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 their plans, government officials who need to approve that plan, and of course potential investors such as banks or private individuals who may fund the business.
Note: This technical Writing textbook focuses on technical writing skills. The technical content here is not guaranteed to be successful, accurate or up to date—nor is it expected to be.
A business plan is very much like a proposal, except for at least one big difference. The business plan seeks to start a new business or significantly expand an existing business. A proposal, on the other hand, seeks approval to do a specific project. For example, a business plan might seek funding to start a software company to create computer games. A proposal, on the other hand, might bid to do the development work for some specific computer game.
Caution: In a technical writing course, treat a business-plan project as a writing project, not as a real-world business plan. This chapter should not be viewed as a definitive guide for writing a real-world business plan.
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Common Sections in Business Plans
Many of the elements of the plans resemble those of the proposal—particularly the qualifications and background sections. Remember that these sections are only typical and not necessarily in any required order. For your plan, you'll need to think about the best sequencing of the sections and about other sections that might also be necessary. And see the links at the end of this chapter.
- Product or service to be offered—One of the most important sections of the business plan is the description of the actual product or service to be offered. If it is a description of a product—a physical object—you need to use the techniques for technical description. If a service is to be offered, explain it and take readers on a step-by-step tour of how the service will be handled.
- Technical background on the product or service—If your product or service involves technologies or technical processes potentially unfamiliar to your readers, explain these. Remember that business plans often go to nonspecialists who, despite their lack of technical expertise, have the investment funds or the legal understanding to get your business going.
- Market for the product or service—Critical also to any business plan is the exploration of the existing marketplace into which your product or service fits. What other companies exist that offer the same thing you plan to offer? How much business do they do? How are they different from each other? How will your business differ from them?
- Process by which the product or service is produced—If applicable, explain how the product or service will be produced. Explain how the proposed business will operate on a day-to-day basis.
- Facilities and personnel needed for the operation—Plan to discuss the facilities (storefronts, warehouses, production facilities, vehicles) your business will require as well as the personnel that will be needed.
- Projected revenues from the operation—Of obvious importance in any business plan is the discussion of the revenues you project for your business. If you know the estimate of total revenues for the market area in which you plan to operate, what percentage do you expect to win? Obviously, in your first few years, you may operate at a loss—at what point in time do you project to break even?
- Funding necessary for startup and operation—The plan should also discuss the funding you'll need to get the business started as well as the operating costs—the funding needed to run the business on a daily basis.
- Legal issues related to the proposed business—Your business plan may also need to discuss your business, its products, or its services in relation to government regulations—for example, environmental restrictions.
- Qualifications and background of the personnel—Important too is the section that presents your qualifications to start and operate the business you are proposing. Of course, "you" can mean a number of people with whom you are working to start the business. This section can be very much like a collection of resumes, although you want to write an introduction in which you describe your group's qualifications as a whole.
- Discussion of feasibility and investment potential—You'll want to include in your plan a discussion of the likelihood of the success of your business. Obviously, you believe that it will be a success, but you must find a way to support this belief with facts and conclusions in order to convince your readers. Also, you must discuss what sort of return on investment readers can expect.
- Investment offering—And finally, you may need to present what kinds of investment apparatus you are actually offering.
In planning your business plan, remember that you try to provide whatever information the audience may need to consider your idea. Your goal is to convince them you have a good idea and to encourage them to invest in it (or to approve it in some way). It's okay to provide marginal information—information you're not quite sure that readers will want. After all, you section off the parts of a business plan with headings; readers can skip over sections they are not interested in.
Format for Business Plans
You can use the format for the formal report, the format for proposals, or some combination of the two. Business plans, even those for small operations, can run well over 15 pages—in which case you'll want to bind the plan (see the suggestions in the section on formal reports). You'll also need a cover letter—examples of this are also in the section on reportformatting.
As you plan the format of your business plan, think about designing it so that readers can find and read essential information quickly. This means setting up an abstract, but calling it "Executive Summary."
Also plan to group similar sections. In the preceding section that lists the various kinds of information to include in a plan, some of suggestions should be combined—for example, the sections on financial aspects of the proposed business.
And finally, make use of appendixes for unwieldy, bulky information. Enable readers to quickly find the main sections of the plan, without having to wade through tables and charts that go on for pages and pages.
Resources for Business Plans
- 20+ resources every veteran small business owner should know — Clover.com
- Entrepreneur’s guide to starting a small business — ooma.com
- A Guide to Writing Your First Business Plan
- How to Write a Business Plan — Noah Parsons, bplans.com, 2018.
- Starting a Business and Writing a Business Plan Lots of good detail and links. From DiscoverBusiness.us.
- The Ultimate Guide to Business Plans. — Focus on ecommerce. From Ecommerce University.
- bplans.com — Samples available.
- Business Plan Guide — Made available by Miller Consulting, this site contains good information on business plans plus numerous links to other sites on the same topic.
- How to write a lean business plan: 9 easy steps — Debroah Sweeney, Deluxe Enterprise Operations, 2018.
- How to Start an LLC in Maryland: Step-by-Step Guide — https://learningcamp.com/
- SOHO Guidebook: A Practical Guide to Starting, Running and Growing a Small Business. — Produced by CCH Incorporated, this guidebook contains a wealth of information; for the purposes of business and technical writing courses, see the links on business plan documents, in particular.
- Teneric Business and Marketing Plans — This is a commercial venture that wants to write business plans for you or teach you how, but it does include a sample business plan and a template for business plans.
- 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.
- Americas Business Consulting. Offers business plan development; has links to potentially useful related sites.
AI Prompts for Business Plans
Checklists, which typically go unread, can be used as source for AI prompts with some modification. Copy the following, paste it into an AI system such as Google's Gemini, and see what you may have missed.
Note: All references to the content, format, style of application letters or their components can be found in the online technical-writing textbook.
When you want to use AI to evaluate a writing project, introduce yourself, tell AI who you are, what you want. Give AI a reference point for doing evaluations like an online textbook. Then post what you want AI to check in its evaluation. Here's an example:
Modify the introduction to fit your identity.
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Hello, AI. I am David McMurrey, a cybersecurity student at Austin Community College (Austin, Texas). I request that you evaluate the following business plan using this online textbook, the chapter on business plans, and the following questions:
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Online technical-writing textbook
I would appreciate your thoughts, reactions, criticism regarding this chapter: your response—David McMurrey.
