# soap business plan



## gwen (Oct 14, 2010)

Does anyone have a sample business plan?

Thanks,
Gwen
 :wink:


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## PrairieCraft (Oct 14, 2010)

Business plans are a whole lotta work and part of a learning process.  Can't imagine anyone wanting to freely share all of their hard work.  Business plans are kind of an individual thing anyway, right?  There are plenty of sources online for generic business plan outlines.  Google.


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## carebear (Oct 14, 2010)

google is your friend

http://www.bplans.com/cosmetic_herbal_s ... ary_fc.cfm


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## IanT (Oct 14, 2010)

this link is your best friend:


http://app1.sba.gov/training/sbabp/index.htm


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## agriffin (Oct 15, 2010)

Can you take a small business and small business tax class at a local community college?  That really helped me out...totally worth doing.  And usually in every business class you end up writing a business plan.


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## gwen (Oct 19, 2010)

Thanks to all of you for your links and comments.  I will benefit greatly.  I plan to go to community college or some class that will supply the rubric I need to develop my plan.

In the mean time I will use the links.

Thanks again.

Gwen


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## dagmar88 (Oct 20, 2010)

Good luck; I'm taking a course for small business owners now and have been working on my plan for... almost 2 years.
Only since recently I'm at the stage where I would feel comfortable selling my soap; but I'm still doing a lot of test batches to find out what exactly I want to sell (safety assesment is a bitch) and for all the other products I'm in the research & development stage.
I've visited several stores (and over here the number of soap makers is just starting to rise, the market isn't as saturated as it is in the USA, so I had to travel to different countries) and found out selling just soap isn't going to be profitable in my case.
Soapmaking, research and my businessplan are consuming 60 to 80 hours a week :wink:
Hopefully I'll be done in another two year or so. Which sucks as I already have a free accountant, someone offered me a shop downtown and a lot of employees to choose from  :roll: Argggh!

Just wanted to emphasize, this is going to take years rather than months.  8)


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## donniej (Oct 20, 2010)

I took an intro to business class at the community college.... it really changed the way I look at my soap business.  From the business plan to marketing...  really important stuff, I highly reccomend it.


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## IanT (Oct 20, 2010)

dagmar88 said:
			
		

> Good luck; I'm taking a course for small business owners now and have been working on my plan for... almost 2 years.
> Only since recently I'm at the stage where I would feel comfortable selling my soap; but I'm still doing a lot of test batches to find out what exactly I want to sell (safety assesment is a bitch) and for all the other products I'm in the research & development stage.
> I've visited several stores (and over here the number of soap makers is just starting to rise, the market isn't as saturated as it is in the USA, so I had to travel to different countries) and found out selling just soap isn't going to be profitable in my case.
> Soapmaking, research and my businessplan are consuming 60 to 80 hours a week :wink:
> ...




yeah making a biz plan def showed me that for me right now and the amount of space/supplies/funds i have to work with soapmaking isnt really a profitable venture for me until i can make it in massive quantities like for whole countries like donnie does with his awesome setups lol (envvvvvyyyyyy)

I cant wait to have a 500gal soapmmixer or something crazy like that lol... buy lye by the truckload etc... for now its just a hobby

but a biz plan is essential either way  i really wanna take a course in biz... especially since i recently figured out what i wanna do with my life


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## dagmar88 (Oct 20, 2010)

IanT said:
			
		

> dagmar88 said:
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And that is? To become mr. Universe?


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## IanT (Oct 20, 2010)

omg you must be a mind reader!!!


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## donniej (Oct 22, 2010)

IanT said:
			
		

> ...soapmaking isnt really a profitable venture for me until i can make it in massive quantities like for whole countries like donnie does with his awesome setups lol (envvvvvyyyyyy)



Making massive quantities of soap is only fun when you can also *sell* massive quantities of soap  :wink:  
I do however keep some local churches and homeless shelters well stocked  8)


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## IanT (Oct 22, 2010)

donniej said:
			
		

> IanT said:
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lol this is veeeeery true


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## xraygrl (Oct 30, 2010)

Thanks for asking this question as I have really been thinking hard about writing a business plan to get a small business grant to get me going. 

As far as college classes, I don't think I can go that route right now as I racked up enough getting my AS in science and still trying to pay that back.   I will go to the library and check out some books on running a small business, writing a business plan, accounting etc. I carried a 4.0 GPA in college, so hopefully I can teach myself how to run a business as well. I do have some retail management experience that will be helpful to me as well.


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