2.2. Business Idea & Value Proposition

The service description clearly defines the offers that are to be sold. For the service description it is not sufficient to name headings for products or services.

High, customer-oriented quality demands must be placed on the performance description of the products and services in a business plan Selling a service requires the entrepreneur to be able to describe and produce it precisely. Of course, there are clear differences in the description of products and services. Some examples:

• A manufacturing company sells technically definable products. In addition, they fulfil a customer-specific purpose. A product catalogue with data and prices can represent the performance description.
• A trading company can define its services as a list of goods, or an assortment list A large assortment of goods should be divided into categories and groups typical for the company. The range of goods must define the quality, quantity, and sales prices.
• A restaurant clearly defines its services as a food and beverage menu.
• A hotel defines its services through the rooms it offers, through food and beverages, through wellness offers, through room rentals, through banquets, etc.
• A launderette clearly defines its services by the different washing programmes that the available machines allow.
• An advertising agency sells consulting, conception, planning, design, realisation. These abstract terms must be clearly transformed into saleable services, such as "flyer creation", "logo creation", "concept development" with a price.
• An intermediary office or agency sells services that belong to or are attributable to third parties. They receive a "commission" to be defined for the successful brokerage of the sale. The service description must describe exactly what money is paid for and in which case.    
• An Internet portal has a specific idea as its object What the business model consists of must be precisely defined. Mostly, the turnover is only achieved through the sale of advertising. In this sense, internet advertising is sold. For this purpose, there should be a "media sales offer", for example.
• A business or communication consultant must define his advisory service conceptually He must describe the advisory units in terms of content or instruments. He must develop service categories and determine a sales price for them.
• A freelancer must conceptualise his or her service in terms of content or instruments If a journalist sells articles, for example, he is paid a fee per line. If an author sells a book, he only receives a commission from the actual sale of the books in the trade, and that retrospectively. If a psychologist sells the creation of a competence profile with the help of a psychological test, this defined service is paid per item.
• A music or tutoring school sells lessons that are offered in terms of content, target group-specific or divided into units over time. The service "tuition" is sold to students at a defined hourly rate.

To increase the comprehensibility of a service description, a drawing, a photo, a sketch, a flyer, a technical description, an advertisement, a service catalogue, a menu or even a sample of the product can be attached.

In addition to the formal definition of the service, the description of the quality of the offer, the definition of the quantity of the offer and the determination of the sales price are part of the service description. The sales price is divided into gross - with value added tax or VAT and net - without value added tax or VAT.