Keys to Better Business Plans

by Tim Berry

Write a better business plan by focusing on implementation.

  • Use a business plan to set concrete goals, responsibilities, and deadlines to guide your business.
  • A good business plan assigns tasks to people or departments and sets milestones and deadlines for tracking implementation.
  • A practical business plan includes 10 parts implementation for every one part strategy.
  • As part of the implementation of a business plan, it should provide a forum for regular review and course corrections.
  • Good business plans are practical.

Business plan “don’ts”

  • Don’t use a business plan to show how much you know about your business.
  • Nobody reads a long-winded business plan: not bankers, bosses, nor venture capitalists. Years ago, people were favorably impressed by long plans. Today, nobody is interested in a business plan more than 50 pages long.

About the author: Founder and President of Palo Alto Software and a renowned planning expert. He is listed in the index of "Fire in the Valley", by Swaine and Freiberger, the history of the personal computer industry. Tim contributes regularly to the bplans blog, the Huffingtonpost.com as well as his own blogs, Planning, Startups, Stories, Up and Running, and others. His full biography is available at timberry.com. More »

How LivePlan makes your business more successful

LivePlan: Online Business Planning Software

If you're writing a business plan, you're in luck. Online business planning software makes it easier than ever before to put together a business plan for your business.

As you'll see in a moment, LivePlan is more than just business plan software, though. It's a knowledgable guide combined with a professional designer coupled with a financial wizard. It'll help you get over the three most common business hurdles with ease.

Let's take a look at those common hurdles, and see how producing a top-notch business plan sets your business up for success.

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  • Ronald Katambo

    I need a sample business plan for a security company( security guard company). my aim is to fight crime and unemployment. Please assist.

  • Haroon Sarwar

    This a very useful site, it helped me a lot during completion of my MBA course assignment for Business Plan of a manufacturing concern.

  • http://biznessatmosphere.blogspot.com marcus

    business plan has always being an important tool for successful investment.
    As the saying goes that he who fails to plan, plans to fail

  • MONOMIPAPY

    I need a business plan for my starting business . In my business I will be selling cloth in the shop in town but I need a fair project that suits my business so that I can introduce it to my boss’ office in order to get some financial help

  • http://www.vodafone.com.eg Mohammad AL-Sanafeery

    I must thank you on this very useful site, yes it helped me a lot to know more on how I can develop/organize my own business plan, and what I should and should not include in it. Thanks to all employees who helped and contributed in building this wonderful site.

  • http://www.kenyanbusinessreview.com stano

    Thank you for pointing out the Business plan “don’ts”. This is where most of us go wrong in our planning.

  • Pingback: What Makes a Good Plan? « Business Plan Business

  • GIS LUZEY

    thanks apreciate the help, will let you know how it turns out. best – gis