A business plan is a document used to start a new business or get funding for a business that is changing in some significant way. Business plans are important documents for business partners who need to agree upon and document their plans, government officials who may need to approve aspects of the plan, and of course potential investors such as banks or private individuals who may decide to fund the business or its expansion.See you the business plans overview for an introduction to their contents and organization.
If you are enrolled in a course associated with this page, you are in a writing course, not a business course. Our focus is on good writing, well-designed documents, documents that accomplish their purpose, and documents that meet common expectations as to their content, organization, and format. A business plan is obviously an important application of writing and one that may contain substantial technical information about the business operations or products. That's why it's a good option for the final project in a technical- writing course.
You can write a business plan if you actually are trying to start a business or if you'd merely like to do some constructive daydreaming about a business you'd like to start. Beware, however, if you are just playing around with the business-startup notion: the business plan you write for this course must be every bit as serious, realistic, specific, factual, well-researched, and well-thought-out as a business plan for a real situation.
Business plans can be very large documents containing information that you may have no way of getting. Work with your instructor to reach an agreement on the scope of the business plan you write. Remember too that your instructor is probably not a professional business-startup consultant and probably won't be able to help you on the finer points of planning a business.
For this unit, CCH Incorporated has kindly agreed to let us link to its SOHO Guidebook: A Practical Guide to Starting, Running and Growing a Small Business. This guidebook contains a wealth of information; but, for the purposes of the business plan document, please study the following:
Once you've studied these sections of the SOHO Guidebook, see the requirements for the business-plan option in this course.
- Benefits of a Written Plan -- Read this series of articles to understand the importance and function of the business plan.
- Preparing to Write Your Business Plan -- Look around in this area for more general issues related to starting a business.
- Writing Your Business Plan -- Read this series of articles very carefully for details on the business plan.
- Format and Presentation Issues -- Read this article carefully for tips and guidelines on how the business plan should look.
- Components of Business Plans -- Read this series of articles carefully. It presents a section-by-section discussion of the business plan, advising you on the contents, organization, style, and format of each standard component of the plan.
- Business Plan Case Studies -- Be sure and look at these example business plans to get a direct idea of what yours can look like.
You'll probably have lots of questions for your instructor about what would work and how to construct your own business plan; contact hcexres@io.com.
The World Wide Web has other resources for people writing business plans:
- Americas Business Consulting. Offers business plan development; has links to potentially useful related sites.