How To Write a Business Growth or Recovery Plan

A business growth plan is a documented series of steps your company will take in hopes of reaching its short-term growth goals. Usually, these plans cover one to two years of activity and are broken down by quarter. They may be structured to accommodate flexibility and revisions after every quarter.

What is a business recovery plan?

A business recovery plan is the process through which a company will return to its status quo after disasters such as storms, fires, or other extreme circumstances. It is more concerned with preserving your company’s bottom line in an emergency than growing it during normal circumstances.

How business growth plans and business recovery plans differ

While business growth plans concern actions that your company may and should take every day to better itself, business recovery plans create infrastructures through which you may be able to rebuild after a disaster. Although emerging companies may be more concerned with the tangible benefits that accompany business growth plans, business owners benefit just as much from planning for circumstances that, though rare, may be calamitous.

What are the four major business growth strategies?

Although there are theoretically countless opportunities for business growth, most experts group these opportunities into four major categories. These include:

• Market strategy. A market strategy allows you to earn more from your current customer base without introducing new products and services. This involves adjusting prices and looking for other ways to increase profitability.
• Market development. Market development is about increasing your market share through new target markets. This means finding new customers or expanding your business into new regions.
• Product development. Growing your company through product development is about launching new products and services aimed at your current target market. This means that you’ll seek new opportunities for growth with the same customers using items they haven’t yet seen.
• Diversification. Diversification combines market and product development. While you enter new markets, you offer your current markets more products and services.

How to write a business growth plan

You should include the following in a business growth plan.

Competitor analysis

Analyzing your competition has never been easier thanks to AI automation that allows you to sift through loads of information quickly. Spend some time evaluating customer reviews of your competition. This may allow you to find opportunities to do something better than them without needing to introduce new products or services. It is also important to consider how your competition functions online.

• Who sells products or services the same or similar to yours?
• Have your competitors expanded with new products or services in the last six months?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competition?
• What marketing and sales strategies are used by each competitor to achieve their objectives?
• How does their digital customer experience compare to yours?
• What’s the overall market outlook in your industry?

Discover expansion opportunities

When you review your competitor analysis, look out for expansion opportunities. Here are some ways a small business may expand:

• Expanding e-commerce capabilities
• Adding digital products and services
• Looking into online referral partnership opportunities
• Remote service delivery options

Your business growth plan should include details about whichever of these methods you choose and how you plan to pursue it.

Evaluate your team and invest in their talents

Once you have quality team members in place, you need to keep them. Constant turnover is a hindrance to growth. There are several ways to boost morale and invest in your team, including:

• Hybrid or remote work options
• Employee upskilling
• Training employees on how to effectively use AI
• Investing in productivity tools

Create quarterly and yearly financial goals

Since business growth plans are typically structured for quarterly revisions, you need clear quarterly as well as yearly goals in place. When putting your goals in place, be sure to establish:

• Cash flow forecasting
• Contingency reserves
• Profit margin goals
• Multiple financial scenarios

Having multiple scenarios in place prepares you to pivot when things don’t go according to plan. Rank your scenarios from most to least likely and from most to least desired. This may help you align your decisions with the financial goals that you set.

Explore how to fund expansion

Expansion is always the goal, but it may be expensive. From research and development to new marketing efforts, a business plan typically includes how you will raise the funds you need for your growth goals.

If you have strong credit scores and the cash flow to support a loan payment, explore the different types of funding that are available. The goal here is to get a loan with low rates, long terms, and low monthly payments. Popular uses of competitive financing include buying inventory and equipment, purchasing commercial real estate, hiring new employees, and launching new marketing initiatives.

SmartBiz Bank® works with business owners who need funding to turn their growth plans into reality. We offer  SBA loans and other funding options designed to help you reach your goals.

Outline marketing efforts

What marketing strategies are you going to use to get the word out about your products or services? There are several ways you may promote your business to increase sales and brand awareness. And they don’t have to break the bank. Here are a few marketing tactics that may help a small business expand.

Website

More and more people are limiting their internet browsing to their phones. While websites used to be designed with only laptops and desktops in mind, that’s no longer the case. It’s important that you build a website that’s compatible with the major smartphone operating systems. This doesn’t mean that you completely ignore potential customers who only use computers, but mobile-first design is the best way to get your brand in front of as many potential customers as possible.

It’s also wise to think about search engine optimization (SEO). According to SQ Magazine, more than 80% of online transactions start with a Google® search, which means you want your brand to be at or near the top of those results. When building your site, be sure to think about page speed and how easy it is for customers or clients to go from viewing their options to making a purchase. Faster is usually better.

Social Media

There are more paid  social media opportunities than ever before. Explore the channels that reach the audience you want and post targeted content. Creating a path between your social media platforms and your e-commerce may help you quickly turn interest into cash flow.

Being strategic with social media is crucial. Short-form videos allow you to appeal to customers quickly while showcasing what sets your business apart. Consumers also appreciate authentic brands, and social media allows you to become more than just a company in the eyes of your customer base. Building a community through social media posts, including pictures and videos, creates a sense of loyalty.

Email outreach

Email marketing is a strong tool to help you connect with your target audience. While it’s not as prominent as social media marketing, it is still quite effective and more cost efficient. In fact, it’s considered the most ROI-friendly digital marketing technique in 2026.

Define your USP

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) identifies what sets your business apart from your competitors. It’s one sentence summarizing your company, and it serves as the foundation for your marketing efforts.

Identify target audience

Technology has made it easier than ever to identify and understand your target audience. Using real-time data may help understand customer behavior and optimize accordingly. Retention insights may allow you to keep your customers while acquisition intelligence may help expand your customer base.

Identify key performance indicators that are measurable

Key performance indicators (KPIs) help you focus on the most important performance measures. KPIs show how various parts of your business are performing. These six KPIs may help you continue to grow your company:

• Customer acquisition cost
• Customer lifetime value
• Retention rate
• Conversion rate
• Recurring revenue
• Marketing ROI

How to write a business recovery plan

To write a business recovery plan, take the following steps:

1. Set a budget that reflects your plan’s components

If your business recovery plan involves allocating funds for paying your team after a disaster, make sure you adequately budget for this need in advance. If your plan also involves training your team on disaster preparedness, developing new employee handbooks with your plan in them, or buying business insurance, your budget may need to be even larger.

2. Build your disaster preparedness team

Disasters are typically severe enough that you will quickly become overwhelmed if you try to recover from them on your own. That’s why business recovery plans should designate several of your colleagues as disaster preparedness team members. Your team should include colleagues who oversee relocation if needed, set up work-from-home procedures, and report disasters to your insurance company.

3. Determine just how catastrophic a disaster could be

Often, disasters feel abstract and theoretical until they actually happen. Only then will you know just how much money your company stands to lose – well, unless you’ve conducted a business impact analysis in your business recovery plan.

In your analysis, do your best to predict the extent to which a disaster would affect your core operations and resources. Determine the duration for which your company could survive with its core operations or resources inaccessible.

4. Outline your plan

With a budget, team, and damage predictions in place, you may thoroughly detail the steps your company should take in the wake of a disaster. You should create steps that address your post-disaster operations, resources, products and services, and the cost of tending to each.

5. Train and test

No business recovery plan is complete without your employees thoroughly knowing its ins and outs. That’s why you should distribute your plan to your employees and train them on how to properly execute it during an actual disaster.

You should also couple training with planned testing. The two go hand in hand as training sessions may expose faults in your plan that you otherwise might not have noticed. Whenever you discover gaps, you should delegate corrections to members of your disaster preparedness team and then retrain, retest, and repeat as needed.

Tips for creating a business growth or recovery plan

Whether you’re developing a business growth plan or a recovery plan, you need to keep these tips in mind:

1. Use what you know to predict what you don’t

Even the soundest business plans can’t perfectly predict the future. However, you may still use what you know to plan for what you don’t.

In the case of a business growth plan, use information about your target market, competitors, and your company’s previous growth to make educated guesses about what you must do to grow. In the case of a business recovery plan, think about which disasters your company is most likely to experience and plan for those.

2. Model your plan after others

Find a small business like yours that has committed to growth and successfully achieved it. Then, see if you are able to find that company’s business growth plan. Use what you see there to inform your own plan. Similarly, for business recovery plans, find a reference from a similar company.

3. Use technology and visuals

Thorough business plans invariably involve numbers. When crafting a business growth plan, you may best visualize these numbers’ impacts through software-generated charts, graphs, tables, and other visuals. When writing business recovery plans, certain graphs may help you understand how long recovery could take without safeguards in place.

4. Don’t go it alone

You’ve probably realized by now that business is best conducted with others (even if you retain sole ownership of your company). The same goes for planning whether for growth or disaster. Consult with business growth or recovery experts, or ask other business owners for their advice. And don’t forget – your employees are among your best resources for both growth and recovery.

Final thoughts

You don’t have to go through this process alone. Use SBA growth-oriented resources to help you along the way. Small Business Development Centers offer free assistance to new and established business owners. Topics you may be able to get assistance with include business planning, accessing capital, marketing, regulatory compliance, technology development, international trade, and much more. Find your local center here. Before you start, find the growth plans of successful businesses to help give you direction.

Finally, your business growth plan is a living document meant to be continually edited and updated. Don’t spend time and energy creating your plan and then forget about it. A business growth plan is a valuable tool.

If you need additional funds for growth or recovery, SmartBiz Bank may be able to help. Find out if you pre-qualify today.