The Definitive Business Plan: The fast-track to intelligent business planning for executives and entrepreneurs, Second Edition

Chapter 8. Getting to gross profit

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• Breathe easily

• Forecasting sales volumes

• The big picture – the economy

• Up close and personal – industry and product demand

• Pulling it all together

• Cost of sales

• Gross profit

• Writing it up

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	“The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers.”
	--Sir John Egan

The main objective of this chapter is getting to gross profit (sometimes known as the gross margin) – trading income from sales less directly attributable costs. These are the cost of sales such as the spending directly associated with producing your product – raw materials, components, production costs. If you have a simple product, sales costs might be no more complicated than so-many hours of a consultant’s time or the ...