Crafting a business plan? From scratch?
Can be quite the task. There's writing it all down. Writing all right. Understanding and creating financial reports. Deciding sales and marketing strategies. Putting together a workflow… The list is extensive.
But don’t worry, this is where business plan examples shine.
They give you a clear picture of a complete business plan—so you can see what yours might look like instead of walking into the dark.
How, you ask? As you browse through these examples, you’ll start understanding the kind of structure and content you need for your particular business adventure.
So explore our extensive collection of business examples to find the one that fits your business idea to start planning your business journey without much hassle!
But first, let’s cover…
A typical business plan format
A typical business plan often contains the following:
1. Executive summary
An executive summary is typically the first section (often written in the end), giving an overview of everything your business plan will discuss.
This will include aspects like company description, problems you intend to address, services and products, target market analysis, marketing strategies, operations plan, and financial plan.
2. Company overview
The next section is about introducing your company and adding details of identification. Here, you can include data like your company’s history, team, location, business structure, target customer, goals, objectives, and product or service.
Make sure there’s passion when describing your company so the readers and potential investors can understand your company at its core.
3. Market analysis
This section is where you conduct a market analysis and add the revelation from the same. It ensures that you understand the market that you're about to enter and who you'll be selling your products and services to.
That means you should include information about:
- Potential customers
- Target market and its viability
- The market and industry growth
- Competitors and how they’re doing in the same market
This helps you realize and share the strengths and weaknesses of your own as well as your competition.
4. Product and services
Next, explain the product or service you will be selling in the market. Since it is why you’re out to make money, this section must include solid details such as:
- Description of your product or service and explanation of how it benefits your target market
- How your products and services will be priced
- Explanation of how your product or service will beat competitors
- Prototype data and images
- Research on future new products and services
- Copyright, patent, or trade secret data
5. Competitive analysis
It’s also essential to understand your competitors and distinguish your business by highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Make sure you include both direct and indirect competitors so that you can explain how you compare to them and the efforts you need to make to be better than them.
6. Sales and marketing strategies
With your products and services explained, it’s now time to reveal two vital aspects.
One: How you will sell.
Two: How you will market your business or solution to customers.
The sales and marketing strategies you’ll use show your reader that you don’t want to just sell and make money, but you CAN do so.
That’s why your sales and marketing strategies section plan will typically include the following:
- How you will promote your business to customers
- How you will attract and gain more customers
- Data regarding costs, pricing, promotions, and distribution
- Information on sources of labor
- An explanation of how your product will go from acquisition or production to delivery
- Data regarding distribution such as inventory management, logistics, and distribution channels.
6. Operations plan
Your business is only as good as your operations are. In this section you need to explain how good and clear your operations are or will be, highlighting the workflow and hierarchies.
This way investors and stakeholders will get a clear picture as to how your daily, weekly, and monthly operations are.
Here’s everything a reader expects to find in this section:
- Daily operations: Highlight the processes involved in day-to-day activities like deliveries, submissions, etc.
- Resources: List the physical, financial, and human resources needed to operate.
- Relationships and roles: Include the organizational structure, explaining who’s responsible for what, and how the team will grow as the business scales.
- Key milestones: Share big milestones and deadlines that mean growth and progress in your workflow or operations like launching a product, hitting a sales target, or expanding operations.
- Movement: Describe how supplies, equipment, or information would move within the organization.
7. Management team
If you don’t like showing off, you don’t have an option because this section is meant for it. Here, talk about your awesome team (introduce them) and its exceptional abilities to prove you’ve got what it takes.
As a result, investors find your business attractive and a low-risk investment opportunity.
8. Financial plan
Money is often the piece that holds everything together and this section is all about it.
It should thoroughly describe a business’s historical financial state and future financial projections with solid numbers—a language investors and moneylenders speak.
Here’s everything you can include in your financial plan:
- Budgets and financial statements (income statement, cash flow statement, and a balance sheet)
- Funding requests
- Budget for expenses
- Financial predictions (such as sales and revenue forecasts)
9. Appendix
The appendix is where you can add supporting documentation for the other sections of your plan.
Do you need one? Yes, if you couldn’t say or show everything in the previous business plan sections. For example:
- Charts, graphs, or tables that support sections of your business plan
- Credit history
- Executive team resumes
- Agreements or contracts with clients or vendors
- Product illustrations or packaging samples
- Permits, patents, and trademark documentation
- Attorney contact
How to use a sample business plan to write your own?
It’s a super simple, 6-step process:
1. Choose a business plan example
Thanks to our extensive library of business plan examples, you’ll find one that fits your business requirements.
Once you’ve made your choice, ensure it has all the sections you want depending on why you need a business plan. (Don't worry you can customize it after.)
2. Study and personalize the plan structure
Once you’ve picked your plan and it’s more or less what you’d like your business plan to look like, understand the structure it has and the sections it contains for relevance to your business.
Then jump to making modifications by adding sections you need or removing the ones you don’t. You can do so by copying the example plan onto an editor.
3. Conduct a thorough market research
With an outline of clear sections ready, it’s time to fill in the relevant details in the editor. Start with market research so you’re aware of your target audience, what they think, and how they think.
Moreover, the research will support further sections of the business plan such as marketing and sales strategies, organizational structure, competitive analysis and more.
4. Tailor the financial plan and projections
Next, fill in the financial plan section by referring to your financial forecasts and reports. This example business plan will mostly have sections like budget, balance sheet, startup costs, funding requirement, cash flow projections, and more.
Study and understand how these numbers and statistics are presented so you can replicate the same to meet your intentions. This will include types of revenue streams, assets, graphs or charts, and other details.
This is essential to understand the industry-specific financial aspects you need to include in an effective business plan.
5. Create the first draft
Finally, you can start drafting your plan. Note how the example plans' sections are written and inspire your own sections.
Things to note while taking inspiration include:
- Each section’s length
- Most highlighted information in each section
- What kind of visual tools are used in which sections
Then edit the sections to reflect your company’s details. Don’t leave out anything important if you want readers to take your plan seriously.
6. Review, edit, and revise your plan
The last step is to refine your first draft. Take a good look (preferably after a few hours or a day to get a fresh perspective).
You can even ask someone else to review it to spot things you may have missed. The idea is to check for missing content, typos, wrong data, and other micro details that can easily slip one's eye.
That’s about it. But before you begin drafting your plan, here are…
5 mistakes to avoid when using business plan examples
Even though using business plan examples makes your job simple, there are some things to keep in mind:
1. Copying without customization
You’re not to directly copy an example without tailoring it to your business specifics. That’s because:
One, every business is unique.
Two, it will show investors you don’t bother enough about your own business.
Instead, use the examples as inspiration, and personalize them to fit your business model, industry, and goals.
2. Not identifying your target reader
Investors, lenders, and partners—all have different priorities. An investor may focus on growth potential, a lender wants proof of stability and cash flow, while a partner wants in on the operations and teams.
Depending on the reader you must adjust the tone, content, and focus of your plan.
3. Relying too heavily on an example’s structure
Don’t let the example’s format or structure trap or limit you. That’s because your business will most definitely have unique elements that don’t fit neatly into standard sections of an example plan.
Solution? Adapt and edit the structure to make sense for your business. If your sales strategy is the strongest, emphasize that more than a typical plan might suggest.
4. Skipping the research
Trusting the example without doing your own research is a no-no.
Every business operates in a different environment hence the research has to be different as well. That’s the only way to back up your unique claims, strategies, and financial projections.
5. Not refining your executive summary
Don’t forget to pay attention to the executive summary for it does make or break the reader's interest in your business.
Note how the example presents this section to identify what content they’re most focusing on and what they’re leaving out to keep readers engaged.
Different types of business plans
Take into account the different types of business plans that exist before choosing an example from our library as your guide.
| Business plan type | Purpose | Audience | Average length (pages) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional business plan | Seeking investment or potential investors | Investors, lenders, and stakeholders | 15-50 |
One Page/lean business plan | Summarize your entire business idea concisely. | Investors, stakeholders, and team members, Internal teams | 1-2 |
Growth business plan | Defines the strategies for growth and expansion. | Investors, management, and stakeholders | 10-30 |
Operational business plan | Outlines day-to-day business processes. | Internal teams, department heads, managers, and staff | 40-100 |
Non-profit business plan | Describes your non-profit business and what it plans to achieve in the coming five years | Donors, grantmakers, board members, and community stakeholders | 15-30 |
Internal business plan | To streamline operations and to provide clarity over internal goals | Internal teams, managers, and employees | 5-15 |
Strategic business plan | To outline the company’s long-term vision and mission | Senior management, stakeholders, and board members | 10-30 |
Draft your business plan using an example today
Business plans are your key to all your closed doors in the business world such as tough-to-impress investors, stakeholders that need regular, tough competition, and more.
That’s because of all the details it contains, starting from company history to the exact strategy you’ll use to break into the market. But the process doesn’t need to be daunting.
Just use one of the many business plan examples to get a headstart. In fact, we’ll do you one better. Get in touch with our expert business plan consultants. We can create a well-structured and informative plan that meets industry standards and resonates with the reader or audience you’re targeting.
So don’t be shy and contact us today!