Developing a Business Plan for Sport Management
A business plan certainly aids one in the pursuit of a successful sport management business. The business plan functions as a road map for the entity (Schweizer, 2006). It allows an individual or a group to clearly define intentions about how, where, and why the business will succeed. To fully understand the planning process, one must review each section of the business plan.
The executive summary may well be the most important part of a business plan. The summary within a business plan for a sport facility should include a mission statement that has been carefully thought out and scripted. While the executive summary appears first in the business plan document, it is usually written last.
The market analysis contained within the business plan in essence guides planning along an analytical path, identifying, first, whom the business will serve and, second, what its competition will consist of. These two foundational elements of the market analysis generate information that helps prepare the businessperson to obtain funding for the venture.
Next, an organization and management plan must be developed, weighing the following matters: general structure of the management staff, identity of key managers, planned additions to the initial management team, business’s legal structure, identity of business’s owners, and specification of business’s board of directors. Beyond the organizational structure, planning for the professional relationships and operations of the business environment must be accomplished. Staff will require a means of keeping up to date in terms of research and other developments in their professions; they will need to be provided with access to a fair amount of job scope and depth. There must also be a plan to keep staff motivated; a motivated staff exhibits less absenteeism, uses fewer sick days, is less prone to burnout, and undergoes less turnover.
The development of a business plan also entails exploring how best to make known the new company’s existence. The marketing and sales strategy part of a business plan outlines how to inform people about the services the business provides and of ways to contact the staff (Small Business Administration, 2007). For example, a start-up venture focused on providing a community with good quality services within a sport management facility might devise an initial marketing and sales strategy that emphasizes the formation of relationships within the community.
Touching both the marketing and sales portion, and the management portion, of the business plan is the design of effective communication into the business. Good communication skills must be established and information must flow freely if an organization is to meet its goals and objectives efficiently. The communication structure outlined in the business plan ultimately helps ensure that clients will receive the kind of service that truly benefits them. When they do, customer satisfaction creates customer loyalty, which leads both to repeat business and to new business, as clients recommend the business to others.
While the preparation of business plans is not an exact science, the business plan remains crucial when creating a business and also for each phase of the eventual development of that business. The business plan should be reviewed and changed as an organization grows and prospers. With sound research, careful consultation, and wise decision making, thriving sport management businesses, it is hoped, will be established.
References
Small Business Administration. (2007). Write a Business Plan. Small Business Planner. Retrieved February 6, 2008, from http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/writeabusinessplan/index.html
Schweizer, B. (2006). First Form a Plan [Electronic version]. Journal of Accountancy, 202, 79–82.