stakeholders

Tap into the shared expertise of your network to get collaborative input on your initial plan. Get initial advice and feedback from:

• Employees and contractors, to make sure everyone understands and supports the company’s goals. 
• Consultants or coaches can offer expert insights on specific challenges and improve your plan’s effectiveness. Tap into your network on LinkedIn, or pay for specialized advice, if needed.
• Advisors and mentors to offer their two cents on how to refine and strengthen your business plan. 

Tammy says: “I asked friends from various backgrounds to give me feedback on my plan, and their feedback was invaluable. It’s especially helpful if you can exchange ideas with others who have started their own businesses. Check out the free resources provided by the Small Business Development Center in your area.” 

It’s easy to share murals with others. Ask folks to contribute their feedback in a designated section, or use features like comments for quick questions and clarifying feedback. Schedule time to collaborate live, or contribute asynchronously. 

Tammy says, “At Workplaceless our team often shares ideas and feedback using both murals and video recordings. This combination of formats makes it easy to collaborate across distance and time.”

Present: Pitch to investors and clients

Use our simple presentation template to pull together slides to pitch to investors, lenders, potential clients, and other stakeholders. Wowing these audiences is essential for securing crucial resources and support, so think carefully about the design (and beyond PowerPoint). 

Some great advice from Tammy about presenting in Mural:

“Remember, not everyone is used to seeing interactive presentations like you can create in Mural. When presenting to others, I try not to move around within the mural too much. It’s the same with zooming in and out, or having too much information in one place. You want to make sure that people can follow along with you and are not distracted by movement or too much content.”

A few more tips:

• Use presentation mode to navigate from one slide to the next.
• Turn your cursor into a laser pointer so your participants can follow along more easily.
• Encourage people to add questions or comments on stickies, when it’s time for Q&A.
• Display a confetti animation across your mural for a moment to delight or celebrate.
• Use integrations like MS Teams to present where it’s most convenient for your audience.

Start business planning with Mural

By following this guide and using Mural, business planning is much easier. A great business plan will build confidence among stakeholders. Visualizing it on an interactive canvas will help others feel engaged and connected. Sign up for Mural today to pave the way for investment, growth, and long-term success.