The difference between a successful cafe business and an average one has more to do with planning than it does with having a great idea.
What makes the difference is execution and execution starts with a plan…A business plan.
You’ve dreamed of showing off your latte-art skills and owning a coffee shop is intriguing, but the thought of opening a business gives you the jitters – more than a triple-shot espresso with five sugars.
The truth is there’s never a bad time to open a cafe. There’s only the bad results that can happen from opening a cafe without planning.
As Benjamin Franklin said:
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!
If you are seriously thinking of opening a coffee shop or cafe, you’ll want to dedicate some time towards writing out a business plan.
Why?
Because the very process of working through a business plan is going get you to solve many problems you may experience – before you experience them.
Why do you need a Business Plan for Your Cafe?
1. A Coffee Business Plan Helps With Funding Your Dream
In many cases, you will need extra capital that you first estimate to start your coffee shop. And, without a doubt, most pragmatic lenders will want to see a thorough business plan written before they think you are serious about your coffee business. Writing your business plan will help you understand where the source of your money is coming from and how you will spend it.
A coffee shop business plan is a powerful tool to fund and propel the dream of owning your own business. Even family or close friends who would be willing to loan you money, want to be able to see a thoroughly written business plan before lending their hard-earned savings over to you – no matter how much they love you.
2. Writing a Business Plan Naturally Improves Your Planning
A coffee shop business plan is more than just an exercise, it’s a way to improve your overall business concept because it allows you to justify Writing out your ideas and putting them down on paper allows you to see where the holes are – and how to “plug” those holes meaningfully.
Writing a business plan will help you to improve on any flaws in your business concept. That’s because the natural “step by step” flow of working through everything will help you think and consider many options that you haven’t thought out before. And trust me, when you start getting things down on paper… when you start fleshing out your thoughts against the realities of your coffee shop budget, you will be better positioned to open your coffee shop successfully.
3. Your Business Plan Increases Your Odds of Success
When you take the time to really think through out your business planning, including discussing each element before you launch your business, you’ll be better prepared.
Your business plan minimises any potentially disastrous (or expensive) surprises and helps you walk through each step and each element that needs to be addressed before you open up your coffee shop.
If you opened a business before (of if you haven been around others who have), even the best planners and thorough thinkers can make mistakes – costly mistakes. But, I guarantee that having a well-written and honestly assessed coffee shop business plan will save you significant amounts of money and even heartache.
4. A Business Plan Keeps You on the Right Track
When you have a road map, it’s easier to stay on the intended path to your destination and get their much faster than not having one. Even familiar drivers use Google maps to ensure that a particular exit off a freeway is the right exit to take. Having a coffee shop business plan is much like having Google Maps – for your businesses.
Simply “feeling your way” through your business planning is not acceptable – unless you have boat loads of money and tons of time on your hands and don’t really get headaches when things become stressful in your life.
Having a business plan helps you stay laser focused on what needs to get done – and when. When you spend less time going the wrong direction, spend less money on mistakes, spending less time on the side of the road back-tracking, you will reach your destination much faster and in a better position.
The State of the Coffee Industry
Coffee plays a huge role in adding to a cafe’s earnings because the markup on the beverage is higher than other foods.
On average, the cost of making a cup of coffee is priced at 55-69 cents, which could be sold at a cafe sell at $2.50-3.50, according. If you sell a cup of coffee at $2.50, 100 cups daily would bring in about $66,000 annually in gains.
It’s knowing what your numbers need to look like that will help you decide if you can make your cafe idea work as a business.
A serious business requires structure and clarity. A concise and well-written business plan will bring these and so much more.
A Solid Business Plan is your Ticket to a More Successful Cafe
These days they are absolutely necessary for raising investment capital, getting a bank loan, and oftentimes, obtaining a lease space.
Business plans tell the reader that you are a business professional, not an aspiring barista.
They are used to attract potential business partners, give employees a direction and framework of rules, and provide you with a starting point so that you can analyse and draw conclusions about your business’s performance over time.
There is really no downside to writing a business plan. So how do you get started?
Even if writing and making simple calculations are not your cup of tea (or coffee in this case), drafting a business plan is a lot easier than it seems.
This sample cafe business plan comprehensively covers all the parts of the business plan you may ever need and is designed to help you write your winning coffee shop business plan.