When Should You Write A Business Plan?

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In this article we will go over whether you should write a business plan, when you should write a business plan, and go over a template of how the business plan should look like. Many people write to me and ask about these issues so I made a YouTube video and this article to provide a full answer.

Write A Business Plan When Someone You Want To Work With Asks For It

One instance when you should write a business plan is when an individual or an organization that you want to work with, specifically asks for such a document. Such individuals or organizations may be investors who may be considering whether to invest in your business or not, banks who are considering to give you a loan, or potential partners who want to learn more about your plans for the business before they decide to join you.

When that happens, you should put together a professional document that outlines the key areas of your business. Use good grammar, document styling and make sure that the document is clear.  If the investor or an individual asks you for a brief document, send them the executive summary of the business plan. Here is a full article on how to write a business plan to give you a sense what each section of the business plan should contain.

Write An Informal Business Plan To Organize Your Ideas

There is almost always one great reason to write a business plan. That reason is so that writing this document will help you organize your own ideas once you put them on paper, and help you to remain organized and have a more focused vision which you can revisit and refine time and again.

This is a bit ironic because you should almost always be more organized if you care about your business and want it to succeed. So the true answer is that you should always plan your business. The only difference is that when you draft such a document to organize your own ideas, it does not have to be a formal document. An informal business plan is just fine if you are only using it to organize your own ideas.

When Not To Write A Business Plan

Just like there are many instances when you should write such a document, there are also a number of wrong reasons to write a business plan. Quite often people write these documents in the hopes of handing them to an investor or raising money before actually being asked for it by the investor or any institution. The business plan itself will not help you raise money. What will help you raise money is product traction and adoption. That leads right into another mistake people often make, which is writing such a document as an alternative to actually starting the business. Lastly, do not pay anyone to write the business plan for you. You can pay people for coaching, but do not pay to have a document written from scratch. That document will be nearly useless. My recommendation is to learn how to think through the individual sections of your business proposal and draft the document on your own. Once you are done or as you are working on it, it is a good idea to hire someone to help you, especially if it is the first such document that you have written.

When To Write A Business Plan Tutorial On Video

Further Resources

Take a look at a business plan course I created. The course goes over each section of a business plan and explains what to write in each section, and how to think through each section of a business plan. Here are more details about the business plan course and here is the business plan course on Udemy where you can take a look at the curriculum and purchase the course.

Additionally, if you are starting a business, I wrote a book on starting a business by going from business ideas to an actual business. Here is more information about the business starting book and here is the business book on Amazon.

Additionally, here is the iPhone business plan app and the Android business plan app which can help you write your business plan, and fill out the executive summary template right inside the app.

Author: Alex Genadinik

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