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Fifth, a business plan helps you keep track of your goals and what it will take to meet those goals. How will you know you’ve “arrived” as a business if you didn’t know where you were going in the first place?

The Layer Approach

One way to put together a business plan is in layers. Especially if you’re still in the process of growing your martial arts school from scratch, you will need to compile a layer of foundational information first. You can fill in the details as you are able to do the necessary research.

The first layer is the dream stage. Go through each point and sketch a qualitative picture of what you would like to see for each point. In other words, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the numbers at this stage. Without doing any serious research, get a rough picture of what you would like your school to look like.

The second layer is the planning stage. Do some preliminary research, and get estimates. Check out the martial arts schools in town to see what they look like and what they charge. Research your market, and decide who it is you want to teach. Investigate how much an appropriate facility will cost you, how much your monthly expenses will be. Set a tentative tuition rate and calculate your break-even point. Go through each point in the business plan, and do some research. In stage two of the process, you will say things like, “to reach my target market, children and young families, I will locate my school on the north side of town between 5th and 15th Avenue. In that neighborhood I can get a space that will meet my needs for $3,000–$4,000 per month.” This layer of your business plan is for you, no one else. It’s a tool you use to educate yourself about what it takes to make your dream a reality.