business plan narrative report

Business Narrative Report

How would you react if your boss told you a story ? Not just any type of story, but a story that involves the company’s business and how it runs? Would you be interested in knowing more about it or will you think about something else entirely? There is a way for your boss to gently tell you how the company’s business runs without having to tell you how it really runs.  A business narrative is like telling a story but through a business sense. To learn more about this, you can check out the information and some examples to go with it below.

 7+ Business Narrative Report Examples

1. business narrative report template.

• Google Docs

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2. Business Report Template

• Apple Pages

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3. Business Report Sample Template

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4. Business Narrative Report Template

Size: 219 KB

5. Officers Business Narrative Report

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6. Business Narrative Audit Report

Size: 266 KB

7. Business Narrative Financial Report

Size: 655 KB

8. Company Business Narrative Report

Size: 70 KB

Definition of Narrative

A narrative is an oral or a written story that depicts events worth telling. The process of telling a story with a series of events. The act of describing a series of events in the form of a story. The act of describing a story with events that happened. A narrative is simply a way to tell a story through a series of incidents. Describing what happened or narrated in a way that sounds like a story. In a simpler context, a narrative is a typical way to tell a story. This depicts events that may or may not happen. A narrative can either be a written document or an oral document depending on how it was told.

Definition of Business Narrative

To define the terms business and narrative in a simple way, it is telling a story in a business manner. A business narrative simply tells a story through the events that happened. This is a way to analyze, explain and evaluate the services and products the company sells. As well as to evaluate how the business succeeded or failed. Business narratives are usually used as pep talk to inspire employees to do better in the future. To show that in every business story, there are always risks. This is not to scare employees, rather it is to show them that with all that happens, there is a way to succeed. To encourage everyone to work together as a team and to succeed.

Definition of Report

A report is an oral or written account of something. The act of giving information to someone about a particular thing. An event or situation that is talked about by someone. The process of complaining to a person of authority over an incident that happened. Either by someone or something that may cause you to tell a story. To describe a situation or an event to a person with authority. A statement that may or may not be true depending on the situation and the evidence present. Information about something or someone.

Importance of a Business Report

The importance of a business report is to provide analysis on how the business is working. It shows a summary of how the business runs and tracks all the areas of the company. It is to check if all the issues regarding the company are in order. Business reports are also an important guide when it comes to decision making . This allows business owners the opportunity to analyze, investigate and evaluate any issues concerning the business. As well as being able to solve and nip the problem in the bud before it gets worse.

Tips for Writing a Business Narrative Report

Let’s move on to tips . Ever asked yourself how do you write a business narrative report? Is there a shortcut to writing this? Is there a format you need to follow as you write this? If you answered yes to the questions, you are not alone. There are others who would ask themselves the same question. Let me show you some tips that may help or guide you on writing a business narrative report.

• Draft your report
• Be specific
• Avoid using flowery language or difficult jargon
• State the positive and negative aspects
• Give credit where credit is due
• Write the final output and send

How is a business narrative report helpful?

A business narrative report gives the audience a view of how the company runs. It gives business owners an opportunity to reevaluate their actions into making it a better business. Narrative reports for businesses help tell a good or bad impression on the company and how it runs. This gives the owners an opportunity to fix things that need fixing. This is their roadmap.

What is a business narrative report?

A business narrative report is basically like telling a story in business. It provides information needed and required about the company and its way of running. This is also a business tactic to let their consumers buy from them. This report can also be used as a leadership speech to encourage employees to work harder and smarter.

Is a business narrative report only limited to the business world?

Anyone can use a narrative report, but a business narrative report is only limited to the business world. There may be a type of report you can use like that of the business narrative. However, the business narrative report is specifically designed for business.

Why do I need to avoid using difficult jargon when I write my report?

You need to adjust to your audience’s level of understanding. Using words that may not be very familiar would only lead to confusion. Use words that are easy to understand or general words that are used on a daily basis.

If you ever heard your boss say they are telling you a story , would you immediately think of a business narrative report instead? As we remember, a business narrative report is storytelling in a business sense. It is a roadmap for business owners to see where their businesses are flourishing and where they need to improve. It is also a way for them to analyze, understand and give their conclusions of how the issues are going to be solved.

Report Generator

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Generate a report on the impact of technology in the classroom on student learning outcomes

Prepare a report analyzing the trends in student participation in sports and arts programs over the last five years at your school.

Creating a Narrative from Numbers

The key to a successful business plan is a coherent story built around financial projections and external context.

By Ali Al-Suhail

Ali has advised on equity transactions amounting to US $3 billion involving startups, mid-market companies, and private equity firms.

PREVIOUSLY AT

Business plans are a pivotal part of the strategic financial decision-making process . They help put thoughts down on paper, present market data to back up the rhetoric, and articulate the financial side of an argument. When it comes to business plans, it’s not only about the numbers; the narrative and the assumptions used to drive them is just as important, if not more important. There is an art to getting the story and the numbers right, and it’s not a process that can be “gamified.” However, there are common pitfalls that, if avoided, can increase the chances of success.

Scenario #1: Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

The most common error in business plans is the lack of consistency. In my experience, this is never intentional but comes as a consequence of how business plans are written. This is usually a result of different teams taking charge of different sections and working in silos, or through disconnected interactions with senior management. A business plan should read like a story. For example, insights gathered from the market and competition sections should be reflected in assumption drivers of the financial budget section.

Knowing how to engage the insights of the senior management team is critical. If you involve them too much in a business plan, the process can get tediously slow, but if you work too independently, then your final output may take a dangerously wide tangent.

What worked in my experience was to set up short meetings with leaders of the departments involved - after completing the first draft - to gather their thoughts and insights. In one instance, we used this approach to build a review team of a target company – an internet services provider. The operations team identified an underutilized part of the target’s network, the marketing team identified how to utilize it, and the financing team identified 30% of unrealized value that could be unlocked.

A very common example is a business plan that promises aggressive revenue growth with limited investment in marketing or CapEx. If you make more products (or get more users) to sell, you will need resources to produce and sell them. There are some services that have zero marginal cost structures - like software - where such strategies may work, but more often than not, there will be a budget disconnect. Let’s look at a simple example from an income statement budget:

Exhibit 1: Model

The model assumes the following:

• Revenue to grow by 10% over the coming five years.
• Gross margin will remain constant for the foreseeable future.
• Overhead expenses will increase by USD 250 year on year.
• Marketing and other expenses will remain constant.

Let’s suppose that we look at the industry section of the business plan and discover that consultants expect the market of the company to grow at a CAGR of 5% over the coming five years.

Our company’s budget assumes that its revenue will grow at a rate double that of the industry with a very limited investment in overhead and marketing expenses. This presents a break in the narrative—to grow at a higher rate than the market, you must take market share from other competitors, which (in a fair market) requires some form of investment. This investment could be into people, marketing channels, or in some other form of competitive advantage. The point to make is that the current presentation of data constitutes a break in the narrative, which will require good arguments to support.

Now, suppose that the consultants expect the market to grow at a CAGR of 20% over the coming five years. Well, the story now flips, and the company is set to underperform; the lower investment forecast now appears more logical. By spending less, the company will probably concede some of the market share, which is being taken into consideration in the growth forecast.

Scenario #2: Tunnel Vision

Another common pitfall is coming into a business plan process with a rigid mindset. While a business plan typically presents one scenario of how things will unfold in the future, feel free to explore other options as you build the plan and do not stick to one approach. Use the financial model and market research to explore what other possible paths the business can take. Use the financial analysis to explore other areas: for example, a pivot into a subscription model , or using tiered pricing. The plan gives you an opportunity to explore the impact of your strategy on other dimensions of your business, such as net working capital and CapEx.

In one case in a prior job, we had a manufacturing client that was looking to expand his operations massively, and he believed that the business would grow significantly over the coming years. The client planned to use the business plan as part of a transaction that would include selling a portion of the business. After conducting our analysis, we presented our findings to the client. The growth the client desired was not only unsupported by external market research but it would destroy value for the client. The net working capital investment was so significant that it would more than wipe out any benefit produced by revenue growth.

We helped the client rethink both his business plan and exit strategy. The analysis we provided identified other areas in the market that he could consider growing into, and that optimizing working capital should come before any significant growth efforts into the core business.

Initial Business Plan Provided by Client

Revised Business Plan

Note: The terminal value was arrived at using the perpetual growth model using a 3% terminal growth rate and a 10% discount rate.

As you can see from the tables, the final enterprise value in the revised plan is higher than in the client’s original. The only difference between the two is the revenue growth rate and the net working capital assumption. The original narrative was that the company sought aggressive growth and was therefore willing to invest heavily in its working capital to achieve it. However, the growth would end up costing the company more harm than benefit. While the narrative is clear, its implications were not fully thought out. Of course, there are other arguments that can be used. As an example, the terminal growth rate used in the first scenario could be higher or use a scenario where the current growth rate of 25% would linearly converge to 3% ( H-model ). These could be valid arguments, but you must substantiate them in your plan and provide the logic and data that support them.

Scenario #3: I Did It My Way

There is no right or wrong approach to building a business plan , so take your time; think about the idea and lay out a solution and a structure that has logic. If you are disrupting an industry, the focus should be on how your product is different from that of your competitors and what that means for the end customer. On the other hand, if you are looking to enter a regulated market, then you need to understand the laws and regulations that you intend to overcome. Pick an approach that works for you and will help you achieve your goal.

In one case, I worked for a client that was trying to launch an eCommerce business. The client was very focused on developing a detailed model for the business and used a return metric to evaluate the viability of the investment. Most eCommerce businesses are loss-making and take significant time and investment before becoming economically viable. I helped the client see why his current method may not help him get the desired result and shifted his focus toward understanding the opportunity cost of not starting the online business, and what it would take for him to build a profitable one. These were questions that we could answer much more reliably and provide the client with realistic data points to determine the required investment and the type of operations required to generate an attractive return.

Let’s look at an example of this scenario. Suppose that the total retail market size (including offline and online channels) is $1 billion, and projections estimate that eCommerce penetration will increase to 10% over five years and offline margins will decline by 5% due to eCommerce competitive dynamics. If your market share is 30% (i.e., your annual revenues are $300 million), then you risk losing 10% in market share and another 5% in margin. So your total loss is around $35 million annually. This is not a precise calculation and should be supported by further research, but it does give you a grasp of what you are at risk of losing. It gives a different perspective of your narrative and can help you close some of the gaps in your analysis.

Numbers <> Real Life?

There are certain norms about business plans and projections that continually prevail. Most prominently, that they are expected to present an optimistic (yet realistic) view of how the business can unfold. Keeping that in mind, have a think about what your numbers mean in real life. If you assume the price of products and margins will continue to improve, what will stop competitors from offering lower prices and getting a lower margin from you? If you are in a platform business and you assume a declining customer acquisition cost, how are you going to maintain your customer base and add to it? An often neglected part of a business plan is return measures, such as return to equity and return on invested capital. They do not have a necessary function within the plan but can be a great way to sense check your assumptions.

Building great business plans takes as much art as science. The essence of a business plan is the narrative of your business and the thought process behind it. If it feels overwhelming, just remember the words of Charles Munger: “It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.”

Understanding the basics

What is a business narrative.

Fulfilling an unmet commercial need with a collection of physical and intangible assets that come together to form a competitive advantage - relevant within external context - is what a business plan narrative entails.

• BusinessPlan
• Fundraising
• BusinessModel

Ali Al-Suhail

London, United Kingdom

Member since August 5, 2019

About the author

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How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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Writing Your Business Narrative

November 29, 2009 Jarie Bolander

Photo by  rawpixel.com  on  Unsplash

People love a good story. We gravitate to stories because they are easy to understand and if told well, stick with us. A narrative is a powerful tool to tell your business story, without all of the complexity of a business plan. People tend to have a difficult time starting a business plan or even a pitch because the ideas rattling around in their gray matter are just not cohesive. Throw in the desire to get the business off the ground or fund it and most people just give up.

Writing a narrative about your business is the first step in formulating those random thoughts into a story that you can tell prospective investors and employees. It’s also a great way to get past the anxiety of looking at detailed rows and columns of numbers that really won’t make sense until you formulate the genesis of your business.

Table of Contents

First Things First

Before getting started on your business narrative, you need to brainstorm or free write. Doing this allows your brain to get geared toward creating a good narrative. So, before you move on, do one of the following exercises:

Exercise #1: Free write for 15 minutes, without stopping, about your new business idea. Just write. Don’t edit. Don’t correct spelling. Just write about it.

Exercise #2: For 15 minutes, brainstorm all the words and phrases you can think of about your business. Write them all down on a piece of butcher paper or record it.

Now that your brain is primed, it’s time to start structuring those thoughts into a narrative. Take another 5 minutes to circle or underline the main themes, words, sentences from the exercises about. These themes will be used to answer and expand upon the questions below. To better illustrate the process, I will build an example narrative in parallel along with you.

Question 1: Name Your Business

Naming your business is the first step in making it real. This is the main character of your story and the name should reflect the attitude of the company. Look at the items you circled in the brainstorming session. Are there any recurring themes or words? What jumps out at you? Try and incorporate that into your name. Spend 5 minutes to name your company.

Business Name: The Daily MBA

Question 2: Describe What the Business Does

Be as specific as you can when it comes to describing your business and what it does. The more specific the better. Being too general will defocus your efforts. Use action words or phrases that are easily understandable. Try to refrain from fuzzy words or muddled concepts. Again, make it simple.

What The Daily MBA does: The Daily MBA is about helping new entrepreneurs and managers navigate the complex world of business  Through relevant posts and topical discussions, The Daily MBA provides a fresh perspective on the day to day hardships that face entrepreneurs and managers.

Question 3: What Makes the Business Special?

Like any good character, your business needs to have that something special that resonates with readers/customers. This description needs to be written with vivid words that conger up feelings that people can relate to. Even though it’s a business, that personal touch will make it memorable.

What Makes The Daily MBA Special: The Daily MBA is written by a practicing manager and entrepreneur who knows firsthand how painful it can be to start and manage a business. His unique perspective allows for readers to connect with his point of view because he can empathize with their plight. The Daily MBA style is also informal and comes across more like a mentor or friend than a stodgy professor.

Question 4: What Market Does the Business Address?

Understanding your market space is vital to a successful business. Markets are complex, so it’s best to be as specific as possible in choosing what market you will address. You don’t have to be formal about it or even know the correct buzzwords. Just simply describe the market that your business addresses.

Markets Addressed: The Daily MBA addresses the management and entrepreneurship education market worldwide.

Question 5: Who Are Your Customers?

Customers are an important part of your marketing effort. You need to reach them in order for them to purchase your goods and services. The best way to think about this is to describe your ideal customer. Ideal customers may not exist but they are a great way to focus your products and services to customers that come close.

Customers: The people who read The Daily MBA are either in business or want to start a business. They have a natural drive to create products and services and tend to seek out advice. The ideal customer for The Daily MBA would be the new entrepreneur or manager that wants to start a business or manage their group better.

Question 6: What Customer Pain/Benefits Do You Cure/Provide?

Most customers only buy something they need (or want). These purchases are usually driven by solving a problem or curing the customer’s pain. These pain points are what drive your customers to seek out your products or services.

Customer Pain Solved: The Daily MBA provides a comprehensive resource that answers the questions entrepreneurs and managers have while also giving them a step by step way to succeed. Too often, new entrepreneurs and managers don’t have good mentors or resources to answer their pressing questions. Schools do provide some instruction but this is mostly theoretical.

Question 7: What are Your Long Term Business Goals?

It’s always a good idea to look ahead a bit to see where you want your business to go. When doing this, be pragmatic and realistic. Don’t assume your next gig will be as big as Facebook or Google. Rather, look at what you want to achieve and set realistic goals. These goals can be one, two or five years out. Whatever it may be, put it down.

Long-Term Goals: Within two years, The Daily MBA will be garnering 10,000 unique visitors a month, generating $5,000 dollars in revenue per month (via ads and related book sales) and be ranked as a top entrepreneur and management advice site.

Question 8: What Resources/Actions Are Need to Achieve the Goals?

Now that you have a long-term goal, you need to figure out what it will take to achieve it. This may be getting investors, developing products or services or hiring staff. This is critical since, without some idea on how to achieve your goal, you will flounder.

Resources Needed: To achieve our long-term goals, The Daily MBA needs to apply Inbound Marketing techniques to get found. Part of this strategy will be to guest blog, be an active part of the entrepreneur/management community, publish topical books, develop seminars, produce at least one original post per week and provide three to five commentary posts per week on topical business posts outside The Daily MBA.

Question 9: Summarize Why You Will Succeed

It’s always best to end with a summary of what the reader just read and come to some resolution. This pulls the narrative together and allows the reader to leave satisfied. The summary does not have to be long or fancy or even original. It can just be a compact synopsis of what you just said.

Summary: The Daily MBA is all about helping entrepreneurs and managers thrive in the chaotic world of business. It’s a content rich site that provides a needed resource for entrepreneurs and managers. Through original content, community stewardship and topical books, The Daily MBA will achieve upwards of 10,000 unique visitors and $5,000 in revenue per month within the next two years.

Assembling The Narrative

Now that we have the pieces (or bones) down, we can assemble the bits into a flowing narrative. To do this, you need to read your pieces again and edit them for grammar and content. Once you have something you think is pretty good, read it aloud to see how it sounds. The way the written word sounds is a great way to refine your voice. If it sounds weird, then it will read weird. You also want to ensure that it actually sounds like the way you talk. It’s okay to be informal as long as it’s clear and communicates your vision.

Once you have gone through the pieces, the next step is to assemble them together. Start with question #2 and string together your pieces into paragraphs. In the end, you should have between 3-5 paragraphs. Now that you have your business narrative, you can start to fill in the details and refine what you want to achieve. The narrative will be your anchor during the business planning process. It will provide the focal point when your plan starts to get messy or you stray from your desired objectives. Good luck.

Example Business Narrative: The Daily MBA

The Daily MBA is about helping entrepreneurs and managers navigate the complex world of business  Through relevant posts and topical discussions, The Daily MBA provides a fresh perspective on the day to day hardships that face entrepreneurs and managers. It is written by a practicing manager and entrepreneur who knows firsthand how painful it can be to start and manage a business. His unique perspective allows for readers to connect with his point of view because he can empathize with their plight. The Daily MBA style is also informal and comes across more like a mentor or friend than like a stodgy professor.

The Daily MBA addresses the management and entrepreneurship education market worldwide. The people who read The Daily MBA are either in business or want to start a business. They have a natural drive to create products and seek out advice. The ideal customer for The Daily MBA would be the new entrepreneur or manager that wants to start a business or manage their group better. The Daily MBA provides a comprehensive resource that answers the questions entrepreneurs and managers have while also giving them a step by step way to succeed. Too often, new entrepreneurs and managers don’t have good mentors or resources to answer their pressing questions. Schools do provide some instruction but this is mostly theoretical.

Within two years, The Daily MBA will be garnering 10,000 unique visitors and $5,000 dollars in revenue per month (via ads and related book sales) and be ranked as a top entrepreneur and management advice site.To achieve these long-term goals, The Daily MBA needs to apply Inbound Marketing techniques to get found. Part of this strategy will be to guest blog, be an active part of the entrepreneur/management community, publish topical books, develop seminars, produce at least one original post per week and provide three to five commentary posts per week on topical business posts outside The Daily MBA.

The Daily MBA is all about helping entrepreneurs and managers thrive in the chaotic world of business. It’s a content rich site that provides a valuable resource for entrepreneurs and managers. Through original content, community stewardship and topical books, The Daily MBA will achieve upwards of 10,000 unique visitors and $5,000 in revenue per month within the next two years.

Special thanks go to Joe Malo at Jan Medical for his insights and discussion about writing a good business narrative.

Additional References

Jason has a great post about questions you should ask if you are thinking of starting a business. This lends itself nicely to a business narrative and you should try and include the answers to Jason’s questions as well.

Your Business Narrative is your internal compass while your PR Narrative is your external one. Once you finished your Business Narrative, then take a crack at your PR narrative. It should be a lot easier to write and give you some useful insights into how you want the external world to view your business.

Also published on Medium .

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December 2, 2009 at 11:17 am

Great post.

However, I feel that “Name Your Business” should not be on top of this list. Ideally after the sixth point. I think it would make more sense naming your business once you have answered questions 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Overall, I like your points very much.

December 2, 2009 at 11:21 am

Harsh- Thanks for the comment. You make a good point. You can change the name at anytime since the process is iterative. My thought was it was good to name it something first so that it feels a little more real. Maybe I should change it to a working name or make it optional. I need to ponder that a bit.

[…] much more likely to succeed. If this seems too overwhelming, then you might want to work on your business narrative first and then come back and work on […]

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Writing Your Business Narrative: Tips for Business Owners

Last Updated:  

December 5, 2023

In the fast-paced world of business, where competition and new ideas meet, it's important to have an interesting business story. Your company has a story that goes beyond its goods and services. It has your unique journey to start your business, your goal, and your values. As a business owner, you can express yourself, set your brand apart, keep customers coming back, and get investors interested by learning how to tell a good story .

Key Takeaways on Writing Down Your Business Narrative

• Storytelling as a Business Tool : Understanding the power of a compelling narrative in business is crucial. It's more than sharing your journey; it's about engaging, emoting, and making an impact.
• Challenge for New Entrepreneurs : For beginners, especially those juggling entrepreneurship and education, crafting a captivating business narrative can be daunting. Seeking help, like writing services, can be beneficial.
• Learning from Professional Writers : Observing how expert writers simplify complex topics into engaging narratives can be instructive for business storytelling. These professionals demonstrate effective communication skills applicable to business narratives.
• Embrace Vivid Language : Utilise descriptive, emotionally resonant language to make your story compelling. Avoid vague terms, opting instead for specific, sensory-rich descriptions.
• Craft a Strong Opening : Your story’s beginning should be intriguing, thought-provoking, or surprising to immediately capture the audience’s interest.
• Structured Narrative Flow : Organise your story logically and engagingly, with clear sections and headings for readability and coherence.
• Highlighting Success Stories : Share customer testimonials and case studies to demonstrate the tangible impact of your product or service.
• Editing for Clarity and Impact : Refine your narrative by editing for simplicity, clarity, and coherence. Remove superfluous details to strengthen the narrative's impact.
• Self-Editing and External Feedback : Regularly review and revise your story, seeking feedback from peers or mentors to ensure it resonates with a broader audience.
• Story as a Business Lever : Recognise that your business story is a strategic tool, capable of influencing, uniting, and paving the way for success.

Complex Task for Beginner Entrepreneurs

The business offers several products and services. A strong corporate narrative can assist your company in navigating market competition. A compelling tale goes beyond your company's history. It may engage listeners, evoke emotions, and leave a lasting impact.

For small business owners who are just starting out as entrepreneurs while still going to school, the expectations can be too much to handle. During this active time, unexpected problems may come up, such as the need to improve writing skills. Help is available in surprising places, like writing services, that you might not think of at first. These services, which are usually linked to academic help, can be a real gem for business owners who want to improve their stories. 

Thinking about how writers work will help you define an engaging business story. These writers take their work seriously, and business writers can, too. In the hands of professional essay writer complex topics are skillfully simplified into engaging narratives, showcasing their prowess in language and storytelling. This demonstrates their writing and language skills. Both novices and experts in business might benefit from employing these experts.

Expert writers compose well-organised, convincing material and teach others how to write. Their attention to detail, clarity of speech, and ability to tailor words to varied demographics can teach business writers. Business students can learn narrative, communication, and how to tell a memorable story from expert essay writers.

Writing Techniques for Entrepreneurs

Business leaders can make an interesting story with the help of good writing. Companies that do well stand out when they write strong copy to get investors, customers, and workers. To make your company story better, we'll talk about some important writing tips.

Use of Vivid Language

When you tell a business story, language is like a pen, and vividness is like a paint can. If you want to be specific, use emotional words instead of general ones. To get people interested in your story, use strong images and sensory details. Instead of calling your product "innovative," talk about how it makes things better for people who use them.

Building a Compelling Opening

The first few words of your story will grab people's attention. In the beginning, make the reader think, get them excited, or grab their attention. If you're telling a story, surprising them, or challenging them, the first few lines of your essay should grab their attention.

Structuring Your Narrative

The story format helps your idea stand out. Make sure that your writing makes sense and flows well , taking the reader on a trip. After a short opening, you should make a list of thoughts or events that make sense. Headings, bullet points, and subheadings make writing easy to read and help people keep track of what's going on.

Example: "Introduction - Our Vision Unveiled | Section 1 - The Genesis of [Your Company] | Section 2 - Mission and Values | Section 3 - Overcoming Challenges | Conclusion - A Glimpse into the Future." 

Showcasing Success Stories

Success stories are the best way to get people to care. Show how your product or service has helped people through reviews, recommendations, and case studies. Spread the word about the successes of people or companies that worked with your brand to tell your story.

Example: "Meet Sarah, a small business owner who, with the help of our solutions, not only streamlined her operations but witnessed a 30% increase in revenue within six months."

It's more than just giving people facts; you want to make them feel, be interested, and remember you. As you get better at writing, your company story will go from being a bunch of words to a strong force that motivates, engages, and wins.

Editing and Refining Your Narrative

After putting together the main parts of your business story, you can start rewriting and improving it. Each word, sentence, and paragraph is carefully shaped to make sense and have the most effect, just like sculpture. How to make your story better and more interesting.

Stress the Importance of Editing for Clarity and Coherence

Editors make small changes to stories that make them stand out and make sure the grammar is right. Make sure that your writing is easy to understand and that each line adds to the story. Get rid of details and words that aren't needed. This will make your material easier to read and keep people interested.

Example: "As we edit, let's focus on simplifying complex language, ensuring that every word adds value to the reader's understanding of our journey."

Tips on Self-Editing and Seeking Feedback

Encourage business owners to use two ways to change. After making changes, read your story again. Find places where the story gets boring, repeats itself, or doesn't make sense. Next, ask your peers, mentors, or professional editors for comments. Outside views can give you helpful feedback and help your story connect with many people.

When business innovation meets storytelling, stories lead the way. To finish this article, keep in mind that your story is a business tool. Stories that are well-written can change people's minds, bring them together, and set them up for long-term success. Leaders in business can make an impact on the ever-changing business world if they learn how to write well and tell stories that people can relate to. Your story is more than just words; it's the heart of your business.

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How to Write a Business Report: A Step By Step Guide with Examples

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Enjoy reading this blog post written by our experts or partners.

If you want to see what Databox can do for you, click here .

With so much experience under your belt, you already know a lot about business reporting.

So, we don’t want to waste your time pointing out the obvious because we know what you need.

Secrets. Tricks. Best practices.sales rep drilldown business report

The answer to how to write a mind-blowing business report that you don’t need to spend hours and days writing.

A business report that will immediately allow you to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

A report that’ll help you learn more about your business and do more accurate forecasting and planning for the future.

We believe we have just that right here.

With this comprehensive guide, you’ll create effective sales, analytical, and informative business reports (and business dashboards ) that will help you improve your strategies, achieve your goals, and grow your business.

So, let’s dive in.

What Is a Business Report?

Importance of creating business reports, types of business reports, what should be included in a business report, how to write a business report: an 11-step guide.

• Business Report Examples

Although there’s a variety of business reports that differ in many aspects, in short, a business report definition would be the following:

A business report is an informative document that contains important data such as facts, analyses, research findings, and statistics about a business with the goal to make this information accessible to people within a company.

Their main purpose is to facilitate the decision-making process related to the future of the business, as well as to maintain effective communication between people who create the reports and those they report to.

A good business report is concise and well-organized, looks professional, and displays the relevant data you can act on. The point is to reflect upon what you’ve achieved so far (typically, over the past month, quarter or year) and to use the data to create a new strategy or adjust the current one to reach even more business goals.

Business reports should be objective and based on the data. When stating the facts, people rely on numbers rather than giving descriptions. For instance, instead of saying “our conversion rate skyrocketed”, you would display the exact percentages that back up that claim.

Business reporting matters for several reasons, among which the most important ones are:

Recognizing Opportunities to Grow

Detecting issues and solving them quickly, evaluating a potential partner, having a paper trail, keeping things transparent for the stakeholders, setting new company goals.

In fact, over half of the companies that contributed to Databox’s state of business reporting research confirmed that regular monitoring and reporting brought them significant concrete benefits.

If you never look back at what you’ve achieved, you can’t figure out what you’ve done well and what you can leverage in the future for even better results.

When you analyze a specific aspect of your business over a specific time period and present the data you gathered in a report, you can detect an opportunity to grow more easily because you have all the information in one place and organized neatly.

Is it time to introduce new products or services? Is there a way to enhance your marketing strategy? Prepare a report. Can you optimize your finances? Write a financial business report . Whatever decision you need to make, it’s easier when you base it on a report.

Reports are essential for crisis management because they can introduce a sense of calmness into your team. Putting everything on paper makes it easier to encompass all the relevant information and when you know all the facts, you can make a more accurate and effective decision about what to do next.

Writing business reports regularly will also help you identify potential issues or risks and act timely to prevent damage and stop it from escalating. That’s why monthly reporting is better than doing it only once a year.

Having an insight into your finances , operations and other business aspects more regularly allows you to have better control over them and mitigate potential risks more effectively.

Different types of business reports may be accessible to the general public. And if they’re not, specific situations may require a company to send them over to the person requesting them. That may happen if you’re considering a partnership with another company. Before making the final decision, you should learn about their financial health as every partnership poses a certain risk for your finances and/or reputation. Will this decision be profitable?

Having an insight into a company’s business report helps you establish vital business relationships. And it goes the other way around – any potential partner can request that you pull a business report for them to see, so writing business reports can help you prove you’re a suitable business partner.

In business, and especially in large companies, it’s easy to misplace information when it’s communicated verbally. Having a written report about any aspect of your business doesn’t only prevent you from losing important data, but it also helps you keep records so you can return to them at any given moment and use them in the future.

That’s why it’s always good to have a paper trail of anything important you want to share with colleagues, managers, clients, or investors. Nowadays, of course, it doesn’t have to literally be a paper trail, since we keep the data in electronic form.

Writing business reports helps you keep things transparent for the stakeholders, which is the foundation of efficient communication between these two sides.

You typically need to report to different people – sometimes they’re your managers, sometimes they’re a client. But your company’s stakeholders will also require an insight into the performance of your business, and relying on reports will help you maintain favorable business relationships. A business report shows you clearly how your company is performing and there isn’t room for manipulation.

Once you set business goals and the KPIs that help you track your progress towards them, you should remember they’re not set in stone. From time to time, you’ll need to revisit your goals and critical metrics and determine whether they’re still relevant.

When you write a business report and go through it with your team members or managers, you have a chance to do just that and determine if you’re efficient in reaching your goals. Sometimes, new insights will come up while writing these reports and help you identify new objectives that may have emerged.

Depending on your goals and needs, you’ll be writing different types of business reports. Here are five basic types of business reports .

Informational Report

Analytical report, research report, explanatory report, progress report.

Informational reports provide you with strictly objective data without getting into the details, such as explaining why something happened or what the result may be – just pure facts.

An example of this type of business report is a statement where you describe a department within your company: the report contains the list of people working in this department, what their titles are, and what they’re responsible for.

Another example related to a company’s website could look like this Google Analytics website traffic engagement report . As we explained above, this report shows objective data without getting too much into the details, so in this case, just the most important website engagement metrics such as average session duration, bounce rate, sessions, sessions by channel, and so on. Overall, you can use this report to monitor your website traffic, see which keywords are most successful, or how many returning users you have, but without further, in-depth analysis.

Analytical reports help you understand the data you’ve collected and plan for the future based on these insights. You can’t make business decisions based on facts only, so analytical reports are crucial for the decision-making process.

This type of business report is commonly used for sales forecasting. For instance, if you write a report where you identify a drop or an increase in sales, you’ll want to find out why it happened. This HubSpot’s sales analytics report is a good example of what metrics should be included in such a report, like average revenue per new client or average time to close the deal. You can find more web analytics dashboard examples here.

From these business reports, you can find out if you will reach your goals by implementing your current strategy or if you need to make adjustments.

Research is critical when you’re about to introduce a change to your business. Whether it’s a new strategy or a new partner, you need an extensive report to have an overview of all important details. These reports usually analyze new target markets and competition, and contain a lot of statistical data.

While not the same, here is an example of an ecommerce dashboard that could help track each part of a campaign in detail, no matter whether you are launching a new product, testing a new strategy, and similar. Similar to a research report, it contains key data on your audience (target market), shows your top-selling products, conversion rate and more. If you are an online store owner who is using paid ads, you can rely on this report to monitor key online sales stats in line with Facebook Ads and Google Analytics. See more ecommerce dashboards here.

As you might guess from its name, you write the explanatory report when it’s necessary for you to explain a specific situation or a project you’ve done to your team members. It’s important to write this report in a way that everyone will be able to understand.

Explanatory reports include elements like research results, reasons and goals of the research, facts, methodology, and more. While not exactly an explanatory report, this example of a HubSpot marketing drilldown report is the closest thing to it, as it helps marketers drill into an individual landing page performance, and identify how good their best landing pages are at converting, or which ones have the best performance.

A progress report is actually an update for your manager or client – it informs them about where you stand at the moment and how things are going. It’s like a checkpoint on your way towards your goal.

These reports may be the least demanding to write since you don’t need to do comprehensive research before submitting them. You just need to sum up your progress up to the point when the report was requested. This business report may include your current results, the strategy you’re implementing, the obstacles you’ve come across, etc. If this is a marketing progress report you can use marketing report templates to provide a more comprehensive overview.

In many companies, progress reports are done on a weekly or even daily basis. Here is an example of a daily sales report from Databox. HubSpot users can rely on this sales rep drilldown business report to see how individual each sales rep is performing and measure performance against goals. Browse through all our KPI dashboards here.

What does a great business report look like? If you’re not sure what sections your report should have, you’ll learn what to include in the following lines.

Business Report Formatting

Different types of reports require different lengths and structures, so your business report format may depend on what elements your report needs to have. For example, progress reports are typically pretty simple, while analytical or explanatory reports are a different story.

However, most reports will start with a title and a table of contents, so the person reading the report knows what to expect. Then, add a summary and move on to the introduction. After you’ve written the body and the conclusion, don’t forget to include suggestions based on your findings that will help your team create an actionable plan as you move forward.

After that, list the references you used while creating the report, and attach any additional documents or images that can help the person reading the report understand it better.

This outline may vary depending on what kind of report you’re writing. Short business reports may not need a table of contents, and informative reports won’t contain any analyses. Also, less formal reports don’t need to follow a strict structure in every situation.

Business Report Contents

When it comes to the contents of your report, keep in mind the person who’s going to read it and try to balance between including all the relevant information, but not overwhelming the reader with too many details.

• The introduction to the report should state the reason why you’re writing it, and what its main goal is. Also, mention what methodology and reporting software you’ve used, if applicable.
• The body of the report is where you’ll expose all your key findings, explain your methodology, share the important data and statistics, and present your results and conclusion.
• The conclusion , similarly to the summary you’ll add at the beginning of the report, briefly singles out the most important points and findings of the report.

If you decide to include more sections like recommendations, this is where you’ll suggest the next steps your team or the company may want to take to improve the results or take advantage of them if they’re favorable.

PRO TIP: Are You Tracking the Right Metrics for Your SaaS Company?

As a SaaS business leader, there’s no shortage of metrics you could be monitoring, but the real question is, which metrics should you be paying most attention to? To monitor the health of your SaaS business, you want to identify any obstacles to growth and determine which elements of your growth strategy require improvements. To do that, you can track the following key metrics in a convenient dashboard with data from Profitwell:

• Recurring Revenue. See the portion of your company’s revenue that is expected to grow month-over-month.
• MRR overview. View the different contributions to and losses from MRR from different kinds of customer engagements.
• Customer overview . View the total number of clients your company has at any given point in time and the gains and losses from different customer transactions.
• Growth Overview . Summarize all of the different kinds of customer transactions and their impact on revenue growth.
• Churn overview. Measure the number and percentage of customers or subscribers you lost during a given time period.

If you want to track these in ProfitWell, you can do it easily by building a plug-and-play dashboard that takes your customer data from ProfitWell and automatically visualizes the right metrics to allow you to monitor your SaaS revenue performance at a glance.

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

Step 2: Connect your Profitwell account with Databox. 

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Note : Other than text, make sure you include images, graphs, charts, and tables. These elements will make your report more readable and illustrate your points.

Whether you’re writing a specific type of business report for the first time or you simply want to improve the quality of your reports, make sure you follow this comprehensive guide to writing an effective business report.

• Do Your Research
• Create an Outline
• Determine Formatting Guidelines
• Think of an Engaging Title
• Write the Introduction
• Divide the Body of the Report into Sections
• Choose Illustrations
• Conclude Effectively
• Gather Additional Documentation
• Add a Summary
• Proofread Your Work

Step 1: Do Your Research

A well-planned report is a job half done. That means you need to do research before you start writing: you need to know who you’re writing for and how much they know about the topic of your report. You need to explore the best business dashboard software and templates you can use for your report.

Also, if you believe you will need additional resources and documents to add in the appendix, you should do it during this phase of report writing.

Step 2: Create an Outline

Once you’ve gathered the resources, it’s time to plan the report. Before you start writing, create an outline that will help you stick to the right structure. A business report is complex writing in which you can get lost very easily if you don’t have a clear plan.

Moreover, the report shouldn’t be complicated to read, so sticking to a plan will allow you to keep it concise and clear, without straying from the topic.

Step 3: Determine Formatting Guidelines

Most companies have their in-house formatting that every official document has to follow. If you’re not sure if such rules exist in your company, it’s time you checked with your managers.

If there arent’ any guidelines regarding formatting, make sure you set your own rules to make the report look professional. Choose a simple and readable format and make sure it supports all the symbols you may need to use in the report. Set up proper headings, spacing, and all the other elements you may need in Word or Google Docs.

Pro tip: Google Docs may be easier to share with people who are supposed to read your business report.

Step 4: Think of an Engaging Title

Even if you’re writing a formal business report, the title should be clear and engaging. Reports are typically considered dull as they’re a part of official business documentation, but there’s no reason why you can’t make them interesting to read. Your title should suit the report topic and be in different font size so the reader can recognize it’s a title. Underneath the title, you should add the name of the author of the report.

Step 5: Write the Introduction

A good introductory paragraph for a business report should explain to the reader why you’ve written the report. Use the introduction to provide a bit of background on the report’s topic and mention the past results if there’s been a significant improvement since your last report.

Step 6: Divide the Body of the Report into Sections

As this will be the most comprehensive part of your report, make sure you separate the data into logical sections. Your report is supposed to tell a story about your business, and these sections (such as methodology, hypothesis, survey, findings, and more) will help the data look well-organized and easy to read.

Step 7: Choose Illustrations

Of course, each of these sections should be followed with charts, graphs, tables, or other illustrations that help you make a point. Survey results are typically best displayed in pie charts and graphs, and these enable the reader to visualize the data better. From the formatting point of view, breaking the long text sections with illustrations makes the report more readable.

Pro tip: Using centralized dashboard solutions like Databox can bring your reporting game to the next level. Sign up for a forever-free trial now to see how you can use Databox to track and visualize performance easier than ever before .

Step 8: Conclude Effectively

Finish your report with a to-the-point conclusion that will highlight all the main data from the report. Make sure it’s not too long, as it’s supposed to be a summary of the body of the report. In case you don’t want to add a specific section for recommendations, this is where you can include them, along with your assessments.

Step 9: Gather Additional Documentation

If you’ve determined what additional documents, images, surveys, or other attachments you may need for your report, now is the time to collect them. Request access to those you may not be able to get on time, so you have everything you need by the deadline. Copy the documents you can use in the original form, and scan the documents you need in electronic format.

Step 10: Add a Summary

The summary is usually at the top of the report, but it’s actually something you should write after your report is completed. Only then will you know exactly what your most relevant information and findings are, so you can include them in this brief paragraph that summarizes your report’s main points.

The summary should tell the reader about the objective of the report, the methodology used, and even mention some of the key findings and conclusions.

Step 11: Proofread Your Work

It may seem like common sense, but this final step of the process is often overlooked. Proofreading your work is how you make sure your report will look professional because errors can ruin the overall impression the reader will form about your work, no matter how great the report is.

Look for any spelling or grammatical mistakes you can fix, and if you’re not sure about specific expressions or terminology, use Google to double-check it. Make sure your writing is to-the-point and clear, especially if you’re writing for people who may not know the industry so well. Also, double-check the facts and numbers you’ve included in the report before you send it out or start your reporting meeting.

Business Report Examples (with Ready-to-Use Templates)

Here, we’re sharing a few business reporting examples that you can copy, along with ready-to-use and free-to-download templates. If you don’t know where to start and what to include in different types of business reports, these business report examples are a great way to get started or at least get some inspiration to create yours.

Activity Report Example

Annual report example, project status report example, financial report example, sales report example, marketing report example.

Note : Each of the business report templates shared below can be customized to fit your individual needs with our DIY Dashboard Designer . No coding or design skills are necessary.

For reporting on sales activity, HubSpot users can rely this streamlined sales activity report that includes key sales metrics, such as calls, meetings, or emails logged by owner. This way, you can easily track the number of calls, meetings, and emails for each sales rep and identify potential leaks in your sales funnel. Check all our sales team activity dashboards here. Or if you are looking for dashboards that track general sales performance, browse through all Databox sales dashboards here.

If you’re preparing for annual reporting, you will benefit from choosing this HubSpot annual performance report . It contains all the relevant metrics, such as email and landing page performance, new contacts, top blog posts by page views, and more. See all our performance dashboard templates here.

Project status reports can be very similar to progress reports. If you’re in need of one of those, here’s an example of a Project overview dashboard from Harvest that shows that can help you create simple, but well-organized report based on metrics that matter: hours tracked, billable hours, billable amount split by team members., and more. Check out more project management dashboard templates we offer here.

Are you creating a financial report? You will find this QuickBooks + HubSpot integration a great choice for a financial performance dashboard that makes creating a report simple. This dashboard focuses on the essential financial report

ting metrics and answers all your revenue-related questions. See all Databox financial dashboards here.

If you’re tracking your sales team’s monthly performance, this sales report template will help you prepare an outstanding report. Check out all the vital productivity KPIs, track your progress towards your goals, and understand well how your current sales pipeline is performing. See all sales performance dashboards we have available here.

Marketing reports can be easily prepared by using this monthly marketing report template . With HubSpot’s reporting, you can determine where your website traffic is coming from, how your landing pages and specific blog posts are performing, and how successful your email campaigns are. Browse all Databox marketing dashboards or marketing report examples here.

Create a Professional Business Report in No Time with Databox

Does creating a business report still sound like a daunting task? It doesn’t have to be with Databox.

In times when we’re all trying to save our time and energy for things that matter rather than scattering valuable resources on tedious, repetitive tasks, it’s critical to optimize your business process. And we want to help you do just that.

Using a business reporting dashboard enables you to track data from all the different tools you’re using – but in one place. With Databox, you can monitor and report on performance in a single dashboard that is optimized for all your favorite devices and you can create streamlined and beautiful dashboards even if you are not that tech-savvy. (no coding or design skills are required).

Automating business reporting has never been easier. And with Databox, you can do exactly that in just a few clicks. Sign up now and get your first 3 business dashboards for free.

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At Databox, we’re obsessed with helping companies more easily monitor, analyze, and report their results. Whether it’s the resources we put into building and maintaining integrations with 100+ popular marketing tools, enabling customizability of charts, dashboards, and reports, or building functionality to make analysis, benchmarking, and forecasting easier, we’re constantly trying to find ways to help our customers save time and deliver better results.

Stefana Zarić is a freelance writer & content marketer. Other than writing for SaaS and fintech clients, she educates future writers who want to build a career in marketing. When not working, Stefana loves to read books, play with her kid, travel, and dance.

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Discover the Best Tools for Business Plans

Learn from the business planning experts, resources to help you get ahead, narrative development, table of contents.

Welcome to the Narrative Development section of Businessplan.com. Crafting a business plan is an intricate process, blending strategic thinking, persuasive writing, and comprehensive documentation. It’s a challenge, particularly for newcomers, but understanding the art of narrative can make it more manageable and enjoyable.

Here, we explore the vital role of narrative in business planning. A compelling narrative is not just about storytelling; it involves thorough research, problem-solving, and practical modeling. It’s the backbone that supports and connects every component of your business plan. Whether you’re seeking funding, approval, licensure, or simply laying out your business vision, the way you tell your story can make all the difference.

In the Plan & Pitch section of Businessplan.com, we’ll delve into each aspect of this storytelling journey. From crafting an engaging Company Description to a succinct Executive Summary , we guide you through the nuances of narrative development. Keep in mind, each component of your business plan is interconnected.

As you navigate through this section, you’ll find links to other relevant topics within Businessplan.com. This interconnected approach allows you to explore each aspect of your business plan at your leisure, understanding how each part contributes to the overall narrative.

Remember, a well-told story in your business plan doesn’t just convey facts; it engages, persuades, and inspires.

Let’s begin this journey together, transforming what might seem like a daunting task into an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

The ‘Before-You-Plan’ Preparation

One of the fundamental errors in business planning is starting with a template, software, or a hired writer without first deeply understanding one’s own business. Remember, the most insightful and relevant data comes from you, the entrepreneur. To address this, we’ve developed two processes to assist entrepreneurs at different stages and with varying goals.

• This is a six-step program designed to evaluate your business idea thoroughly.
• It helps in sequentially assessing whether an idea is viable, needs refinement, or should be abandoned.
• The goal is to avoid premature commitments and the sunk cost fallacy.
• Ideal for those in established industries who need to develop a business plan quickly and efficiently.
• It streamlines the planning process while ensuring thoroughness and detail.

Both methods are tailored to help you organize and develop your business thoughtfully. By engaging deeply in this groundwork, you create a business plan that is not only persuasive but also ensures that your business is well-capitalized, structured, and manageable. The detailed exploration of your business at this stage is the key to a plan that doesn’t just win on paper but also in practice.

Section 1: The Company Description

Positioned about a quarter of the way through, the Company Description is a cornerstone of your business plan. Typically following the executive summary , legal details, and financial highlights, this section forms the substantive core of your document. It encompasses a company summary, product and service details, a problem statement, mission statement , value proposition , and competitive advantage.

Each subsection demands a nuanced understanding, some of which you might already possess, while others might require deeper exploration. We particularly emphasize starting with the value proposition — it’s the unique selling point that will attract customers to your product or service. Remember, the effectiveness of your value proposition and product/service design hinges on a profound understanding of your target customers. If this understanding is lacking, we strongly recommend exploring our resources on customer knowledge, especially the Pre-Vision Interview technique.

In crafting the Company Summary, it’s crucial to outline key elements of your business model. If your business model is still in development, we suggest visiting our Business Model Development page for comprehensive guidance.

Each part of the Company Description should be approached with the intent to convey not just information, but a compelling narrative about your business, its offerings, and its unique place in the market. Let’s delve into each section to ensure your business plan resonates with clarity and purpose.

For a more detailed and nuanced approach to each section of the Company Description in your business plan, consider the following guidelines:

• This should be a concise yet comprehensive overview of your business.
• Include your business’s core functions, target market, and unique aspects.
• It’s a snapshot of what your business does and for whom.
• Go beyond basic descriptions; explain how your products/services meet specific customer needs.
• Discuss the development process, any unique technologies or processes used, and how these contribute to the overall value of your offerings.
• This is central to your business’s appeal. Articulate what sets your offerings apart in the market.
• Focus on how your products/services create value for customers, solve problems, or meet needs better than competitors.
• Include customer testimonials or case studies if available to reinforce your value proposition .
• Identify and describe the specific problems your business aims to solve.
• Explain how these problems are currently underserved or ignored in the market.
• Use data or market research to substantiate these problems.
• This should reflect your business’s core values and long-term vision.
• Make it inspiring and reflective of your business’s purpose, culture, and ethical values.
• It should resonate with employees, customers, and stakeholders.
• Clearly define what gives your business an edge over competitors.
• This could be unique technology, superior customer service, cost advantages, or a strong brand.
• Use SWOT analysis to highlight your strengths and how they play into your competitive advantage.

Each section should be written with the understanding that it contributes to the overall story of your business plan. They are not isolated pieces of information but parts of a coherent narrative that showcases your business’s potential, strategy, and vision. 

Section 2: The Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is a pivotal component of your business plan, acting as a concise and compelling overview. It’s the first section readers encounter, yet it should be written last to accurately reflect the entirety of your plan. Here’s how to make it impactful:

• Brevity and Clarity:  Keep it succinct. Summarize the key points of your business plan, focusing on the highlights. This section should be a clear and concise snapshot of your business.
• Include Essential Elements:  Cover the most critical aspects of your plan, including your business concept, financial features, financial requirements, current business position, major achievements, and future plans.
• Engage the Reader:  Aim to captivate your audience immediately. Your summary should not only inform but also intrigue, compelling the reader to delve deeper into the details of your plan.
• Reflect the Plan:  Ensure that your Executive Summary aligns with the rest of your plan. It should mirror the content and tone of the detailed sections, providing a coherent overview.
• Customize for the Audience:  Tailor your summary to your audience. Whether it’s bankers, investors, or a potential landlord, ensure that the summary addresses their interests and concerns.

Writing the Executive Summary at the end allows you to distill the essence of your business plan into a powerful introduction, setting the tone and expectation for the reader. 

Integrating the Narrative Into Your Business Plan

Remember, a well-crafted narrative is the essence of a successful business plan. It’s not just about presenting facts and figures; it’s about weaving a story that encapsulates your vision, strategy, and competitive edge.

We encourage you to revisit the Pre-Planning Process or Model-Based Planning ® for additional guidance. These resources are designed to ensure that your plan is grounded in thorough research and strategic thinking.

Finally, keep in mind the sequential approach outlined in the Plan & Pitch section. Each step is carefully designed to build upon the previous one, creating a cohesive and comprehensive business plan. As you progress, your narrative will develop, reflecting the depth and clarity of your business idea.

Remember, your business plan is more than a document; it’s a reflection of your business’s potential and a roadmap to success. Take the time to develop your narrative thoughtfully, and you’ll create a plan that not only wins on paper but also guides your business towards its goals.

Up Next: Market Analysis

As we conclude our exploration of Narrative Development, remember the power of a well-crafted story in your business plan. It’s the backbone that connects all elements, giving life and context to your vision.

Now, it’s time to take your narrative to the next level by diving into Market Analysis . This next step is crucial for understanding your industry, target markets , and competition, ensuring that your business plan is grounded in reality and poised for success.

Proceed to Market Analysis

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Every Company Needs a Narrative

• John Hagel III

It’s more than just a story.

Corporate narratives offer a powerful opportunity for differentiation. A good narrative helps companies go beyond the fear of things like ever-increasing competition and an unyielding the pace of change. Unfortunately, very few companies are good at crafting an inspiring, customer-focused narrative. To do one well, resist the temptation to simply hand task off to your PR team. An authentic narrative should be led by the C-suite. Second, go beyond your product or service to truly understand your customers’ unmet needs. Finally, find some stories of people who have already addressed the opportunities you’ve identified.

Companies are missing a big opportunity – to craft an inspiring corporate narrative.

• John Hagel III   recently retired from Deloitte, where he founded and led the Center for the Edge , a research center based in Silicon Valley. A long-time resident of Silicon Valley, he is also a compulsive writer, having published eight books, including his most recent one,  The Journey Beyond Fear . He will be establishing a new Center to offer programs based on the book.

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How To Write a Narrative Report

Published by Boni on May 18, 2021 May 18, 2021

A narrative report is one of the most common assignments in the academic world. Students face this type of task more often in school. That is why it is vital to understand how to handle such for your success in school. The primary purpose of a narrative report is to curate a compelling story. For students looking to pass their TEAS exam, we also offer free TEAS practice tests to help students prepare for their exam.

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Here are some few hacks to enable you write exciting and thrilling reports that will get top grades.

How Long Should a Narrative Report Be?

Before getting into writing the report, consider the length of the report. In the preparation to write a narrative report, you ought to follow two rules regarding the length. One is that you should make your narrative report as informative and as concise as possible, and two, the report should follow your professor’s requirements. Make the narrative report unfold in a way that will exhaustively cover the topic and create a story that your intended audience will enjoy.

Have you ever experienced the struggle of trying to write your narrative report? You are not alone since many students, especially those who strive to combine work and studies, always seek research papers for sale from Gudwriter which is offered at an affordable price.

Narrative Report Format

A narrative report should contain three primary sections; the introduction, body, and conclusion.

• Introduction- the introductory paragraph should be about three to five sentences. Take this chance to write a narrative report introduction that warm-up your audience and ensure they read the entire report.
• Body- the body of the narrative report entails supportive arguments that relate to the main idea explained in the introduction. Ensure that every new concept you introduce is described in its paragraph with paragraphs of three to five sentences.
• Conclusion- the conclusion should be a summary of your report concerning the main idea indicated in the introduction.

Tips on Writing an Excellent Narrative Report

• Choose a good topic

Topic selection is aided by how good you are in writing. To select a good topic for your narrative report, ensure you read many narrative essays for inspiration. Broad reading provides you with ideas on how to organize your work and put across your points meticulously. Look for reports that your professors have assigned in the past and check out narrative essays on the internet.

• Put across a story that illustrates a specific topic

Having a theme confines you to the scope of information that you write about in your narrative report. To write a narrative report that makes sense to your audience, have a story, and analyze that story. A narrative report is about a theme where you use a personal account to illustrate that idea to the audience in an exciting manner.

• Your narrative report must fit the requirements

Narrative reports are mainly required for college admission or assignment, which means you are given a prompt to follow by the institution or the lecturer. Even though you have fascinating stories, you must ensure that you follow the requirements outlined in the prompt to avoid straying from the main point.

The common topics include your personality that was transformed. Still, some events, adversities you had to overcome, or how you dealt with consequences of failure in a particular juncture in your life, the topics are not cast in stone. Hence, you have to go through the prompt to understand the specific topic you must handle.

• Narrate a story with a manageable plot

Articulate narrative reports mostly tell stories with specificity. Since you are not writing a book or a novel, write a narrative report that is concise and contained with a proper limitation of characters, plot, and setting. Too broad narratives make bad narrative reports; thus, you should be specific on characters you involve in your story and ensure they participate in building the theme. Read on descriptive essay about a person and a sample.

• Narrate a story with lively details

To make a good narrative report explain specific details, particular images, and a language that makes the story lively for the audience. Discuss the smells and sights in your narrative with particular details with imagination filling the void. Narrative reports are not fictional; thus, you should stay true to the story while being as creative as possible.

The Writing Process of a Narrative Report

After understanding the structure and the elements of narrative report , the writing process becomes relatively easy. Have a captivating introduction and then outline the major points of the narrative report while describing them in the body. Finally, ensure that your description ends with a delightful punchline and an unpredictable twist.

1. Write the report in the first-person

A narrative report is very personal since it describes events that have occurred to you and relates to your identity. It is, therefore, a requirement to use “I” statements without changing to the favor of other characters in your report.

2. Describe places and characters

Although a narrative report is not descriptive, adorn your story with descriptions of crucial characters and places mentioned in the plot. Vivid description mainly goes for characters who are affected by the outcome of your case whose personalities should be disclosed.

3. Editing and proofreading

After creating the first draft, go through it to point out mistakes and essential ideas you might have left out. To do proper editing of your narrative report, take a rest after you finish drafting it, then read it afresh. Clear all repeated ideas and incorporate the critical ideas that you might have missed. Reread your narrative report to check for any grammatical errors. You could also run your report grammar checking software but do not entirely rely on them.

Finally, you can entrust a friend to go through your narrative report. They may point out a mistake that you might have missed while going through the report and give you their opinion on the report. Feel free to explore a racial profiling essay example with outline.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Narrative Report Writing

To smoothen the process of narrative report writing, have the following points in mind.

• Write your story in the first-person point of view.
• Follow the proper narrative report structure.
• Use straightforward and easy-to-read language.
• Put across your points in chronological order.
• Using all the five senses while writing the report- inform the audience what the characters saw and what they felt, smelt, and heard.

Don’ts

• Don’t use the second-person point of view while writing your narrative report.
• Don’t create fictional stories; narratives should be as natural and true as possible.
• Write a concise and short story that is not too broad.

More resources; How to write an information report.

Free Personal Narrative Essay Sample – With Outline

A personal narrative essay is one that tells a story from a defined point of view, often the author’s, so there is feeling as well as specific and often sensory details provided to get the reader involved in the elements and sequence of the story.

The Loan: A Personal Experience Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis:  In spite of my unending struggles, I hoped and believed I would one day make it in life, and that all that I needed was to identify an opportunity and maximally utilize it.

Paragraph 1:

An opportunity presented itself through a conversation with a workmate called John.

• I learnt that John was receiving ten thousand dollars yearly from an uncle of his.
• I faked a mail order business plan and used it to request him for a four thousand dollars loan for half a year.
• He however only afforded me three thousand dollars, as I gave him an old printing machine of mine as interest.
• I used part of the money to acquire a postal box number and then embarked on squandering what had remained of it.

Paragraph 2:  

John demanded back his money by October the same year.

• According to our original plan, I would settle the loan by the 10th of December.
• We however again reached a “mini agreement” and the deadline was revised to the 10th of November.
• I decided to start participating in lottery using the eight hundred dollars I had remained with by then so I could repay the loan.
• I would purchase five tickets bearing similar numbers, which would enable me make 1,500 dollars upon winning the lottery.

Paragraph 3:

I did not win the lottery contrary to my expectations.

• The numbers I had so much trusted had failed me.
• I continued playing but lost every time I tried.
• I was not yet ready to repay the loan even as we reached the 9th of November, and I once again tried my luck in the lottery by picking fifteen numbers.
• I would add what I would win to the $600 I was remaining with at that time.

Paragraph 4:

I decided to use numbers that had been picked by the computer instead of those I had earlier picked.

• I additionally purchased a Super-Cash out of which I would earn $250,000.
• The drawing of my pick would occur at exactly 5.42 p.m. and I would be two thousand five hundred dollars richer if I won.
• I again failed as my numbers did not match the winning “formula.”
• I bought another Super-Cash ticket and banked all my hopes on it.

Paragraph 5:

The drawing was conducted at 11.02 p.m. and I tried my best to have my numbers drawn.

• I once again failed and retired to bed, with depression quickly taking over me.
• I plunged myself into deep thoughts, even wishing I had used my last pick of numbers to play.
• This thought was a bit too little too late.

Paragraph 6:

It was the 10th of November, the deadline for repaying the loan.

• I gave John the six hundred dollars I had remained with and explained to him my situation.
• I received five dollars from my parents, who had empathized with me.
• John lost his job at the end of the month.

Paragraph 7:   

On the 3rd of December, I took a step that would culminate in the end of my financial woes.

• I applied for a bank loan and was awarded the amount I had requested.
• This was a simpler and more workable thought than the lottery idea.
• After passing through another period of financially challenging situations, I fully appreciated that it is never a dependable idea to rely on credit.
• Never have I again asked a friend to loan me any amount of money.

Paragraph 8:

Another lesson I should have learnt is not to depend on lottery.

• I could not learn fast enough at that time as I came close to winning every time I played.
• I now appreciate that nothing comes on a silver platter under the sun.
• I also learnt that problems are solved by facing them, not quitting.
• From the entire experience, I learnt the importance of explaining one’s problem to their benefactors.
• John understood my situation after I explained it to him.
• Had I avoided him, our friendship could probably have crumbled.

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The Loan: A Personal Experience Essay

This was my last chance. I would need three thousand dollars by the following day but unfortunately, only seven hundred was in my possession. I would perhaps need to win a lottery in order to raise the remaining amount. Trouble was beckoning for me. I had a tolerable life five months earlier. I was then twenty years old and was staying with my fiancé and our young baby. The apartment we lived in was cramped. Under normal circumstances, the rent that was charged for the apartment should have been affordable for us. However, our meager income could not grant affordability and continuance. Even as I went through unceasing struggles, I still had hopes and belief that I would one day make it in life. All I needed was to identify an opportunity and make good use of it.

It was during a conversation with a workmate that I landed an opportunity. The colleague, John by name, told me that a wealthy uncle of his had been giving him a whopping ten thousand dollars on a yearly basis. Even a small percentage of that amount would change my wanting situation forever. I quickly drafted a fake mail order business plan. I then requested John to give me four thousand dollars in the form of a loan for a period of half a year. I gave him my old printing machine, whose worth was about 300 hundred dollars, as interest. However, John could only afford me three thousand dollars. I could not turn it down. I quickly sprang into action with my business plan. I acquired a postal box number but sadly, that marked my end with the plan. I acted no more on it. Unperturbed, I embarked on squandering the remainder of the three thousand dollars. Whenever John inquired about the progress of my business, I would tell him all was well.

Fast-forward to October the same year, John demanded back his money. Noteworthy, our original agreement indicated that the 10th of December would mark the deadline for settling the loan. At this point, we again reached a “mini-agreement” that I would settle the loan on the 10 th  of November. By then, I had been left with eight hundred dollars out of the three thousand I had received. My decision to start taking part in the lottery at this time was informed by the lack of a source that could help me repay the loan. As per this new plan of mine, I would purchase five tickets bearing similar numbers. Upon winning the lottery, I would make 1,500 dollars given that each ticket would fetch five hundred dollars. Since I would have personally purchased the tickets, each store would issue me with a check as opposed to having my prize given to me by Madison. Additionally, no taxes would reduce the amount I would earn.

Strange enough and contrary to my expectations, I would not win the lottery. I had put immense trust on the numbers I had picked to get me the prize. This is why it came to me as a big surprise that the numbers failed to win! I never threw in the towel. I picked on new numbers the following day but sadly, I once again failed to win. I continued playing with unending hopes even though I lost every time I tried. Before I could get ready, it was already the 9th of November. I had to raise the money on this particular day. Relying on my luck and that of nature, I picked fifteen numbers in the lottery. I would spend $75 in buying the numbers since each would cost $5. I would add what I would win to the $600 I was remaining with at that time.

My playing time came and I decided not to use the numbers I had earlier picked. My luck was not definitely in the numbers. I decided to rely on numbers picked by the computer at least for this last chance. In addition, I purchased a Super-Cash. Out of it, I would earn $250,000. On this particular day, I had to go back home early from work since the drawing of my pick would occur at exactly 5.42 p.m. I was already glued to my television screen by 5.30 p.m. Within me; I knew this was my chance. I was just a few minutes away from becoming two thousand five hundred dollars richer. My heart throbbed in my chest as the drawing got underway. ‘3’ was the first number to be drawn. Looking at my ticket, ‘3’ was the first among the numbers. Again, ‘3’ was the second one. On my ticket, the second number was not ‘3’. The same number was supposed to be the third in my ticket. The winning “formula” was to be 3-3-3 which I did not have. I had once again failed. However, not all my hopes had been dashed as the Super-Cash would give me another drawing chance. My financial woes would be over if I won the Super-Cash even though I would not have the cash the following day. My conviction pushed me into purchasing another ticket of Super-Cash. I had never before in my life concentrated the way I did in picking the numbers. This was my last source of hope.

The drawing was conducted at 11.02 p.m. Again, I tried my best to have my numbers drawn. ‘13’ was the first number to appear. It was not on my ticket. I plunged into desperation. Not even a single number out of the numbers that were drawn was on my ticket. I had no more options left. Where would I turn to next? Of course the next thing was to go to bed given that the day was literally over. My problem was that I could not sleep. I wallowed in miser. I wished the following day would not come. I dreaded facing it. I did not want to face tomorrow. As countless thoughts crisscrossed my mind in my bed, I remembered about the numbers I had arranged for my picks. My last pick had been 3-3-3. Had I used this particular pick for playing, I would have been a winner. However, this thought was a bit too little too late.

Morning had come. It was the 10th of November, the day I was to honor my pledge of fully servicing the loan. I woke up and carried with me all the six hundred dollars I was left with to work. I gave John the entire amount and narrated to him my ordeal. Within the week, my parents sent me some five hundred dollars after empathizing with my situation. John lost his job at the end of the month. The reason for his dismissal was failure to report to work. Apparently, he had got a greener pasture and thus had decided to quit his former employer. He had informed me of this. However, things did not turn out as he had expected and thus he tried to plead with the company to have him back. Unfortunately for him, the company would have none of his pleas. He even went as far as asking me to convince the company’s management on his behalf as a close friend.

On the 3rd of December, I took a step that would culminate in the end of my financial woes. Noteworthy, this was some seven days to the 10th of December, the date that I was originally to resettle John’s loan. I applied for a bank loan and was awarded the amount I had requested. As is now evident, this was a simpler and more workable thought than the lottery idea. The incident should have taught me a host of lessons. However, I did not fully learn from it. I would again have to pass through some financially challenging situations in order for me to fully appreciate that relying on credit is often not a dependable idea. As a result, never have I again asked a friend to loan me any amount of money. If that is what being in debt with a friend’s money would cost me, let the idea of borrowing from a non-financial institution be.

Another lesson that the situation should have taught me is not to be dependent on lottery. However, I could not learn fast enough at that time as my chances of winning came so close. I only missed winning because I did not use all the numbers I had picked. As a matter of fact, winning would have made me a ‘wizard’ at choosing lottery numbers. However, all would not come to pass; I kept on failing! I now have enough and valuable experience about the challenging nature of the world. It is never easy. Nothing comes on a silver platter under the sun, not even the lottery. Another hard lesson I learnt out of the situation is the importance of being in a position to face one’s problems with courage. One’s problems are one’s problems; one can never solve them by quitting!

Finally, I learnt the importance of explaining one’s problem to their benefactors. As already seen, I had only remained with $600 by the time John’s loan was due. However, instead of trying to avoid him, I walked right up to him and faced him with my situation. I explained everything that had transpired to him and pleaded with him to understand my situation. My efforts were not in vain as he understood and took my promise that I would settle the debt as soon as I could. Had I started avoiding him, the issue could have caused our friendship to deteriorate drastically. Thus, one should always communicate with those they owe irrespective of whether or not they are in a position to repay their loans.

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