Industry Overview

Here is where you go into the industry you are in overall.

For more info on doing this research, and on researching the competition, take a look at our restaurant business research article .

To find this information, you can saerch the internet for statistics about your industry. Most industries have a trade group that keeps figures on your type of business. There also may be a local chapter which has even more specific information on the business you are in and how it is doing locally.

This is where you include things like how much the industry is expected to grow, how much the average buyer spends in your type of business, how many of these buyers there are, and so on. Anything that proves that the business you are entering is in a healthy industry that is growing and stable and has a large segment of ready buyers is going to make the investors in your business feel better.

They don't want to think you are going into a dying business segment with few buyers and a high mortality rate. Anything you can use to convince them that businesses like yours are doing well and have healthy expectations is a plus.

Even if you are in an industry without the greatest outlook, hopefully you can show that you are entering in a new way, providing some alternative to the rest of them, or in some other way going to be able to buck the overall trend. If not, maybe you should be rethinking it yourself!

This section doesn't need to be overly long or complicated, but you want to demonstrate that you understand the industry as a whole, you know where it is heading and what major trends are effecting it, and that you didn't just decide to get into this business yesterday and haven't a clue what it is really all about.

If the bank or investors ask you about industry averages, industry ratios, or other things that are relevant to the industry as a whole, you would do well to know the answers. And in the plan, this is where you put those answers before they even get around to asking them, which makes you look that much sharper.

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