How to Write a Business Plan
Written by Christina Poulton
Approximate reading time: 5 minutes
Business plan templates tend to be tons of pages, and even if you know your SWOT analysis from your market analysis, most of it feels like square-peg-round-hole for arts organisations or creative freelancers.
So instead, this is your no-nonsense guide to making a business plan for freelancers and small arts organisations, that makes sense for you and is actually useful. Business planning, but without the jargon. Think of it as a road map- setting an intention for what you want to do and how you’re going to get there.
Give yourself a bit of time to work through the activities below, making your own notes. It can be with others you work with, or for solo freelancers you might find it useful to rope in a friend to bounce ideas off.
Part 1: - What you're doing and why
Activity 1:
Be clear about what you do and what you offer. To help you define it ask yourself these questions:
What's different, exciting or unusual about your business?
What's the point you want to get to with your business?
Who will you work with and where will you do your work?
If you could choose 5 words or short phrases you want people to use to describe your business what would they be?
If you were doing a brand collaboration who would your ideal partner be? (to get you thinking about the vibe of your business)
Activity 2:
Most of us do lots of different projects or types of work to make up a career. See if you can categorise it into different strands of work. Put everything you’re currently working on, have coming up or recently completed onto sticky notes. Then see if you can group them and give each type of work a title.
For example an illustrator might have three strands: commissions, workshops and online sales. Think about which one you want to focus on and expand most and what things you end up doing that are outliers- they may be taking time away from what you really want to be working on.
Activity 3:
Use the notes you have so far to create your business elevator pitch. One or two sentences that define who you are, what you do and who it’s for. (More on what an elevator pitch is and how to do it here). If you want to expand on this you can add your business values - what will you not compromise on? What’s important to you in how you work or who you work with?
Part 2: - Who it's for
When you’re thinking about marketing, you need to start with who it’s for and what they want. Often people focus on the marketing channels- “I need some flyers” or “I need to be posting on social media every day”. The more you understand your audiences or customers, the easier, quicker and cheaper it is to market to them.
The brutal truth is that most people don’t care what you do and don’t want to pay for it. But that’s actually really useful and really liberating. Find the people who do and focus on them. Engaging with 20 of the right people will always outperform generic posts to thousands of uninterested people.
Activity 4:
Spend some time creating a customer profile. Ask yourself- What do they want? What can you solve for them? Where are they? Where do they look to find things? You should be able to picture this person in your mind. Where do they work? What do they like? What do they respond to?
If you don't know the answer to these questions then your activity is to do some research and find out. You may have more than one customer, for example customers who buy your artwork and customers who commission you for education projects, in which case create a profile for them both. This can be in note form or to help visualise them you could draw and label your ideal customer and give them a name.
Activity 5:
Marketing toolkit: For each of your customers, think about where they are and how you could reach them. What events do they attend? Where do they hang out online? Which social media will they use?
For example, If you run a youth theatre in a particular area then you’ll be joining local parent Facebook groups and researching online clubs listings, or offering taster sessions via schools newsletters. If you’re looking to reach theatre makers who need a designer, you might be attending workshops or industry events and talking to as many people as possible. Make notes on what you could do in each “place” your customers can be found, to get their attention. Ensure your marketing activity is completely bespoke to who your customers are, where they are and what they’re interested in.
Part 3- How much it costs
Activity 6:
Budgeting and finance planning is a big part of business planning but it’s also a whole topic on its own! There’s some more info about calculating your day rate in our surviving freelance life resource and on annual budgeting here.
The Uncultured’s Financial Planner
Part 4- Make it happen
Activity 7:
Using the notes you’ve made from these activities you can put together an action plan for supercharging your work. Now you have defined the different aspects of your work, which do you want to develop? Now you’ve thought about your marketing, do you need to set up some taster sessions or build up your following on Instagram?
Set 3 goals as a starting point and give yourself a timeline. Make it accountable by adding it to your calendar, sharing it with a friend or posting intentions on social.
Your business plan might then look something like this:
Elevator pitch (who you are, what you do and who it’s for)
Strands of work (and what activity falls under each)
Values (how you work and what’s important to you)
Customer profile(s)
Marketing toolkit
Budget or rates
Action plan
You can create your final plan in any format you like- post its on the wall, a one-page diagram, a written document. If it works for you and you personalise it, you’re more likely to use it.
A clear plan can help you make the best decisions about what creative adventures you want to go on next and how you’re going to get there.