Thousands of business owners spend hundreds of hours writing their own business plan or spend thousands of dollars to hire a professional business plan writer, all to produce a document that they never use. If you want to get the most from your investment in a business plan consider writing just one business plan with many executive summaries. Below you will learn how to make this work:
Write an Internal, Useable Business Plan – If you are writing your own business plan shouldn’t you be able to use it? Consider writing your business plan for internal use and then simply tweaking the plan in the event that you need a business plan for external readers.
Write Many Executive Summaries for Various Occasions – Your banker, potential investors, and grant making authorities all may ask for a business plan, but they are all looking to get something very different out of your business plan. Do you need to write a new business plan for each set of readers? Probably not. Instead consider writing a new 2 page executive summary for each group. Highlight the items that each specific group will be looking for in your executive summary and then just attach your normal internal business plan. Most readers will probably only read your Executive Summary anyway.
Write your Own Business Plan, Pay for Professional Executive Summaries – As a small business owner funds are probably tight, so consider writing your own business plan and then hiring a professional to write various Executive Summaries for you. This way you will get the most bang for your buck, and be able to utilize professionals for your executive summary which is by far the most important piece of your business plan.
So to answer the question, “Is a business plan worth the investment?” it all depends on how you use it. If you want to maximize your business plan’s useful life write it for internal use and then write new executive summaries to supplement the business plan for all its various uses.
Tags: business plan writer, external readers, page executive summary, professional business plan, small business owner