Firstly, read any template or sample you find carefully. Often, the samples are broad when they should be specific, and when they are specific, you’ll need to redo the work. For example, the executive summaries offered in sample plans are often unconvincing, generic paragraphs. The executive summary should, in fact, be short and specific, but it should reflect you as a manager. It should be just a little exciting.
Same goes with the company description, but here it should be heavier on the sparks. Nearly all online sample plans we’ve seen offer a dreary picture of the business they claim to represent. This is probably because the vast majority of online business plans are hedging their bets – and trying not to specialize. Try to find a specialized plan written for the type of business you’re interested in starting – and try to find one that’s written by a website that doesn’t try to offer business plans for everything. In the case of a huge site offering downloadable plans that cost money, it’s likely that they had someone unfamiliar with the nature of the business they’re writing a plan for manufacture the outline they’re selling you.
When it comes to graphs, almost everything available can be helpful to guide your thoughts, and almost nothing can be helpful to you in terms of offering visual illustrations of your plan that are bank-ready. Look at what most plans include in terms of graphs – you’ll see “Break-Even Analysis”, “Cash Flow Analysis”, “Growth Prediction”, “Expense Analysis”, etc. These are all helpful to you, but don’t take their numbers. Nothing will blow your case quicker than if you try to use faulty numbers in your charts or appendices.
Take the time to read through a number of business plan examples online. Again, find one that’s specific to what you do – but if it’s made by somebody sitting at a computer cranking out business plans by the dozen for businesses he or she has never been remotely involved in, that plan will always be flawed. It’s better to go with a business plan that’s been written by someone in that business, and, if you’re lucky, it will be a plan that received funding. A funded plan shows you a successful example. If you had one thing to remember about getting online examples of business plans, you should remember to read through as many as you can in 2 hours before you get started on choosing a template.