Freelance Business Plan Template (Free Download)
When you hear the phrase ‘business plan’, it’s easy to think of super corporate, formal 80-page documents.
In fact, when you search ‘business plan’ or ‘business plan template’ online, it often comes up with those exact type of corporate results full of pages and sections that the average freelancer or new small business owner probably won’t understand and definitely won’t need!
If you’re setting up or running a small business, I have a couple of options for you instead…
Option 1: A simple business plan document
I’ve created a business plan template specifically for freelancers, small business owners, and creatives. It’s not for corporate mergers or multi-national businesses to use; it’s for you and your own internal reference.
I have written a guide to filling out each section and have used language that is un-intimidating and easy to understand, keeping it minimal to the essentials that you’ll need for your small biz, including sections on:
Summary & Goals
Perhaps the most key part of the plan, getting all your goals, ideas and ambitions onto paper is a great way to get started (and get you excited!).
When setting goals and objectives, making sure they're SMART is important for being able to measure your progress.
Customers & competitors
So while you've talked about what you're offering and why in the other sections, this section is where you need to start thinking about your market.
Time to really get to know your customer and their habits, and consider how you're going to encourage loyalty in your brand too. Understanding where you place amongst your competitors is important too, and you may find it useful to complete a competitor SWOT analysis.
products & services
In this section, you can write down what your offerings are, and your processes too if you need to.
As well as where these offerings will be available, and how much for, I also like to consider the 'why'. Why are you offering these products/services, and how is it going to benefit your business?
promotion
Ahh my favourite part (kinda sarcastic, kinda not...).
As a marketer, this is the part I know most about, but it's also the most detailed (and hardest) part to fill in and implement.
Whether it's online or offline, marketing take a lot of time and effort, but it really is a necessary part of your business plan.
financials & measurement
And then we have the most boring section, in my opinion of course!
While this part of a business plan can go on forever for some businesses, I've kept mine really short and sweet. Only include the necessary is what I say.
These bits are probably the bits that you'll want to keep updated throughout the year so that you can check you're on track with your goals!
Here’s my document template:
Option 2: A flexible, one-page business plan
For most business owners, we don’t actually NEED a long document business plan. It ends up gathering dust in a folder somewhere and by the time you revisit it, it’s out of date! Instead, a one-page plan is so much more flexible and useful.
Why I've ditched my Business Plan Document
I used to write up a business plan document each year (roughly 10 pages long - relatively short for a biz plan actually!) for my freelance design business, and each time I’d review this document after 6 months (or even 3 months) after writing it, I’d find that my goals and journey had totally changed.
The business plan was no longer relevant.
And so I'd spend a week or so writing a new one, with my newly aligned aims and ideas. But I'd forget about it within a week after that, and wouldn't end up revisiting it again until 3 months later when - you guessed it - my plans had changed again!
This is completely normal for small & solo business owners - particularly online-based businesses, where technology & innovations are changing faster than any of us can keep up.
I know I'm not alone in feeling like the detailed document route isn't working. Sure, sometimes you need a more formal business plan if you're getting investment, funding or new partners etc, but for most of us freelancers and small business owners, it's okay to find a more flexible way of doing things that works better for us!
So I created a more flexible, ‘lean’ business plan… with trello!
Trello is the project management tool I love and use for my whole business because it’s so simple and intuitive thanks to its ‘kanban board’ set up. I’ve created a one-page, at-a-glance business plan template on Trello to keep things streamlined and simple for us freelancers to check in with and update regularly without the headache.
Get the free template here 👇🏼
