Personnel

Back to: How to Write a Show-Stopping Business Plan Step-by-Step

1. Understanding what types of personnel will be needed for your business is a crucial step to clarifying: your skill requirements, your financial forecasts and your service capacity. It will also provide additional information to any readers of the Business Plan. Furthermore, some organisations you may wish to partner with will like to know if you are adding employment opportunities to your local job market.

There are four main questions to answer:

1. 1. 1. Who will be managing the business and what experience do they have?
      2. Will the business be creating any additional jobs?
      3. Are there any specialist skill sets required?
      4. What further professional staff or services will you be utilizing, if any ie Accountant, Lawyer?
   We’ll take the questions one at a time.

1. Who will be managing the business?

1. It’s important that whoever will be managing the business has a tight grasp on all aspects of its operation. As the business owner, this may be you or it may be that you will be employing someone specifically to perform this role. Whoever is managing the business, it is important to include here a short summary of their experience; this is not a resume, but anyone reading the business plan will like to know that it is being run by someone competent and capable.

2. Will the business be creating any additional jobs?

1. Apart from the management role, how many other jobs will the business be creating in the short and long term. Will these be part time or full time positions?

3. Are there any specialist skill sets required?

1. Depending on the industry you are working within, it maybe that a very specific skill set is required. If that is the case, please complete the details and how you will go about recruiting for that role.

4. What further professional staff or services will you be utilizing?

1. Most businesses will consider the use of an Accountant and a Lawyer but what about a Marketing professional or Computer Management service? Though not essential, especially for small home-based start-ups, if you 

are

1.  going to be using any supporting staff of this nature, list them. It may increase the confidence of those reading the plan that you are getting your ducks-in-a-row.

What did our Case Studies say?

Geoff Walker says, “In the short term the business will not be supporting any additional jobs. However, I will potentially be looking to bring an apprentice on board at some point in the second year. That apprentice will no doubt be a high school graduate who has taken car maintenance/mechanics as a core subject or be able to demonstrate knowledge in that area. I will be using the services of a lawyer but will be handling the accounts myself at least initially.” Jennifer Rain says, “The health food store currently employs a store manager (myself), 1 full time employee and 2 part time employees. After the first year, I hope to be replacing myself with a new store manager so I can focus more as a hands off business owner. I can then focus on marketing and getting the mobile food delivery service up and running. I am also planning to employ at least 1 part time employee to drive the delivery van once that service is off the ground. None of my employees will need any special skills apart from customer service experience and an interest in healthy living. I am using both a lawyer and an accountant.” Mike Kovalsky says, “I will need to recruit a team of cleaning staff, ideally with previous experience. I am anticipating between 4 and 6 full time workers, though some may initially only be employed on an as-needed basis. I will be utilising an existing service manager from my other businesses to run the cleaning staff. I do not require and special skills and will use the services of a lawyer, an accountant and a website developer.” Cindi and Wayne McCutcheon say, “We will be employing 1 full time cement truck operator – possibly rising to 2 as the work increases. We already use the services of a lawyer on an as-needed basis and have an accountant and book keeper.”

Activity

What ideas do you have about staffing your business? Consider the 4 questions above as you formulate your answer.