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10 Free Business Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

Turning your vision into a clear and coherent business plan can be confusing and tough. 

Hours of brainstorming and facing an intimidating blank page can raise more questions than answers. Are you covering everything? What should go where? How do you keep each section thorough but brief?

If these questions have kept you up at night and slowed your progress, know you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together the top 10 business plan templates in Word, Excel, and ClickUp—to provide answers, clarity, and a structured framework to work with. This way, you’re sure to capture all the relevant information without wasting time. 

And the best part? Business planning becomes a little less “ugh!” and a lot more “aha!” 🤩

What is a Business Plan Template?

What makes a good business plan template, 1. clickup business plan template, 2. clickup sales plan template, 3. clickup business development action plan template, 4. clickup business roadmap template, 5. clickup business continuity plan template, 6. clickup lean business plan template, 7. clickup small business action plan template, 8. clickup strategic business roadmap template , 9. microsoft word business plan template by microsoft, 10. excel business plan template by vertex42.

A business plan template is a structured framework for entrepreneurs and business executives who want to create business plans. It comes with pre-arranged sections and headings that cover key elements like the executive summary , business overview, target customers, unique value proposition, marketing plans, and financial statements.  

A good business plan template helps with thorough planning, clear documentation, and practical implementation. Here’s what to look for:

• Comprehensive structure: A good template comes with all the relevant sections to outline a business strategy, such as executive summary, market research and analysis, and financial projections 
• Clarity and guidance: A good template is easy to follow. It has brief instructions or prompts for each section, guiding you to think deeply about your business and ensuring you don’t skip important details
• Clean design: Aesthetics matter. Choose a template that’s not just functional but also professionally designed. This ensures your plan is presentable to stakeholders, partners, and potential investors
• Flexibility : Your template should easily accommodate changes without hassle, like adding or removing sections, changing content and style, and rearranging parts 🛠️ 

While a template provides the structure, it’s the information you feed it that brings it to life. These pointers will help you pick a template that aligns with your business needs and clearly showcases your vision.

10 Business Plan Templates to Use in 2024

Preparing for business success in 2024 (and beyond) requires a comprehensive and organized business plan. We’ve handpicked the best templates to help you guide your team, attract investors, and secure funding. Let’s check them out.

If you’re looking to replace a traditional business plan document, then ClickUp’s Business Plan Template is for you!

This one-page business plan template, designed in ClickUp Docs , is neatly broken down into the following sections:

• Company description : Overview, mission, vision, and team
• Market analysis : Problem, solution, target market, competition, and competitive advantage
• Sales and marketing strategy : Products/services and marketing channels
• Operational plan : Location and facilities, equipment and tools, manpower, and financial forecasts
• Milestones and metrics: Targets and KPIs

Customize the template with your company logo and contact details, and easily navigate to different sections using the collapsible table of contents. The mini prompts under each section guide you on what to include—with suggestions on how to present the data (e.g., bullet lists, pictures, charts, and tables). 

You can share the document with anyone via URL and collaborate in real time. And when the business plan is ready, you have the option to print it or export it to PDF, HTML, or Markdown.

But that’s not all. This template is equipped with basic and enterprise project management features to streamline the business plan creation process . The Topics List view has a list of all the different sections and subsections of the template and allows you to assign it to a team member, set a due date, and attach relevant documents and references.

Switch from List to Board view to track and update task statuses according to the following: To Do, In Progress, Needs Revision, and Complete. 

This template is a comprehensive toolkit for documenting the different sections of your business plan and streamlining the creation process to ensure it’s completed on time. 🗓️

If you’re looking for a tool to kickstart or update your sales plan, ClickUp’s Sales Plan Template has got you covered. This sales plan template features a project summary list with tasks to help you craft a comprehensive and effective sales strategy. Some of these tasks include:

• Determine sales objectives and goals
• Draft positioning statement
• Perform competitive analysis
• Draft ideal customer persona
• Create a lead generation strategy

Assign each task to a specific individual or team, set priority levels , and add due dates. Specify what section of the sales plan each task belongs to (e.g., executive summary, revenue goals, team structure, etc.), deliverable type (such as document, task, or meeting), and approval state (like pending, needs revisions, and approved).

And in ClickUp style, you can switch to multiple views: List for a list of all tasks, Board for visual task management, Timeline for an overview of task durations, and Gantt to get a view of task dependencies. 

This simple business plan template is perfect for any type of business looking to create a winning sales strategy while clarifying team roles and keeping tasks organized. ✨

Thinking about scaling your business’s reach and operations but unsure where or how to start? It can be overwhelming, no doubt—you need a clear vision, measurable goals, and an actionable plan that every member of your team can rally behind. 

Thankfully, ClickUp’s Business Development Action Plan Template is designed to use automations to simplify this process so every step toward your business growth is clear, trackable, and actionable.

Start by assessing your current situation and deciding on your main growth goal. Are you aiming to increase revenue, tap into new markets, or introduce new products or services? With ClickUp Whiteboards or Docs, brainstorm and collaborate with your team on this decision.

Set and track your short- and long-term growth goals with ClickUp’s Goals , break them down into smaller targets, and assign these targets to team members, complete with due dates. Add these targets to a new ClickUp Dashboard to track real-time progress and celebrate small wins. 🎉

Whether you’re a startup or small business owner looking to hit your next major milestone or an established business exploring new avenues, this template keeps your team aligned, engaged, and informed every step of the way.

ClickUp’s Business Roadmap Template is your go-to for mapping out major strategies and initiatives in areas like revenue growth, brand awareness, community engagement, and customer satisfaction. 

Use the List view to populate tasks under each initiative. With Custom Fields, you can capture which business category (e.g., Product, Operations, Sales & Marketing, etc.) tasks fall under and which quarter they’re slated for. You can also link to relevant documents and resources and evaluate tasks by effort and impact to ensure the most critical tasks get the attention they deserve. 👀

Depending on your focus, this template provides different views to show just what you need. For example, the All Initiatives per Quarter view lets you focus on what’s ahead by seeing tasks that need completion within a specific quarter. This ensures timely execution and helps in aligning resources effectively for the short term.

This template is ideal for business executives and management teams who need to coordinate multiple short- and long-term initiatives and business strategies.

In business, unexpected threats to operations can arise at any moment. Whether it’s economic turbulence, a global health crisis, or supply chain interruptions, every company needs to be ready. ClickUp’s Business Continuity Plan Template lets you prepare proactively for these unforeseen challenges.

The template organizes tasks into three main categories:

• Priorities: Tasks that need immediate attention
• Continuity coverage: Tasks that must continue despite challenges
• Guiding principles: Resources and protocols to ensure smooth operations

The Board view makes it easy to visualize all the tasks under each of these categories. And the Priorities List sorts tasks by those that are overdue, the upcoming ones, and then the ones due later.

In times of uncertainty, being prepared is your best strategy. This template helps your business not just survive but thrive in challenging situations, keeping your customers, employees, and investors satisfied. 🤝

Looking to execute your business plan the “lean” way? Use ClickUp’s Lean Business Plan Template . It’s designed to help you optimize resource usage and cut unnecessary steps—giving you better results with less effort.

In the Plan Summary List view, list all the tasks that need to get done. Add specific details like who’s doing each task, when it’s due, and which part of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) it falls under. The By Priority view sorts this list based on priorities like Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. This makes it easy to spot the most important tasks and tackle them first.

Additionally, the Board view gives you an overview of task progression from start to finish. And the BMC view rearranges these tasks based on the various BMC components. 

Each task can further be broken down into subtasks and multiple checklists to ensure all related action items are executed. ✔️

This template is an invaluable resource for startups and large enterprises looking to maximize process efficiencies and results in a streamlined and cost-effective way.

The Small Business Action Plan Template by ClickUp is tailor-made for small businesses looking to transform their business ideas and goals into actionable steps and, eventually, into reality. 

It provides a simple and organized framework for creating, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking tasks. And in effect, it ensures that goals are not just set but achieved. Through the native dashboard and goal-setting features, you can monitor task progress and how they move you closer to achieving your goals.

Thanks to ClickUp’s robust communication features like chat, comments, and @mentions, it’s easy to get every team member on the same page and quickly address questions or concerns.

Use this action plan template to hit your business goals by streamlining your internal processes and aligning team efforts.

For larger businesses and scaling enterprises, getting different departments to work together toward a big goal can be challenging. The ClickUp Strategic Business Roadmap Template makes it easier by giving you a clear plan to follow.

This template is packaged in a folder and split into different lists for each department in your business, like Sales, Product, Marketing, and Enablement. This way, every team can focus on their tasks while collectively contributing to the bigger goal.

There are multiple viewing options available for team members. These include:

• Progress Board: Visualize tasks that are on track, those at risk, and those behind
• Gantt view: Get an overview of project timelines and dependencies
• Team view: See what each team member is working on so you can balance workloads for maximum productivity

While this template may feel overwhelming at first, the getting started guide offers a step-by-step breakdown to help you navigate it with ease. And like all ClickUp templates, you can easily customize it to suit your business needs and preferences.

Microsoft’s 20-page traditional business plan template simplifies the process of drafting comprehensive business plans. It’s made up of different sections, including:

• Executive summary : Highlights, objectives, mission statement, and keys to success
• Description of business: Company ownership and legal structure, hours of operation, products and services, suppliers, financial plans, etc.
• Marketing: Market analysis, market segmentation, competition, and pricing
• Appendix: Start-up expenses, cash flow statements, income statements, sales forecast, milestones, break-even analysis, etc.

The table of contents makes it easy to move to different sections of the document. And the text placeholders under each section provide clarity on the specific details required—making the process easier for users who may not be familiar with certain business terminology.

No business template roundup is complete without an Excel template. This business plan template lets you work on your business financials in Excel. It comes with customizable tables, formulas, and charts to help you look at the following areas:

• Highlight charts
• Market analysis
• Start-up assets and expenses
• Sales forecasts
• Profit and loss
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow projections
• Break-even analysis

This Excel template is especially useful when you want to create a clear and visual financial section for your business plan document—an essential element for attracting investors and lenders. However, there might be a steep learning curve to using this template if you’re not familiar with business financial planning and using Excel.

Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp

Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.

ClickUp templates go beyond offering a solid foundation to build your business plans. They come with extensive project management features to turn your vision into reality. And that’s not all— ClickUp’s template library offers over 1,000 additional templates to help manage various aspects of your business, from decision-making to product development to resource management .

Sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today to fast-track your business’s growth! 🏆

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24 of My Favorite Sample Business Plans & Examples For Your Inspiration

Published: February 06, 2024

I believe that reading sample business plans is essential when writing your own.

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As you explore business plan examples from real companies and brands, it’s easier for you to learn how to write a good one.

But what does a good business plan look like? And how do you write one that’s both viable and convincing. I’ll walk you through the ideal business plan format along with some examples to help you get started.

Table of Contents

Business Plan Format

Business plan types, sample business plan templates, top business plan examples.

Ask any successful sports coach how they win so many games, and they’ll tell you they have a unique plan for every single game. To me, the same logic applies to business.

If you want to build a thriving company that can pull ahead of the competition, you need to prepare for battle before breaking into a market.

Business plans guide you along the rocky journey of growing a company. And if your business plan is compelling enough, it can also convince investors to give you funding.

With so much at stake, I’m sure you’re wondering where to begin.

Free Business Plan Template

The essential document for starting a business -- custom built for your needs.

• Outline your idea.
• Pitch to investors.
• Secure funding.
• Get to work!

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Fill out the form to get your free template.

First, you’ll want to nail down your formatting. Most business plans include the following sections.

1. Executive Summary

I’d say the executive summary is the most important section of the entire business plan. 

Why? Essentially, it's the overview or introduction, written in a way to grab readers' attention and guide them through the rest of the business plan. This is important, because a business plan can be dozens or hundreds of pages long.

There are two main elements I’d recommend including in your executive summary:

Company Description

This is the perfect space to highlight your company’s mission statement and goals, a brief overview of your history and leadership, and your top accomplishments as a business.

Tell potential investors who you are and why what you do matters. Naturally, they’re going to want to know who they’re getting into business with up front, and this is a great opportunity to showcase your impact.

Need some extra help firming up those business goals? Check out HubSpot Academy’s free course to help you set goals that matter — I’d highly recommend it

Products and Services

To piggyback off of the company description, be sure to incorporate an overview of your offerings. This doesn’t have to be extensive — just another chance to introduce your industry and overall purpose as a business.

In addition to the items above, I recommend including some information about your financial projections and competitive advantage here too.:

Keep in mind you'll cover many of these topics in more detail later on in the business plan. So, keep the executive summary clear and brief, and only include the most important takeaways.

Executive Summary Business Plan Examples

This example was created with HubSpot’s business plan template:

This executive summary is so good to me because it tells potential investors a short story while still covering all of the most important details.

Image Source

Tips for Writing Your Executive Summary

• Start with a strong introduction of your company, showcase your mission and impact, and outline the products and services you provide.
• Clearly define a problem, and explain how your product solves that problem, and show why the market needs your business.
• Be sure to highlight your value proposition, market opportunity, and growth potential.
• Keep it concise and support ideas with data.
• Customize your summary to your audience. For example, emphasize finances and return on investment for venture capitalists.

Check out our tips for writing an effective executive summary for more guidance.

2. Market Opportunity

This is where you'll detail the opportunity in the market.

The main question I’d ask myself here is this: Where is the gap in the current industry, and how will my product fill that gap?

More specifically, here’s what I’d include in this section:

• The size of the market
• Current or potential market share
• Trends in the industry and consumer behavior
• Where the gap is
• What caused the gap
• How you intend to fill it

To get a thorough understanding of the market opportunity, you'll want to conduct a TAM, SAM, and SOM analysis and perform market research on your industry.

You may also benefit from creating a SWOT analysis to get some of the insights for this section.

Market Opportunity Business Plan Example

I like this example because it uses critical data to underline the size of the potential market and what part of that market this service hopes to capture.

Tips for Writing Your Market Opportunity Section

• Focus on demand and potential for growth.
• Use market research, surveys, and industry trend data to support your market forecast and projections.
• Add a review of regulation shifts, tech advances, and consumer behavior changes.
• Refer to reliable sources.
• Showcase how your business can make the most of this opportunity.

3. Competitive Landscape

Since we’re already speaking of market share, you'll also need to create a section that shares details on who the top competitors are.

After all, your customers likely have more than one brand to choose from, and you'll want to understand exactly why they might choose one over another.

My favorite part of performing a competitive analysis is that it can help you uncover:

• Industry trends that other brands may not be utilizing
• Strengths in your competition that may be obstacles to handle
• Weaknesses in your competition that may help you develop selling points
• The unique proposition you bring to the market that may resonate with customers

Competitive Landscape Business Plan Example

I like how the competitive landscape section of this business plan below shows a clear outline of who the top competitors are.

It also highlights specific industry knowledge and the importance of location, which shows useful experience in this specific industry. 

This can help build trust in your ability to execute your business plan.

Tips for Writing Your Competitive Landscape

• Complete in-depth research, then emphasize your most important findings.
• Compare your unique selling proposition (USP) to your direct and indirect competitors.
• Show a clear and realistic plan for product and brand differentiation.
• Look for specific advantages and barriers in the competitive landscape. Then, highlight how that information could impact your business.
• Outline growth opportunities from a competitive perspective.
• Add customer feedback and insights to support your competitive analysis.

4. Target Audience

Use this section to describe who your customer segments are in detail. What is the demographic and psychographic information of your audience?

If your immediate answer is "everyone," you'll need to dig deeper. Here are some questions I’d ask myself here:

• What demographics will most likely need/buy your product or service?
• What are the psychographics of this audience? (Desires, triggering events, etc.)
• Why are your offerings valuable to them?

I’d also recommend building a buyer persona to get in the mindset of your ideal customers and be clear on why you're targeting them.

Target Audience Business Plan Example

I like the example below because it uses in-depth research to draw conclusions about audience priorities. It also analyzes how to create the right content for this audience.

Tips for Writing Your Target Audience Section

• Include details on the size and growth potential of your target audience.
• Figure out and refine the pain points for your target audience , then show why your product is a useful solution.
• Describe your targeted customer acquisition strategy in detail.
• Share anticipated challenges your business may face in acquiring customers and how you plan to address them.
• Add case studies, testimonials, and other data to support your target audience ideas.
• Remember to consider niche audiences and segments of your target audience in your business plan.

5. Marketing Strategy

Here, you'll discuss how you'll acquire new customers with your marketing strategy. I’d suggest including information:

• Your brand positioning vision and how you'll cultivate it
• The goal targets you aim to achieve
• The metrics you'll use to measure success
• The channels and distribution tactics you'll use

I think it’s helpful to have a marketing plan built out in advance to make this part of your business plan easier.

Marketing Strategy Business Plan Example

This business plan example includes the marketing strategy for the town of Gawler.

In my opinion, it really works because it offers a comprehensive picture of how they plan to use digital marketing to promote the community.

Tips for Writing Your Marketing Strategy

• Include a section about how you believe your brand vision will appeal to customers.
• Add the budget and resources you'll need to put your plan in place.
• Outline strategies for specific marketing segments.
• Connect strategies to earlier sections like target audience and competitive analysis.
• Review how your marketing strategy will scale with the growth of your business.
• Cover a range of channels and tactics to highlight your ability to adapt your plan in the face of change.

6. Key Features and Benefits

At some point in your business plan, you'll need to review the key features and benefits of your products and/or services.

Laying these out can give readers an idea of how you're positioning yourself in the market and the messaging you're likely to use. It can even help them gain better insight into your business model.

Key Features and Benefits Business Plan Example

In my opinion, the example below does a great job outlining products and services for this business, along with why these qualities will attract the audience.

Tips for Writing Your Key Features and Benefits

• Emphasize why and how your product or service offers value to customers.
• Use metrics and testimonials to support the ideas in this section.
• Talk about how your products and services have the potential to scale.
• Think about including a product roadmap.
• Focus on customer needs, and how the features and benefits you are sharing meet those needs.
• Offer proof of concept for your ideas, like case studies or pilot program feedback.
• Proofread this section carefully, and remove any jargon or complex language.

7. Pricing and Revenue

This is where you'll discuss your cost structure and various revenue streams. Your pricing strategy must be solid enough to turn a profit while staying competitive in the industry. 

For this reason, here’s what I’d might outline in this section:

• The specific pricing breakdowns per product or service
• Why your pricing is higher or lower than your competition's
• (If higher) Why customers would be willing to pay more
• (If lower) How you're able to offer your products or services at a lower cost
• When you expect to break even, what margins do you expect, etc?

Pricing and Revenue Business Plan Example

I like how this business plan example begins with an overview of the business revenue model, then shows proposed pricing for key products.

Tips for Writing Your Pricing and Revenue Section

• Get specific about your pricing strategy. Specifically, how you connect that strategy to customer needs and product value.
• If you are asking a premium price, share unique features or innovations that justify that price point.
• Show how you plan to communicate pricing to customers.
• Create an overview of every revenue stream for your business and how each stream adds to your business model as a whole.
• Share plans to develop new revenue streams in the future.
• Show how and whether pricing will vary by customer segment and how pricing aligns with marketing strategies.
• Restate your value proposition and explain how it aligns with your revenue model.

8. Financials

To me, this section is particularly informative for investors and leadership teams to figure out funding strategies, investment opportunities, and more.

 According to Forbes , you'll want to include three main things:

• Profit/Loss Statement - This answers the question of whether your business is currently profitable.
• Cash Flow Statement - This details exactly how much cash is incoming and outgoing to give insight into how much cash a business has on hand.
• Balance Sheet - This outlines assets, liabilities, and equity, which gives insight into how much a business is worth.

While some business plans might include more or less information, these are the key details I’d include in this section.

Financials Business Plan Example

This balance sheet is a great example of level of detail you’ll need to include in the financials section of your business plan.

Tips for Writing Your Financials Section

• Growth potential is important in this section too. Using your data, create a forecast of financial performance in the next three to five years.
• Include any data that supports your projections to assure investors of the credibility of your proposal.
• Add a break-even analysis to show that your business plan is financially practical. This information can also help you pivot quickly as your business grows.
• Consider adding a section that reviews potential risks and how sensitive your plan is to changes in the market.
• Triple-check all financial information in your plan for accuracy.
• Show how any proposed funding needs align with your plans for growth.

As you create your business plan, keep in mind that each of these sections will be formatted differently. Some may be in paragraph format, while others could be charts or graphs.

The formats above apply to most types of business plans. That said, the format and structure of your plan will vary by your goals for that plan. 

So, I’ve added a quick review of different business plan types. For a more detailed overview, check out this post .

1. Startups

Startup business plans are for proposing new business ideas.

If you’re planning to start a small business, preparing a business plan is crucial. The plan should include all the major factors of your business.

You can check out this guide for more detailed business plan inspiration .

2. Feasibility Studies

Feasibility business plans focus on that business's product or service. Feasibility plans are sometimes added to startup business plans. They can also be a new business plan for an already thriving organization.

3. Internal Use

You can use internal business plans to share goals, strategies, or performance updates with stakeholders. In my opinion, internal business plans are useful for alignment and building support for ambitious goals.

4. Strategic Initiatives

Another business plan that's often for sharing internally is a strategic business plan. This plan covers long-term business objectives that might not have been included in the startup business plan.

5. Business Acquisition or Repositioning

When a business is moving forward with an acquisition or repositioning, it may need extra structure and support. These types of business plans expand on a company's acquisition or repositioning strategy.

Growth sometimes just happens as a business continues operations. But more often, a business needs to create a structure with specific targets to meet set goals for expansion. This business plan type can help a business focus on short-term growth goals and align resources with those goals.

Now that you know what's included and how to format a business plan, let's review some of my favorite templates.

1. HubSpot's One-Page Business Plan

Download a free, editable one-page business plan template..

The business plan linked above was created here at HubSpot and is perfect for businesses of any size — no matter how many strategies we still have to develop.

Fields such as Company Description, Required Funding, and Implementation Timeline give this one-page business plan a framework for how to build your brand and what tasks to keep track of as you grow.

Then, as the business matures, you can expand on your original business plan with a new iteration of the above document.

Why I Like It

This one-page business plan is a fantastic choice for the new business owner who doesn’t have the time or resources to draft a full-blown business plan. It includes all the essential sections in an accessible, bullet-point-friendly format. That way, you can get the broad strokes down before honing in on the details.

2. HubSpot's Downloadable Business Plan Template

We also created a business plan template for entrepreneurs.

The template is designed as a guide and checklist for starting your own business. You’ll learn what to include in each section of your business plan and how to do it.

There’s also a list for you to check off when you finish each section of your business plan.

Strong game plans help coaches win games and help businesses rocket to the top of their industries. So if you dedicate the time and effort required to write a workable and convincing business plan, you’ll boost your chances of success and even dominance in your market.

This business plan kit is essential for the budding entrepreneur who needs a more extensive document to share with investors and other stakeholders.

It not only includes sections for your executive summary, product line, market analysis, marketing plan, and sales plan, but it also offers hands-on guidance for filling out those sections.

3. LiveFlow’s Financial Planning Template with built-in automation

This free template from LiveFlow aims to make it easy for businesses to create a financial plan and track their progress on a monthly basis.

The P&L Budget versus Actual format allows users to track their revenue, cost of sales, operating expenses, operating profit margin, net profit, and more.

The summary dashboard aggregates all of the data put into the financial plan sheet and will automatically update when changes are made.

Instead of wasting hours manually importing your data to your spreadsheet, LiveFlow can also help you to automatically connect your accounting and banking data directly to your spreadsheet, so your numbers are always up-to-date.

With the dashboard, you can view your runway, cash balance, burn rate, gross margins, and other metrics. Having a simple way to track everything in one place will make it easier to complete the financials section of your business plan.

This is a fantastic template to track performance and alignment internally and to create a dependable process for documenting financial information across the business. It’s highly versatile and beginner-friendly.

It’s especially useful if you don’t have an accountant on the team. (I always recommend you do, but for new businesses, having one might not be possible.)

4. ThoughtCo’s Sample Business Plan

One of the more financially oriented sample business plans in this list, BPlan’s free business plan template dedicates many of its pages to your business’s financial plan and financial statements.

After filling this business plan out, your company will truly understand its financial health and the steps you need to take to maintain or improve it.

I absolutely love this business plan template because of its ease-of-use and hands-on instructions (in addition to its finance-centric components). If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of writing an entire business plan, consider using this template to help you with the process.

6. Harvard Business Review’s "How to Write a Winning Business Plan"

Most sample business plans teach you what to include in your business plan, but this Harvard Business Review article will take your business plan to the next level — it teaches you the why and how behind writing a business plan.

With the guidance of Stanley Rich and Richard Gumpert, co-authors of " Business Plans That Win: Lessons From the MIT Enterprise Forum ", you'll learn how to write a convincing business plan that emphasizes the market demand for your product or service.

You’ll also learn the financial benefits investors can reap from putting money into your venture rather than trying to sell them on how great your product or service is.

This business plan guide focuses less on the individual parts of a business plan, and more on the overarching goal of writing one. For that reason, it’s one of my favorites to supplement any template you choose to use. Harvard Business Review’s guide is instrumental for both new and seasoned business owners.

7. HubSpot’s Complete Guide to Starting a Business

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know writing a business plan is one of the most challenging first steps to starting a business.

Fortunately, with HubSpot's comprehensive guide to starting a business, you'll learn how to map out all the details by understanding what to include in your business plan and why it’s important to include them. The guide also fleshes out an entire sample business plan for you.

If you need further guidance on starting a business, HubSpot's guide can teach you how to make your business legal, choose and register your business name, and fund your business. It will also give small business tax information and includes marketing, sales, and service tips.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of starting a business, in addition to writing your business plan, with a high level of exactitude and detail. So if you’re in the midst of starting your business, this is an excellent guide for you.

It also offers other resources you might need, such as market analysis templates.

8. Panda Doc’s Free Business Plan Template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is one of the more detailed and fleshed-out sample business plans on this list. It describes what you should include in each section, so you don't have to come up with everything from scratch.

Once you fill it out, you’ll fully understand your business’ nitty-gritty details and how all of its moving parts should work together to contribute to its success.

This template has two things I love: comprehensiveness and in-depth instructions. Plus, it’s synced with PandaDoc’s e-signature software so that you and other stakeholders can sign it with ease. For that reason, I especially love it for those starting a business with a partner or with a board of directors.

9. Small Business Administration Free Business Plan Template

The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers several free business plan templates that can be used to inspire your own plan.

Before you get started, you can decide what type of business plan you need — a traditional or lean start-up plan.

Then, you can review the format for both of those plans and view examples of what they might look like.

We love both of the SBA’s templates because of their versatility. You can choose between two options and use the existing content in the templates to flesh out your own plan. Plus, if needed, you can get a free business counselor to help you along the way.

I’ve compiled some completed business plan samples to help you get an idea of how to customize a plan for your business.

I chose different types of business plan ideas to expand your imagination. Some are extensive, while others are fairly simple.

Let’s take a look.

1. LiveFlow

One of the major business expenses is marketing. How you handle your marketing reflects your company’s revenue.

I included this business plan to show you how you can ensure your marketing team is aligned with your overall business plan to get results. The plan also shows you how to track even the smallest metrics of your campaigns, like ROI and payback periods instead of just focusing on big metrics like gross and revenue.

Fintech startup, LiveFlow, allows users to sync real-time data from its accounting services, payment platforms, and banks into custom reports. This eliminates the task of pulling reports together manually, saving teams time and helping automate workflows.

"Using this framework over a traditional marketing plan will help you set a profitable marketing strategy taking things like CAC, LTV, Payback period, and P&L into consideration," explains LiveFlow co-founder, Lasse Kalkar .

When it came to including marketing strategy in its business plan, LiveFlow created a separate marketing profit and loss statement (P&L) to track how well the company was doing with its marketing initiatives.

This is a great approach, allowing businesses to focus on where their marketing dollars are making the most impact. Having this information handy will enable you to build out your business plan’s marketing section with confidence. LiveFlow has shared the template here . You can test it for yourself.

2. Lula Body

Sometimes all you need is a solid mission statement and core values to guide you on how to go about everything. You do this by creating a business plan revolving around how to fulfill your statement best.

For example, Patagonia is an eco-friendly company, so their plan discusses how to make the best environmentally friendly products without causing harm.

A good mission statement  should not only resonate with consumers but should also serve as a core value compass for employees as well.

Patagonia has one of the most compelling mission statements I’ve seen:

"Together, let’s prioritise purpose over profit and protect this wondrous planet, our only home."

It reels you in from the start, and the environmentally friendly theme continues throughout the rest of the statement.

This mission goes on to explain that they are out to "Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to protect nature."

Their mission statement is compelling and detailed, with each section outlining how they will accomplish their goal.

4. Vesta Home Automation

This executive summary for a smart home device startup is part of a business plan created by students at Mount Royal University .

While it lacks some of the sleek visuals of the templates above, its executive summary does a great job of demonstrating how invested they are in the business.

Right away, they mention they’ve invested $200,000 into the company already, which shows investors they have skin in the game and aren’t just looking for someone else to foot the bill.

This is the kind of business plan you need when applying for business funds. It clearly illustrates the expected future of the company and how the business has been coming along over the years.

5. NALB Creative Center

This fictional business plan for an art supply store includes everything one might need in a business plan: an executive summary, a company summary, a list of services, a market analysis summary, and more.

One of its most notable sections is its market analysis summary, which includes an overview of the population growth in the business’ target geographical area, as well as a breakdown of the types of potential customers they expect to welcome at the store. 

This sort of granular insight is essential for understanding and communicating your business’s growth potential. Plus, it lays a strong foundation for creating relevant and useful buyer personas .

It’s essential to keep this information up-to-date as your market and target buyer changes. For that reason, you should carry out market research as often as possible to ensure that you’re targeting the correct audience and sharing accurate information with your investors.

Due to its comprehensiveness, it’s an excellent example to follow if you’re opening a brick-and-mortar store and need to get external funding to start your business .

6. Curriculum Companion Suites (CSS)

If you’re looking for a SaaS business plan example, look no further than this business plan for a fictional educational software company called Curriculum Companion Suites. 

Like the business plan for the NALB Creative Center, it includes plenty of information for prospective investors and other key stakeholders in the business.

One of the most notable features of this business plan is the executive summary, which includes an overview of the product, market, and mission.

The first two are essential for software companies because the product offering is so often at the forefront of the company’s strategy. Without that information being immediately available to investors and executives, then you risk writing an unfocused business plan.

It’s essential to front-load your company’s mission if it explains your "Why?" and this example does just that. In other words, why do you do what you do, and why should stakeholders care? This is an important section to include if you feel that your mission will drive interest in the business and its offerings.

7. Culina Sample Business Plan

Culina's sample business plan is an excellent example of how to lay out your business plan so that it flows naturally, engages readers, and provides the critical information investors and stakeholders need. 

You can use this template as a guide while you're gathering important information for your own business plan. You'll have a better understanding of the data and research you need to do since Culina’s plan outlines these details so flawlessly for inspiration.

8. Plum Sample Business Plan

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Ini Patrick Notes

How to Write a 5-Page Business Plan

In my state of thinking on how to further simplify the business plan, the idea of a 5-page business plan just surfaced.

The overarching idea is to see how to get into five pages all that is really important in a business plan.

As you know, One of the main reasons resistance to business planning happens is because of the paperwork it produces.

The traditional business plan does not meet the needs of real-world bosses.

They now need a simple, effective tool that is easy-to-read, portable and keys them into what needs to get done.

It is on this note that I propose Building a 5-Page business plan to short-circuit some of the resistance to planning by simplifying the documents.

My job is to help you summarize your idea into a five-page business plan ready for execution.

Also, to help several businesses condense the bulk of their plans down to five pages and these core plans contain the essence of what you need to do.

According to scholars in the consulting and academic world, a business plan is a comprehensive research project with a thorough analysis of issues including customers, markets, competitors, pricing, marketing strategies, risks and detailed financial projections of three to five years into the future.

To create this kind of a plan, management works on it for months or hires a consultant to do it for them.  Either way, it’s not unusual to invest a hundred hours or more into creating it.

[bctt tweet=”One of the main reasons resistance to business planning happens is because of the paperwork it produces.” username=”inipatrick”]

On the other hand, most of the business world defines a business plan as a brief written statement indicating goals and overall steps for achieving those goals.

The goals might relate to customers, sales, units sold, profits, facilities, etc.   It covers a year, or maybe two.

This is something the owner or management puts together in a few meetings, and then gets it updated every year or two.

Considering these two definitions, one might wonder if there is a missing mark.

The comprehensive plan isn’t all practical for small businesses or non-profits organizations that lack the time or needed money to do all that work.

However valuable it might be to do so.  And the brief plan can be very superficial to the point that it does little more than set ambitious goals with minimal guidance on what to do when the business encounters those pesky potholes in the road.

Hence, my idea of writing this article is to show you how you can get the best from both worlds by simply using the concepts of brevity, succinctness, to the point and focused text to tell a story that captivates the audience…

You can tell your business plan story with only five components of a single page each.

The idea is to keep it short and simple, but still useful which involves doing “just enough” research and analysis into “just the right areas” that will matter for achieving success with this business.

Table of Contents

Let’s dive in and discuss the different plans that make up the 5-page business plan.

1. strategic plan—forming the heart of your story.

The strategic plan is the first of the five types of plans. It is the starting point for the other four types of plans and the heart of your story.

Get this wrong and the rest of your plan and your story is unsure.

Get it right and the power of your people will be unleashed because people want to know where the business is headed.

The strategic plan is a single-page document that defines where and how you want to position your business.

It examines a list of factors that might influence your future.

Topics you must address in your strategic plan are:

Assumptions

Vision statement, mission statement, strategic goals, strategic intent, 2. operational plan—bringing your plan to life.

The operational plan is the dynamic component that brings the strategic plan to life.

It is the first of ten years of the complete business plan and is developed simultaneously with the other four components.

It defines how the business will accomplish it strategic intent on a daily or annual basis. It breaks down the strategic goals into objectives and tasks to make them more understandable and manageable.

The operational plan also provides information to executives on how well the staff carries out its functional activities.

Along with the execution of functional activities comes the requirement for staff coordination. Work cannot be effective unless it is closely coordinated across staffs or functions.

The operational plan also helps management teams implement actions. Because it identifies the persons held accountable.

The operational plan becomes a good benchmark for reporting processes of key programs and projects.

This becomes the benchmark for performance measures of both the individual and the company.

3. Organizational Plan—Defining Your Corporate Structure

The organizational plan is the third of the five types of plans you must develop.

It defines the structure you must have to put the complete business plan in place. Organizational planning begins with the concept that structure follows strategy.

The strategies come from the strategic plan. The organizational plan is more than a wiring diagram or chart showing assignments; it must help you do certain things.

First, it ensures your people are all properly assigned to specific work or functions.

Like the operational plan, the organizational plan aids coordination among critical staff sections.

Another important function is cost control. The organizational plan illustrates adjustments that need to be made to streamline activities within the workforces.

The structure should always be tailored to the requirements.

Finally, the organizational plan must illustrate three ingredients:

A chart showing reporting relationships

A clear definition of responsibilities and, a clear definition of authorities,  4.  resources plan—analyzing the support you need to put your plan into action.

The resources plan defines the resources you must have to support your business.

It begins with an analysis of the annual targets and the goals of the strategic plan.

Normally, you can develop the resources plan in conjunction with the operations plan since the two are so closely connected.

The resources plan provides a great deal of information to the reader because it examines specific support requirements.

It contains, at a minimum, information on ten categories:

Staffing Levels : What are your short-term and long-term staffing requirements? What kinds of skills will be needed at each level, now and in the future?

Information requirements: what is the volume and quality of your information, technology: does your business require technology do you have the most effective technology to do the job what is the cost of staying up-to-date with technology, tools and equipment : what support systems do you need to get all the tasks completed, intellectual capital: how smart are your people how smart will they have to be in the future what do they have to be smart about how are you using the intellectual capital database that now exists (if any), time: what critical milestones exist in your plan where are the important decision points in the plan what can you do to use your time more wisely, relationships: what networks need to be developed can strategic alliances and strategic partnerships help your plan, image: what is your image in the public perception what should it be how will you develop this perception or change a negative one, facilities: can you estimate the facilities requirements is the need for physical space increasing or decreasing what effect has e-business had on your industry, financial: have you considered the budget constraints for short-term requirements what are the long-term capital investment requirements do the financial numbers make good business sense, 5. contingency plan—taking evasive action in a crisis situation.

The contingency plan is basically used to build cases for alternatives.

It is important but is often the most frequently ignored type.

Generally, there are three types of contingency planning you must consider.

The first is when your goals are not accomplished or are blocked somewhere in the execution. You must have alternatives developed to eliminate the blockage. It is a fallback position. Normally you develop several courses of action to get you to the Multiple routes or alternatives permit your choices when the goal path becomes blocked. You don’t change your goals, just the actions to get you to the goals.

Another type of contingency planning is a big picture issue. this is a disaster plan for a business-created crisis that could shut down your company—a contingency plan should address such occurrences. natural disasters are a primary contingency that companies plan for. like manmade situations, these occurrences can be predicted and planned for., the third type of contingency plan is developed from an internal view that examines incidents that could happen to your business and that would cause significant concern., key questions on writing your 5-page business plan.

Use the following questions to set the stage for building your 5-Page Business Plan.

Don’t restrict yourself to the confines of the eight questions. Push to explore all additional topics as they relate to the 5-page model.

What is your understanding of the purpose of a business plan?

Does your written business plan match what you say and do—that is, does it match your story, does your written business plan contain all the elements suggested in this chapter, do you have the five major components—the strategic plan, operational plan, organizational plan, resources plan, and contingency plan—defined similarly to those earlier explained, can your complete business plan be written on five sheets of paper, are you ready to prepare a complete business plan , are you willing to set at least four days aside to develop a company-level business plan, are you prepared to complete the business planning cycle by providing the education and training necessary to support the finished goals.

The intention of this post was to highlight the hidden value of writing a business plan.

The value that necessarily provides you with time management rewards – with huge rewards for your personal and professional life.

I hope you found that this was a valuable read. What are your thoughts?

What values do you see in developing a business plan?

What’s keeping you from developing that business idea ?

Kindly use the comment box to leave your comment… I will be glad to read from you.

Kindly share this post using the social media share buttons. Thank you!

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Hello, I'm Ini Patrick, a Serial Entrepreneur, Business Analyst, and Web Business Strategist. Am committed to helping entrepreneurs grow their business by sharing hybrid information and ideas that teaches strategies and systems to start and grow any business.

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Powerful business plan templates

Plan for the future, no matter what your business plans are or the size of your business with these designs and templates. whether it's just one big project or an entire organization's worth of dreams, these templates will keep you and your company on track from ideation to completion..

Put your ideas to work with simple templates for every business plan

Every successful business took a lot of planning to get there, and these templates will be cornerstones of your future success. Whether you're looking to attract new business, pitch your services or reimagine your company, with these simple, customizable templates at your fingertips you can turn complexity into something tangible. These templates can become marketing assets or simply remain internal touchpoints for your team. And as your dreams change, you'll always have this template to refer to – it's easy to change what exists on paper. If you're a small business, focusing on your niche can help you dominate in your field, and you can forge a plan to figure out exactly what that niche might be and how to target your ideal customer . When it's time to share your vision with stakeholders, craft a presentation that outlines your plan succinctly and with style. Let these templates from Microsoft Designer be your partner in business strategy for years to come.

Original text

Do you want to increase the odds that your business startup will be a success? Download this step-by-step business plan template to lay the groundwork for your new business.

Writing a business plan allows you to carefully think through every step of starting your company so you can better prepare and handle any challenges. While a thorough business plan is essential in the financing process, it's helpful even if you don’t need outside financing.

Creating a business plan can:

• Help you discover any weaknesses in your business idea so you can address them before you open for business
• Identify business opportunities you may not have considered and plan how to take advantage of them
• Analyze the market and competition to strengthen your idea
• Give you a chance to plan strategies for dealing with potential challenges so they don’t derail your startup
• Convince potential partners, customers, and key employees that you’re serious about your idea and persuade them to work with you
• Force you to calculate when your business will make a profit and how much money you need to reach that point so that you can be prepared with adequate startup capital
• Determine your target market and how to reach them

A detailed, step-by-step plan gives you a blueprint you can refer to during the startup process and helps you maintain momentum.

What this business plan template includes

Writing a business plan for a startup can sometimes seem overwhelming. To make the process easier and more manageable, this template will guide you step-by-step. The template includes easy-to-follow instructions for completing each business plan section, questions to help you think through each aspect, and corresponding fillable worksheet/s for critical sections.

After you complete the 11 worksheets, you will have a working business plan for your startup to show your SCORE mentor .

Business plan sections covered in this template:

• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Products and Services
• Marketing Plan
• Operational Plan
• Management and Organization
• Startup Expenses and Capitalization
• Financial Plan

The Appendices include documents that supplement information in the body of the plan.  These might be contracts, leases, purchase orders, intellectual property, key managers’ resumes, market research data or anything that supports assumptions or statements made in the plan.

The last section of the template, “Refining Your Plan,” explains ways to modify your plan for specific purposes, such as getting a bank loan, or for specific industries, such as retail or manufacturing.

Complete the Business Plan Template for a Startup Business to create a working business plan for your startup.

Then, contact a  SCORE mentor  to review and refine your plan online or in person.

Quick Start Business Plan The aim of this module is to give you the tools, direction and ideas you need to build a business plan. If you're starting a business then a business plan is essential, because it forces you to think through your ideas and options.

10 Business Planning Tips for Starting a Business In this webinar, you'll learn 10 business planning tips to help you start your entrepreneurial journey on the right path.

Business Plan 101: Sales & Marketing The sales and marketing section of your business plan describes how you intend to sell your product. Learn what you should include in this section.

Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org

Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.

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The Ultimate Business Plan Template

May 22, 2023 - 10 min read

Business plan templates set you up for success by providing a framework to guide you through setting goals and planning crucial aspects of your business, like operations, marketing, and financials. 

A one-page business plan template compiles the essential information you need to explain your business and present it in the best light to investors, partners, suppliers, vendors, and employees. It is a brief document that organizes and communicates the most impressive, practical, and persuasive details of your business.

Depending on your business case — e.g., raising funds, launching a new product, or updating workflows and processes — you can add or remove specific sections in your business plan template to fit your needs. Using a business plan template frees up and saves valuable time and effort by providing guidance on what to include and highlight while ensuring you don’t overlook any necessary details.  

There are many business plan types, including startup business plans , expansion plans, business operational plans , and lean or one-page business plans. These plans have different goals and help entrepreneurs and small business owners sustain momentum and growth through different phases. 

This article will teach you how to write a business plan effectively. We ’ ll discuss the essential sections of a business plan, tips to complete each one, and mistakes to avoid. You can begin right now by downloading one of Wrike’s business-focused templates .

Is a business plan really necessary? 

As the world of work accelerates with the speed of innovation, globalization, and remote work , many practices are changing. Transactions and negotiations that would have taken months to complete can now transpire in hours or days using video conferencing and other collaborative tools . Seeking confirmation, giving feedback, signing contracts, and closing deals are done more efficiently and across many borders. 

But even so, business plans are as essential and valuable as ever. Widely used is the one-page business plan, which is a quick, concise way to summarize and present your business ’ s status, current needs, and projected future. One-page business plans help illustrate where your business is and how you plan to achieve its potential. Investors, partners, and stakeholders can see the main points at a glance and decide whether to continue conversations, turn down the offer, or agree to your ask. 

Business plan templates help simplify the process of creating thorough and effective business plans. They get you past the initial blank page and provide a structure for building your own professional and comprehensive business plan in minutes or hours, not days or weeks. These templates make it easy to visualize viable exit strategies and desired business outcomes, promoting strategic and impactful decision-making as a sole entrepreneur, small business, or CEO of a fast-growing startup answering to shareholders.

Business plans help to: 

• Get more clarity on your business roadmap : Whether you ’ re a first-time entrepreneur or a small business owner looking to raise funds, business plans clarify your goals and organizational objectives for different periods, e.g., one to five years. Clear goals translate to actionable plans. Teams can break them down into tasks and projects and chart a timeline to achieve milestones. 
• Pitch and raise funds from investors: The most common reason people do the hard task of creating business plans in the first place is to pitch their startup or business idea to investors, bankers, or venture capitalists. A business plan shows you're serious about your business and communicates the business's potential. If your plan is clear and investors are convinced, you can raise the funds you need. 
• Convince stakeholders: There are many instances in business when you have to convince others to buy into a new idea or try new ways to improve the company ’s bottom line. Teams and project managers create internal business plans to present their cases and convince stakeholders about the viability of their proposed solution. A well-done business plan can win the necessary sponsorship and stakeholder support you need.
• Navigate potential risks: A business plan template ensures you cover all crucial aspects of your business. It creates visibility into potential risks and challenges the business or project may face as well as an opportunity for proactive brainstorming and strategy development to mitigate these risks.

How long should your business plan be?

A conventional business plan can be many pages long. The ideal length is whatever is required to explain the business adequately and excite your readers about its potential. Business plans can be from as few as five to as many as 25 pages. However, it’s advisable to keep it as short as possible to hold your readers ’ attention through most of it. 

A one-page business plan is a condensed, lightweight version of a conventional business plan. The one-page plan illustrates what your business does by summarizing its mission, operations, marketing, and financial forecasts on one page. 

You use visual elements like graphs and charts, bullet points, summaries, and clever formatting to keep the one-page plan informative, engaging, and clear for readers to understand. Answer frequently recurring questions in the appendices and carry along useful, additional documents to provide details and proof of work when seeking investment. Investors want to know your business can be profitable, and they can cash out. They ’ d like to see evidence of a viable market and customer interest. 

How do I write a simple business plan?

Before you begin writing your business plan, talk to your customers and employees to validate and shape your business concept. It doesn ’ t matter if you ’ re just beginning to grow your business or raising another round for expansion. 

Writing a business plan starts with speaking to people on the ground — customers, leads, residents, consumers, employees, and any other groups that directly use and experience your products, services, and business management . 

Once you have their input, you can start writing your business plan by completing the seven sections below. 

Essential components of a business plan

Every business plan should include the following sections:

• Executive summary
• Company description
• Products and services
• Market analysis
• Management team
• Financial plan
• Operational plan

These seven parts cover the crucial areas that keep a business running and successful. Without clarity on any section, you may struggle to build a thriving business. 

1. Executive summary

The executive summary outlines your one-page business plan. It introduces what readers can expect in the following sections and highlights the most impressive statistics and information in the business plan to pique their interest.

Executive summaries should be concise. Every sentence should be necessary and add value to the plan. Here ’ s an example of a one-page business plan executive summary:

Marigold Panes, a joint venture between a shipping and manufacturing company, aims to expand its successful European portfolio and capture a significant percentage of the rapidly growing North American window pane renovation market, focused on modern styles for residential and commercial spaces. This niche market is expanding at 12.6% yearly. It generated $19 billion in the US alone in the last year. Building on its success in Europe, Marigold Panes aims to establish a similarly structured company in the US within the next six months, using a hyper-localized go-to-market strategy across selected major cities.

2. Company description

The company description section should explain what your business does, highlighting your business model, industry, and type.

Include a clear mission and vision statement to set the foundation for your organization’s purpose, values, and long-term goals. This provides clarity and context around your business presence, creating a shared understanding of the business’s key objectives, guiding decision-making, inspiring teams, and setting the stage for long-term success.

Stating your mission and vision statements early in the business plan helps establish a sense of purpose from the outset. Be firm yet flexible to allow room for adapting to changing market conditions while remaining true to the company’s core values.

Continuing with the Marigold Panes example, let ’ s see what a company description may look like.

• Introduction: Marigold Panes is a partnership between a shipping and a manufacturing company focused on winning window pane renovation projects from North America.
• Business type: Joint venture (JV) , i.e., a partnership between two entities: a shipping company and a manufacturing company. 
• Founding team: Partnering companies have a track record of delivering high-quality projects in their industries. This JV brings a double assurance of quality and standards for the market in North America. Both companies have strong executive and management teams with experience and expertise in fields apart from the core two.
• Business mission: Marigold Panes ’ mission is to source, manufacture, and ship the highest - quality window panes worldwide. 
• Establish a trustworthy brand presence in North America.
• Grow customer base >15% month on month.
• Meet a revenue target of $2 billion from the North American market within three years

3. Products and services

Your plan ’ s products and services section should outline all the business ’ s products and services. This should include your current products and services, those in the pipeline, and any others you plan to launch. Add necessary details about each one, so readers have a concise yet clear understanding of them.

Ensure you ’ re clear about ownership and copyright issues for every product or service listed. Share details about the workflows and processes that enable your business production and allow you to deliver successfully to customers.

Continuing with Marigold Panes, its products and services section may look like this: 

• Procurement of window pane materials
• Manufacturing of window panes
• Shipping of window panes
• Managing window pane disposal
• Windowpane renovation projects

4. Market analysis

Your market analysis section should highlight the most important peculiarities about your target market and customer types, presenting research that validates the products and services. Depending on the stage your company is at, your market research section may be more focused on total market size, percentage of market share, rate of market share growth, or competitor activities. 

Break down your total market into smaller segments based on factors such as demographics, location, and priority needs. This will help identify the size and value of a specific target audience within the broader market, enabling you to create tailored marketing strategies for reaching and appealing to different market segments.

Market research helps you learn about your industry ’ s current demand and supply balance, how best to position yourself to solve the market ’ s needs, the most viable segments within it, and the best strategies for achieving product/market fit. It helps teams understand target customers’ pain points, needs, and preferences. That way, companies can create a product or service that effectively addresses particular needs, leading to high demand and customer satisfaction.

You can use the popular SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) technique to show your company ’ s positioning and competitive advantages. SWOT analyses are excellent complements to one-page plans as they convey so much information about your business operations , positioning, and potential using little space on the page. 

For Marigold Panes, it would start by listing all the window pane companies in North America operating for over two years and conducting above $500 million in annual revenue. It can then research the shortlisted companies and learn its business weaknesses and strengths compared to them. 

5. Management team

The management team section outlines your business ’ s top, most critical personnel and their expertise, experience, and credentials. This should show your organizational hierarchy and business ’ s legal structure. 

For Marigold Panes, it may list the personnel working on the new partnership from the executive and management teams of both companies.

Ensure that every team member in your business plan is credible, competent, and quick at their job — with the capacity and ability to convey your business goals and convince stakeholders your team and organization can execute their projects. 

6. Financial plan

Not all business plans need an in-depth financial plan, but every one needs a well-done forecast and estimations to show where the business is currently and how you plan to grow from there. A financial plan section provides a snapshot of your business ’ s current and future financial health. It shows investors whether your business will become profitable, where you spend the most money, and how fast you spend it. 

For a one-page plan, you only need an overview of your financial activities and projections, including where your capital came from, how much runway you have, the cash burn rate, how much investment you need for the next round, and how you plan to use the money. 

Your finances may be in the red and making losses when you ’ re just starting your business. Investors expect this and are more interested in learning how and when you plan to break even, pay off any loans, and start to make profit. 

Our example, Marigold Panes, is a partnership between two existing companies. Its financial plan for the new joint venture would include a balance sheet summary showing assets, liabilities, and capital of the new joint venture, as well as additional financial data including periodic projections.

7. Operational plan

The operational plan section in your one-page business plan should include a summary of what needs to be done to transform your raw materials into finished products and how they will be delivered to customers. 

The operational plan outlines your business ’ s main goals and the processes, tasks, and milestones to reach them. Think of how your products and services are created from scratch. What essential tasks, expenses, and steps must be taken every time to create the product/service or achieve a goal? Operational planning is best optimized with project tracking software such as Wrike to ensure smooth and efficient collaborative workflows, encouraging progress from one phase to the next.

For Marigold Panes, the operational plan may include getting procurement quotes from international suppliers, a system for estimating production costs on each new project, manufacturing equipment to design the panes, and manufactured/sales inventory for shipping to customers.

Business plan example

Here is a one-page business plan example to inspire your own. This business plan example has fields for your: 

• Executive summary: In this section, write a brief, compelling summary of your business plan
• Company description: Detail a comprehensive overview of your company, including its legal structure, mission, vision, and objectives
• Products and services: Here, you focus on the products or services your company offers, highlighting the unique selling points that differentiate your offerings from competitors
• Management team: Introduce your management team, emphasizing their skills, experiences, and qualifications that are relevant to your industry and company
• Marketing analysis: In this section, present a thorough analysis of your target market, including market segmentation, target audience identification, market size, growth potential, and competitor analysis
• Financial plan: In this section, outline the company’s financial projections and goals
• Operational plan: List the day-to-day processes, tools, and procedures required to run the business effectively

Business plan best practices

Follow the following best practices to create an effective plan for your business: 

• Be realistic: Use figures as close to current reality as possible to create budgets and estimate fixed and variable costs over time. This applies to timelines and schedules as well. Take note when the actual work being done begins to deviate from the planned work and resources . 
• Conduct quality research: Gather the figures, dates, and other data used in preparing your business plan from reputable, unbiased, authoritative sources. Cite these sources in the appendices of your plan.
• Review and iterate: One-page business plans are lean enough to be easily adjusted to reflect market fluctuations, economic changes, and any other variations. Iterating and updating your business plans regularly ensures your team members and stakeholders work using the latest findings and stay aligned on the same goals and timelines. 
• Focus on your business strengths: Showcase the best reasons for anyone to want to partner, support, or invest in your business. If you have impressive financial projections or a highly skilled management team, emphasize these sections in your plan. When you illustrate weaknesses, ensure you have a solution for them in your roadmap. 
• Have your documents on hand: Your readers may want to look deeper into some assumptions of your plan. Have answers to frequently asked questions in the appendices and hold on to copies of practical documents you can share. 

What to avoid when writing a business plan

Business plans are developed to communicate business goals and convince important stakeholders to believe in, and possibly invest in, your company. It is important to keep this in mind when creating a business plan. This way, you write to impress and convince the reader rather than simply presenting facts and figures about the business. Keep the following tips in mind and avoid commonly made mistakes in business planning:

• Make your business plan easy to scan. Separate sections, color-code where possible, and format your document to look inviting. Avoid long blocks of text and vary the way you present your data, e.g., using visual charts and bullet points.
• Avoid including irrelevant information in your plan. You have limited space on a single page, so make sure every sentence and section serves a purpose. Your business plan should be packed with data that shows your business is on track to increase profitability with your team and anticipated resources.
• Avoid ambiguity. Be clear about where you are in your business and what you need to get to the next stage so your readers or investors know exactly what’s required and how they can be a part of it. Put yourself in their shoes and consider what ’ s most important for them to know to make a favorable decision. For instance, instead of focusing on your product ’ s features and technology, you focus on your audience ’ s needs, e.g., the financial viability and operational feasibility of your plan.
• Maintain a realistic perspective: Avoid overly optimistic projections, especially in the financial projections, day-to-day capabilities of the team, and estimated output and revenue at key milestones. This helps to plan a realistic runway, show your resource management strategies, and lead your business toward success. Overconfident estimates can also damage your business’s credibility and discourage potential investors. Make sure to address your competitors’ activities to show how you plan to differentiate and position your company.

Use Wrike to create the best business plan for your growing business

Wrike helps entrepreneurs, business owners, intrapreneurs, and teams create business plans easily. You can organize your projects using folders and sub-folders and assign them to specific team members or groups with a shared timeline and completion date. Wrike takes business planning from passive to active in this way. 

You can begin writing your project objectives , invite involved team members and stakeholders, and request their input in creating the business plan where necessary. For example, the accounting manager fills out the details required in the financial plan section, while the operations manager fills out the operations guidelines. 

Even a solo team can gain many benefits from planning with Wrike. From templates to reduce rework to workload charts that show your task assignments, Wrike helps make planning and managing your business efficient. Get started with a free trial today to plan and run your business better.

Kelechi Udoagwu

Kelechi is a freelance writer and founder of Week of Saturdays, a platform for digital freelancers and remote workers living in Africa.

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One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide

By Joe Weller | April 6, 2020

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In this article, we’ve gathered a variety of free, one-page business plan templates for you to download in Excel, Word, and PDF formats. 

Included on this page, you’ll find a one-page business plan template for a service business , business plan template for a product business , business plan for a real estate agent , a Lean business plan template , and more. To help get you started, we’ve also included an example of a one-page business plan , and  a quick guide on how to create your one-page business plan .

One-Page Business Plan Template

Download One-Page Business Plan Template

Excel  | Word  |  PDF | Smartsheet

Use this one-page business plan template — designed to be simple, organized, and easy to use — to immediately get started on your plan. Write down your thoughts and key ideas as you decide if your business concept is viable, and adjust it as circumstances change. You can also use this template as a basis to build a more detailed and elaborate plan.

One-Page Business Plan for a Service Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for a Service Business Template

Excel | Word | PDF

This business plan template is designed specifically for businesses that provide a service. The one-page plan provides space to list the essential information about your strategy, including the service you offer, the problem you are solving for customers, your mission and vision statements, target audience, staffing requirements, key objectives, and much more. This template also includes a timeline at the bottom for you to add key milestones.

One-Page Business Plan for a Product Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for a Product Business Template

Use this one-page template to develop a strategic roadmap for your organization’s product offerings. This template provides space for you to include a business overview, a description of your target market, your competitive advantage, a list of marketing channels and materials you plan to utilize, as well as your pricing strategy, distribution channels, and success metrics. You can also use the visual timeline of milestones at the bottom to enter key dates and events.

One-Page Business Plan for Real Estate Agents Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Real Estate Agents Template

This one-page business plan template is created for real estate agents to set objectives and put together an action plan. Enter your overarching goal at the top of the template, and establish three high-level activities you need to complete to achieve the goal. The template also includes a strategic action plan that breaks down each high-level activity into tasks and deadlines, with an accompanying visual timeline to ensure you stay on track.

One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template

This one-page business plan is designed for a nonprofit organization, with space to detail your mission, vision, and purpose statements, as well as who you serve, the problem(s) you solve, and programs and resources you offer. Additionally, the template includes space to detail your financial plan, marketing activities, costs, and more.

One-Page Business Plan for Startup Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Startup Template

This one-page business plan template is intended for an entrepreneur or a small startup business to document a plan as they determine if an idea is feasible. This template provides space to describe the problem and solution, the product or service, the target customer, existing alternatives, the unique value proposition, a marketing and sales plan, success metrics, and other information. You’ll also find room to detail sources of funding and how the funds will be used.

One-Page Business Plan for Small Business Template

Download One-Page Business Plan for Small Business

Use this one-page small business plan template to outline the essential aspects of your business strategy. Provide details on your organization’s vision, mission, product or service offering, and management team. Then identify the target audience, market size, competitor offerings, and your competitive advantage. This plan also includes room to detail your marketing and sales strategy, key objectives, and financial plan.

One-Page Lean Business Plan Template

Download One-Page Lean Business Plan Template

This one-page template uses a Lean approach to develop your business plan. Use this customizable template to detail the crucial elements of your strategy, including a brief business and industry overview, your product or service offering, options from your competitors, and your competitive advantage. Plus, this template includes room to detail your marketing plan, success metrics, financial plan, and a visual timeline of milestones.

One-Page Business Planning Template with Timeline

Download One-Page Business Planning Template with Timeline

Excel | Smartsheet

Use this business planning template to organize and schedule key activities for your business. Fill in the cells according to the due dates, and color-code the cells by phase, owner, or category to provide a visual timeline of progress.

One-Page Business Plan Example

This one-page business plan covers all the essential elements and offers a visually appealing presentation. Information for each aspect of the plan is concise, with details about the business mission, management team, product offerings, key marketing activities, competitors, and financial projections. This plan also provides links to additional resources so that stakeholders can easily find information to support the specifics of the plan.

How to Write a One-Page Business Plan (with Sample Outline)

A one-page business plan takes a standard business plan and extracts the fundamental aspects, then condenses the essential information down to one page. To determine the key elements to emphasize in your one-page plan, consider the type of business you operate, as well as the financial (and other resources) needs of your business.

To streamline your business plan into a one-page document, follow the steps below.

• Create a simple outline for your plan using bullet points. Below, you’ll find an example of an outline for a one-page business plan. You can add or remove sections according to the needs of your business. 
• Business mission
• Problem you are solving
• Funds needed (if applicable)
• Product or service positioning statement
• Unique value proposition
• Target customers
• Market size
• SWOT analysis
• Direct competitors
• Existing alternatives
• Competitive advantage
• Key marketing strategy (e.g., channel or method that will yield the best results)
• Key sales strategy
• Specialized equipment or facilities
• Staffing requirements (e.g., key personnel, skills, and training needs)
• Distribution method
• Sales projection
• Profit and loss projection 
• Gather all your findings on your business and industry.

Compile all the current information you have gleaned from market research, interviews, surveys, and various teams in your business (e.g., the marketing and finance teams). Comb through each document and extract the information that is fundamental to your business’s operation and relevant to the bullet points on your outline.

• Write two to three brief sentences for each main bullet point.

Once you create your outline and gather information, write two to three sentences for each main bullet point that expands on and summarizes the sub-bullet points for that section. For example, the plan summary section could say the following:

Donny’s Food Truck will offer a variety of fresh food at an affordable price in a convenient location. Increased traffic in the Hungry Town area, combined with severely limited dining options, provides an opportunity to offer customers a quick, nutritious meal at a competitive price. A food truck with the necessary equipment has already been acquired, so we are seeking $200,000 to cover wages, emergency repairs, and licenses needed to fund our first year of operations.

• Ensure you are able to support all the information provided in your plan.

Since a one-page plan omits many of the details provided in a traditional business plan, be sure you have market research and other supporting documentation on hand to show stakeholders in case they have questions as they review your plan. In addition, make sure you thoroughly understand the supporting information and know how to restate it in your own words before you disburse the plan. 

• Ensure your plan answers all the vital questions .

At a minimum, an effective one-page business plan should answer the following questions:

• What product or service do we offer?
• Who will use the product or service?
• What problem does our offering solve?
• How will the product or service get to our customers?
• What alternatives do our customers use, and why are we superior?
• What is our unique value proposition?
• What strengths and opportunities can we use to our advantage?
• What resources do we need to get up and running?
• What will our sales look like for the first few years?
• When do we expect to be profitable?

In addition to the steps provided above, you can save time and get started on your plan by downloading one of the templates provided on this page. You can also check out “ Free Executive Summary Templates ,” which can serve the same purpose as a one-page business plan.

Benefits of a One-Page Business Plan

Organizations and stakeholders can unite behind a strategic direction when they have a business plan in place. Developing a traditional business plan can be a daunting task, so many entrepreneurs, small startups, graphic designers, freelancers, and consultants find a one-page business plan a less intimidating place to start. 

Creating a one-page business plan benefits your organization in the following ways:

• Push you to prioritize and focus on key ideas.
• Enable your audience to quickly scan and grasp the core concepts of your plan.
• Allow you to easily share and pitch your business idea to prospective investors and stakeholders (e.g., email attachment, single piece of paper).
• Accelerate business setup, especially businesses that don’t need a loan or investment to get going.
• Provide a solid starting point to expand upon at a later time.
• Enable you to document your thoughts and ideas to see if you have a feasible plan.

Tips for Creating a One-Page Business Plan

Now that you know how to create a one-page plan and the benefits in doing so, here are some tips to get you started:

• Set a time limit (up to one hour) to focus and work on your plan.
• Use a one-page business plan template (you can choose from the options above), or refer to the sample outline provided on this page.
• Ensure your plan details only the core aspects that are fundamental to running and operating your business. 
• Remember that this is a living document — continue to revisit and adjust it as strategies and objectives change.
• Expand on your plan as your business size and needs grow. 

When the time comes that you need more space to lay out your goals and strategies, choose from our variety of free simple business plan templates . You can learn how to write a successful simple business plan here . 

Visit this free non-profit business plan template roundup  or download a  fill-in-the-blank business plan template  to make things easy. If you are looking for a business plan template by file type, visit our pages dedicated specifically to  Microsoft Excel ,  Microsoft Word , and  Adobe PDF  business plan templates. Read our articles offering  startup business plan templates  or  free 30-60-90-day business plan templates  to find more tailored options.

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How to Write a Five-Year Business Plan

Noah Parsons

15 min. read

Updated October 27, 2023

Learn why the traditional way of writing a five-year business plan is often a waste of time and how to use a one-page plan instead for smarter, easier strategic planning to establish your long-term vision. 

In business, it can sometimes seem hard enough to predict what’s going to happen next month, let alone three or even five years from now. But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plan for the long term. After all, your vision for the future is what gets you out of bed in the morning and motivates your team. It’s those aspirations that drive you to keep innovating and figuring out how to grow.

• What is a long-term plan?

A long-term or long-range business plan looks beyond the traditional 3-year planning window, focusing on what a business might look like 5 or even 10 years from now. A traditional 5-year business plan includes financial projections, business strategy, and roadmaps that stretch far into the future.

I’ll be honest with you, though—for most businesses, long-range business plans that stretch 5 and 10 years into the future are a waste of time. Anyone who’s seriously asking you for one doesn’t know what they’re doing and is wasting your time. Sorry if that offends some people, but it’s true.

However, there is still real value in looking at the long term. Just don’t invest the time in creating a lengthy version of your business plan with overly detailed metrics and milestones for the next five-plus years. No one knows the future and, more than likely, anything you write down now could be obsolete in the next year, next month, or even next week. 

That’s where long-term strategic planning comes in. A long-term business plan like this is different from a traditional business plan in that it’s lighter on the details and more focused on your strategic direction. It has less focus on financial forecasting and a greater focus on the big picture. 

Think of your long-term strategic plan as your aspirational vision for your business. It defines the ideal direction you’re aiming for but it’s not influencing your day-to-day or, potentially, even your monthly decision making. 

• Are long-term business plans a waste of time?

No one knows the future. We’re all just taking the information that we have available today and making our best guesses about the future. Sometimes trends in a market are pretty clear and your guesses will be well-founded. Other times, you’re trying to look around a corner and hoping that your intuition about what comes next is correct.

Now, I’m not saying that thinking about the future is a waste of time. Entrepreneurs are always thinking about the future. They have to have some degree of faith and certainty about what customers are going to want in the future. Successful entrepreneurs do actually predict the future — they know what customers are going to want and when they’re going to want it.

Entrepreneurship is unpredictable 

Successful entrepreneurs are also often wrong. They make mistakes just like the rest of us. The difference between successful entrepreneurs and everyone else is that they don’t let mistakes slow them down. They learn from mistakes, adjust and try again. And again. And again. It’s not about being right all the time; it’s about having the perseverance to keep trying until you get it right. For example, James Dyson, inventor of the iconic vacuum cleaner, tried out 5,126 prototypes of his invention before he found a design that worked.

So, if thinking about the future isn’t a waste of time, why are 5-year business plans a waste of time? They’re a waste of time because they typically follow the same format as a traditional business plan, where you are asked to project sales, expenses, and cash flow 5 and 10 years into the future. 

Let’s be real. Sales and expense projections that far into the future are just wild guesses, especially for startups and new businesses. They’re guaranteed to be wrong and can’t be used for anything. You can’t (and shouldn’t) make decisions based on these guesses. They’re just fantasy. You hope you achieve massive year-over-year growth in sales, but there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen. And, you shouldn’t make significant spending decisions today based on the hope of massive sales 10 years from now.

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• Why write a long-term business plan?

So, what is the purpose of outlining a long-term plan? Here are a few key reasons why it’s still valuable to consider the future of your business without getting bogged down by the details.

Showcase your vision for investors

First, and especially important if you are raising money from investors, is your vision. Investors will want to know not only where you plan on being in a year, but where the business will be in five years. Do you anticipate launching new products or services? Will you expand internationally? Or will you find new markets to grow into? 

Set long-term goals for your business

Second, you’ll want to establish goals for yourself and your team. What kinds of high-level sales targets do you hope to achieve? How big is your company going to get overtime? These goals can be used to motivate your team and even help in the hiring process as you get up and running.

That said, you don’t want to overinvest in fleshing out all the details of a long-range plan. You don’t need to figure out exactly how your expansion will work years from now or exactly how much you’ll spend on office supplies five years from now. That’s really just a waste of time.

Instead, for long-range planning, think in broad terms. A good planning process means that you’re constantly revising and refining your business plan. You’ll add more specifics as you go, creating a detailed plan for the next 6-12 months and a broader, vague plan for the long term.

You have a long development time

Businesses with extremely long research and development timelines do make spending decisions now based on the hope of results years from now. For example, the pharmaceutical industry and medical device industry have to make these bets all the time. The R&D required to take a concept from idea to proven product with regulatory approval can take years for these industries, so long-range planning in these cases is a must. A handful of other industries also have similar development timelines, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Your business is well-established and predictable 

Long-term, detailed planning can make more sense for businesses that are extremely well established and have long histories of consistent sales and expenses with predictable growth. But, even for those businesses, predictability means quite the opposite of stability. The chances that you’ll be disrupted in the marketplace by a new company, or the changing needs and desires of your customers, is extremely high. So, most likely, those long-range predictions of sales and profits are pretty useless.

• What a 5-year plan should look like

With the exception of R&D-heavy businesses, most 5-year business plans should be more like vision statements than traditional business plans. They should explain your vision for the future, but skip the details of detailed sales projections and expense budgets. 

Your vision for your business should explain the types of products and services that you hope to offer in the future and the types of customers that you hope to serve. Your plan should outline who you plan to serve now and how you plan to expand if you are successful.

This kind of future vision creates a strategic roadmap. It’s not a fully detailed plan with sales forecasts and expense budgets, but a plan for getting started and then growing over time to reach your final destination.

For example, here’s a short-form version of what a long-term plan for Nike might have looked like if one had been written in the 1960s:

Nike will start by developing high-end track shoes for elite athletes. We’ll start with a focus on the North West of the US, but expand nationally as we develop brand recognition among track and field athletes. We will use sponsored athletes to spread the word about the quality and performance of our shoes. Once we have success in the track & field market segment, we believe that we will be able to successfully expand both beyond the US market and also branch out into other sports, with an initial focus on basketball.

Leadership and brand awareness in a sport such as basketball will enable us to cross over from the athlete market into the consumer market. This will lead to significant business growth in the consumer segment and allow for expansion into additional sports, fashion, and casual markets in addition to building a strong apparel brand.

Interestingly enough, Nike (to my knowledge) never wrote out a long-range business plan. They developed their plans as they grew, building the proverbial airplane as it took off.

But, if you have this kind of vision for your business, it’s useful to articulate it. Your employees will want to know what your vision is and your investors will want to know as well. They want to know that you, as an entrepreneur, are looking beyond tomorrow and into the future months and years ahead.

• How to write a five-year business plan

Writing out your long-term vision for your business is a useful exercise. It can bring a sense of stability and solidify key performance indicators and broad milestones that drive your business. 

Developing a long-range business plan is really just an extension of your regular business planning process. A typical business plan covers the next one to three years, documenting your target market, marketing strategy, and product or service offerings for that time period. 

A five-year plan expands off of that initial strategy and discusses what your business might do in the years to come. However, as I’ve mentioned before, creating a fully detailed five-year business plan will be a waste of time. 

Here’s a quick guide to writing a business plan that looks further into the future without wasting your time:

1. Develop your one-page plan

As with all business planning, we recommend that you start with a one-page business plan. It provides a snapshot of what you’re hoping to achieve in the immediate term by outlining your core business strategy, target market, and business model.

A one-page plan is the foundation of all other planning because it’s the document that you’ll keep the most current. It’s also the easiest to update and share with business partners. You will typically highlight up to three years of revenue and profit goals as well as milestones that you hope to achieve in the near term.

Check out our guide to building your one-page plan and download a free template to get started.

2. Determine if you need a traditional business plan

Unlike a one-page business plan, a traditional business plan is more detailed and is typically written in long-form prose. A traditional business plan is usually 10-20 pages long and contains details about your product or service, summaries of the market research that you’ve conducted, and details about your competition. Read our complete guide to writing a business plan .

Companies that write traditional business plans typically have a “business plan event” where a complete business plan is required. Business plan events are usually part of the fundraising process. During fundraising, lenders and investors may ask to see a detailed plan and it’s important to be ready if that request comes up. 

But there are other good reasons to write a detailed business plan. A detailed plan forces you to think through the details of your business and how, exactly, you’re going to build your business. Detailed plans encourage you to think through your business strategy, your target market, and your competition carefully. A good business plan ensures that your strategy is complete and fleshed out, not just a collection of vague ideas.

A traditional business plan is also a good foundation for a long-term business plan and I recommend that you expand your lean business plan into a complete business plan if you intend to create plans for more than three years into the future.

3. Develop long-term goals and growth targets

As you work on your business plan, you’ll need to think about where you want to be in 5+ years. A good exercise is to envision what your business will look like. How many employees will you have? How many locations will you serve? Will you introduce new products and services? 

When you’ve envisioned where you want your business to be, it’s time to turn that vision into a set of goals that you’ll document in your business plan. Each section of your business plan will be expanded to highlight where you want to be in the future. For example, in your target market section, you will start by describing your initial target market. Then you’ll proceed to describe the markets that you hope to reach in 3-5 years.

To accompany your long-term goals, you’ll also need to establish revenue targets that you think you’ll need to meet to achieve your goals. It’s important to also think about the expenses you’re going to incur in order to grow your business. 

For long-range planning, I recommend thinking about your expenses in broad buckets such as “marketing” and “product development” without getting bogged down in too much detail. Think about what percentage of your sales you’ll spend on each of these broad buckets. For example, marketing spending might be 20% of sales. 

4. Develop a 3-5 year strategic plan

Your goals and growth targets are “what” you want to achieve. Your strategy is “how” you’re going to achieve it.

Use your business plan to document your strategy for growth. You might be expanding your product offering, expanding your market, or some combination of the two. You’ll need to think about exactly how this process will happen over the next 3-5 years. 

A good way to document your strategy is to use milestones. These are interim goals that you’ll set to mark your progress along the way to your larger goal. For example, you may have a goal to expand your business nationally from your initial regional presence. You probably won’t expand across the country all at once, though. Most likely, you’ll expand into certain regions one at a time and grow to have a national presence over time. Your strategy will be the order of the regions that you plan on expanding into and why you pick certain regions over others.

Your 3-5 year strategy may also include what’s called an “exit strategy”. This part of a business plan is often required if you’re raising money from investors. They’ll want to know how they’ll eventually get their money back. An “exit” can be the sale of your business or potentially going public. A typical exit strategy will identify potential acquirers for your business and will show that you’ve thought about how your business might be an attractive purchase.

5. Tie your long-term plan to your one-page plan

As your business grows, you can use your long-term business plan as your north star. Your guide for where you want to end up. Use those goals to steer your business in the right direction, making small course corrections as you need to. 

You’ll reflect those smaller course corrections in your one-page plan. Because it is a simple document and looks at the shorter term, it’s easier to update. The best way to do this is to set aside a small amount of time to review your plan once a month. You’ll review your financial forecast, your milestones, and your overall strategy. If things need to change, you can make those adjustments. Nothing ever goes exactly to plan, so it’s OK to make corrections as you go.

You may find that your long-term plan may also need corrections as you grow your business. You may learn things about your market that change your initial assumptions and impacts your long-range plan. This is perfectly normal. Once a quarter or so, zoom out and review your long-range plan. If you need to make corrections to your strategy and goals, that’s fine. Just keep your plan alive so that it gives you the guidance that you need over time. 

• Vision setting is the purpose of long-term planning

Part of what makes entrepreneurs special is that they have a vision. They have dreams for where they want their business to go. A 5-year business plan should be about documenting that vision for the future and how your business will capitalize on that vision.

So, if someone asks you for your 5-year business plan. Don’t scramble to put together a sales forecast and budget for 5 years from now. Your best guess today will be obsolete tomorrow. Instead, focus on your vision and communicate that. 

Explain where you think your business is going and what you think the market is going to be like 5 years from now. Explain what you think customers are going to want and where trends are headed and how you’re going to be there to sell the solution to the problems that exist in 5 and 10 years. Just skip the invented forecasts and fantasy budgets.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

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Crafting a comprehensive business plan: a step-by-step guide with business plan template.

In the dynamic world of entrepreneurship, a well-crafted business plan serves as the cornerstone for success. Whether you’re launching a startup or seeking funding for your venture, having a clear roadmap outlined in a business plan is essential. This article provides a detailed guide, along with a business plan template, to help you navigate the process effectively.

Introduction to Business Plan Template:

A business plan template serves as a structured framework for outlining your business goals, strategies, and operational details. It encompasses various sections that cover different aspects of your venture, including the executive summary, company description, market analysis, marketing and sales strategy, operational plan, and financial projections.

Understanding the Importance of a Business Plan Template:

A well-defined business plan serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it provides clarity and direction, helping you articulate your business idea, identify your target market, and define your unique value proposition. Secondly, it serves as a strategic tool for attracting investors, lenders, and potential partners by showcasing the viability and potential profitability of your venture. Additionally, a business plan serves as a roadmap for monitoring progress, making informed decisions, and adapting to changing market conditions.

A well-crafted business plan template not only provides structure and organization but also acts as a dynamic document that evolves with your business. It serves as a repository for your thoughts, ideas, and strategies, allowing you to capture and refine your vision over time. As your business grows and evolves, you can update your business plan to reflect new goals, challenges, and opportunities, ensuring alignment with your overarching objectives.

Moreover, a business plan template facilitates communication and collaboration among stakeholders, including team members, investors, advisors, and partners. It serves as a common reference point for discussing and evaluating key aspects of your business, fostering transparency and alignment of goals and expectations.

Furthermore, a business plan template encourages disciplined decision-making and accountability. By outlining clear objectives, milestones, and performance metrics, it provides a framework for evaluating progress and holding yourself accountable for achieving desired outcomes. Regularly reviewing and revising your business plan allows you to track your performance, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your strategies accordingly.

In essence, a well-defined business plan template is not just a static document but a dynamic tool that empowers you to clarify your vision, attract support and investment, and navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship with confidence and agility. It serves as a compass, guiding you through the ups and downs of the business journey and helping you stay focused on your long-term goals amidst the inevitable challenges and uncertainties of the marketplace.

Components of a Business Plan:

1. executive summary:.

The executive summary provides an overview of your business idea, highlighting key elements such as your mission statement, target market, unique selling proposition, and financial projections. It serves as a concise snapshot of your entire business plan, capturing the reader’s attention and enticing them to delve deeper into the document.

2. Company Description:

In this section, you’ll provide detailed information about your company, including its history, legal structure, ownership, location, and mission statement. You’ll also outline your business objectives, core values, and competitive advantage, positioning your company within the market landscape.

3. Market Analysis:

A thorough market analysis is essential for understanding your target market, industry trends, competitors, and potential opportunities and threats. Conduct market research to gather relevant data on market size, demographics, consumer behavior, and competitive landscape. Use this information to identify your target market segment and develop effective marketing and sales strategies.

4. Marketing and Sales Strategy:

Outline your marketing and sales strategies for reaching and acquiring customers. Define your target audience, positioning, pricing strategy, distribution channels, and promotional tactics. Clearly articulate how you plan to attract and retain customers, generate leads, and drive sales growth.

5. Operational Plan:

The operational plan outlines the day-to-day operations of your business, including your production process, supply chain management , facilities, equipment, and staffing requirements. Define your organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, and key operational processes. Identify any potential challenges or risks and outline contingency plans for mitigating them.

6. Financial Projections:

Financial projections provide an estimate of your business’s future financial performance, including revenue, expenses, profitability, and cash flow. Prepare income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements based on realistic assumptions and market data. Include sales forecasts, expense budgets, break-even analysis, and return on investment (ROI) projections to demonstrate the financial feasibility and sustainability of your venture.

Conclusion:

A well-crafted business plan serves as a roadmap for success, guiding your business strategy, attracting investors, and driving growth. by following this comprehensive guide and utilizing the provided business plan template, you can effectively articulate your business idea, analyze market opportunities, develop strategic plans, and achieve your entrepreneurial goals. remember to regularly review and update your business plan to adapt to changing market conditions and ensure continued success., what is a business plan template.

A business plan template is a preformatted document outlining the essential components of a business plan, including executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management structure, product or service offerings, marketing and sales strategies, financial projections, and appendices.

Why is a business plan template important?

A business plan template provides a structured framework for entrepreneurs to articulate their business ideas, define their goals and objectives, and develop a roadmap for achieving success. It serves as a valuable tool for planning, strategizing, and communicating key aspects of the business to stakeholders.

Can I customize a business plan template to fit my specific business needs?

Yes, a business plan template is highly customizable to reflect the unique characteristics and requirements of your business. You can tailor the template by adding or removing sections, adjusting content, and incorporating relevant details to align with your business model, industry, and goals.

Do I need a business plan template if I’m not seeking external funding?

Even if you’re not seeking external funding, a business plan template can still be beneficial as it helps you clarify your business concept, identify potential challenges and opportunities, and establish a roadmap for growth and success. It serves as a valuable reference tool for guiding decision-making and tracking progress.

Where can I find a business plan template?

Business plan templates are readily available online from various sources, including business organizations, government agencies, financial institutions, and entrepreneurial websites. You can choose from a variety of templates based on your business type, industry, and specific needs, and customize them to suit your requirements.

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Small Business Trends

How to create a farm business plan.

If you buy something through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more .

Crafting a comprehensive farm business plan is a crucial step towards transforming your agricultural visions into tangible realities. This plan serves as a blueprint, enabling you to formally articulate your thoughts, ideas, and aspirations. Engaging in this process can lead to profound insights, illuminating the path to a thriving agricultural enterprise.

Even though the term ‘farm business plan’ might evoke a sense of formal rigidity, it’s important to remember that this document is, in fact, a living, evolving entity. Just like a seedling that sprouts, grows, and changes with the seasons, your business plan is not meant to be static.

It’s something you nurture, revise, and expand as circumstances dictate and as your farm business matures. Feeling pressure to perfect your business plan from the outset could be paralyzing. Instead, we suggest you view this document as a foundation that can be continuously built upon.

To get you started, we offer a detailed farm business plan template. This invaluable resource can be tailored and expanded to suit your unique agricultural venture, whether you’re cultivating a sprawling wheat field or nurturing a boutique organic herb garden.

The most effective business plans are those that exhibit flexibility and resilience, characteristics that are at the heart of any successful farm business. Agriculture, by its very nature, is a domain subject to the whims of Mother Nature. From unpredictable weather patterns to seasonal variations, farmers of all kinds grapple with an array of external factors.

Therefore, your farm business plan should not only anticipate these challenges but also prescribe adaptive measures to navigate through them. It’s this inherent adaptability that transforms a good farm business plan into a great one.

Writing a Farm Business Plan Template: 15+ Things Entrepreneurs Should Include

A farm business plan, like any strategic document, should be comprehensive, encompassing all aspects of your operation, be it agricultural (crops) or product-based. Utilize these 15 key sections to shape your farm business plan template.

Do bear in mind that while these sections are integral, they are by no means exhaustive. Your farm business plan may necessitate additional topics based on your specific farming operations.

Creating a robust business plan is of paramount importance, whether you’re kickstarting a farm venture or acquiring an existing one. Our farm business plan template starts off with an executive summary.

Executive Summary

The executive summary provides an essential overview of your farm business. It helps to streamline communication and understanding between various stakeholders, such as internal team members, potential lenders, business partners, and customers. When drafting your executive summary, consider the following key components:

• Business Profile : Provide a snapshot of your farm business, describing its nature and scope. Are you into crop cultivation, livestock rearing, or any specialized farming practices?
• Products : Clearly outline what product or products your farm will produce. These could range from dairy products to specific crops or even services like agrotourism.
• Production Methodology : Describe how you plan to achieve your production goals. This could involve discussing your farming techniques, usage of technology, or unique methodologies.
• Target Audience : Identify the individuals or groups who will be interested in your farm products or services. These might be local consumers, restaurants, farmers’ markets, or even online customers.
• Key Strategies : Highlight the strategies you plan to implement to run and grow your business. This could cover marketing techniques, sustainability practices, or partnerships.
• Mission and Vision : Briefly outline the mission and vision of your farm business. This helps to convey your long-term objectives and core values.

Remember, your executive summary is essentially the first impression of your business plan. Making it comprehensive, clear, and compelling will help attract interest and support from stakeholders.

Goals and Objectives

A well-crafted business plan should encapsulate both personal and economic goals and objectives. Many successful farm business plans also address environmental stewardship and community outreach. You may want to include goals around preserving farm resources for future generations, ensuring that both the operational and stewardship aspects remain within the family.

Introduction

Your introduction should provide information about the business owners, including their backgrounds and levels of industry experience.

Mission Statement and Values of Your Farming Business Plan

This section enables you to express the core values that led you to the farming business, whether it’s an urban farming venture or a homemade product-based farm. Your mission statement should reflect these values. Sustainable practices and conservation are often key motivations that draw people to farming, so don’t be shy to share your commitment to such principles.

Industry History

Understanding your place within the wider agricultural landscape is key. Be sure to research farms that have historically dominated your region, whether they specialize in vineyards, urban farming, or livestock rearing. Use this research to make educated projections about the future.

Company Background and History

Share the history of your farm if it has been a long-standing family venture or the journey leading up to your purchase if it wasn’t. If your farm business is a startup, focus on the business experience and backgrounds of the involved parties.

Competitor Analysis

Understanding your competition is crucial. In the agricultural sector, farmers often share resources, such as a high-tech corn planter , or cooperate in marketing endeavors. Factor in such synergies when analyzing competitors.

Target Market

Clearly define your target market. This can include area groceries, farmers’ markets, or online customers. If you’ll be relying on online sales, ensure your website is professionally designed, keyword optimized, and easily discoverable.

Products and Services

Describe each product or service offered by your farm, highlighting those features most appealing to your target market.

Organization, Human Resources, and Management Plans

These interconnected elements cover your farm’s day-to-day operations, employee roles and responsibilities (including their job descriptions ), and overarching management plans.

SWOT Analysis

Conduct a SWOT analysis to identify your farm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will help you strategize on how to leverage your strengths, mitigate your weaknesses, exploit opportunities, and neutralize threats.

Your vision is the roadmap for your farm’s future. It should express not just your financial aspirations but also your plans for the farm operation in the long run.

Growth Strategy

A comprehensive growth strategy should outline your plans for debt reduction, savings, and business expansion. Keeping detailed farm production records is key to evaluating the effectiveness of your growth strategy.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include elements like balance sheets, income statements, projected cash flows, loan repayment schedules, and depreciation factors.

Marketing Strategy

A robust marketing strategy is essential for your farm’s success. Look into brochures, advertisements, and joining co-op groups. Resources from institutions like the University of Minnesota and Cornell University offer comprehensive insights into effective marketing strategies for farm businesses.

Establishing a Farming Business Entity

Discuss the legal structure of your farm business. Will it be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, an LLC, or a corporation? Outline the pros and cons of each and why the chosen structure is the best fit for your farm business.

Detailed Description of Farm Operations

Include a section that provides an in-depth look at your day-to-day farm operations. This can cover everything from crop rotation plans, livestock breeding programs, to the use of technology and machinery in your farming activities.

Risk Management Strategies

Address potential risks and challenges your farm might face, such as natural disasters, market fluctuations, or pest infestations. Discuss the strategies you plan to implement to mitigate these risks, like insurance coverage, diversification, and emergency response plans.

Sustainability and Environmental Impact

Highlight your farm’s approach to sustainability and its impact on the environment. Discuss practices like organic farming, conservation techniques, and renewable energy usage, which demonstrate your commitment to environmental stewardship.

Community Involvement and Social Responsibility

Describe how your farm business plans to engage with and contribute to the local community. This could include hosting educational farm tours, participating in farmers’ markets, or supporting local food programs.

Supply Chain and Vendor Relationships

Detail your farm’s supply chain and vendor relationships. Explain how you plan to source inputs like seeds, feed, or equipment, and any partnerships with local suppliers or distributors.

Technology and Innovation

Discuss the role of technology and innovation in your farm business. This could include the use of precision agriculture, innovative irrigation systems, or the adoption of farm management software to enhance efficiency and productivity.

Training and Development Plans

Explain how you intend to train and develop your staff. Include plans for ongoing education, skill development, and potentially, leadership training for future farm managers.

Expansion and Diversification

Outline your long-term plans for expansion and diversification. This could involve adding new crops, branching into agrotourism, or exploring value-added products like farm-produced jams or cheeses.

Exit Strategy

Consider including an exit strategy for your farming business. This could be a plan for succession, selling the business, or transitioning to a different type of agricultural operation.

Wrap up your business plan with a conclusion that reiterates your farm’s core mission and vision, and express your enthusiasm and commitment to making your farm business a success.

Frequently Asked Questions

Include a FAQ section at the end of your business plan to address common questions potential investors or partners may have about your farm business. This can include queries about your business model, funding needs, or market potential.

Provide an addendum for additional documents that support your business plan. This can include resumes of key team members, detailed financial projections, market research data, or letters of support from future customers or partners.

Do I Need a Business Plan for My Farm?

Even if you’re knee-deep in the dirt, tending to your crops or livestock, every farming enterprise has the core elements of a business at its heart. These include aspects such as operations, marketing, human resources, and finances. When you embark on developing a farm business plan, it might astonish you to see where the journey takes you. You could end up discovering facets of your farm business that you hadn’t previously considered.

One of the many advantages of constructing your business plan is the opportunity it affords to involve others. Employees, family members, even your loyal farm dog might have innovative small farm business ideas that could significantly enhance your farm’s productivity and marketability. A different perspective can often yield solutions for issues you might not have even been aware of. Therefore, encourage an open exchange of thoughts and ideas. Who knows, the next great idea could be lying right under your hay bale!

More than just a document outlining your farm’s structure, your farm business plan should serve as a valuable decision-making tool. With it, you can confidently navigate the varied terrain of farm management, from daily operations to larger strategic initiatives. When you’ve got a meticulously crafted, robust farm business plan, it doesn’t just narrate your farm’s story, but also provides you with a roadmap to future growth and success.

Beyond this, a top-notch farm business plan can also be a lever that helps you access critical financing. Lenders and investors are more likely to support your venture when they see a well-structured, thoughtful business plan that articulates your vision, illustrates your understanding of the market, and demonstrates your commitment to fiscal responsibility.

So, where to begin? Let’s dive into our fundamental guide to crafting a farm business plan using our adaptable template. This resource has been designed to help you capture every aspect of your agricultural venture, laying a strong foundation for a bountiful future.

How Do I Write a Small Farm Business Plan?

Don’t sit down to write the whole thing. Chip away, one section at a time. Keep in mind that the plan doesn’t have to be the definitive last word. You can make adaptations.

How do you start a farm business plan?

Start with one piece of the business plan. One of the hardest sections of a business plan to write is the Mission Statement . If you get bogged down there, continue and come back to it later.

How much do farm owners make a year?

As you can imagine, the net income varies greatly by type of farm business.

The bottom line after expenses may not be high. Farmers need to consider net worth as assets grow and the farm property increases in value.

How much does it cost to start a small farm?

Getting set up to raise 100 beef cattle costs lots more than getting set up to raise 100 rabbits.

Things like property acquisition, soil preparation, equipment and machinery and the key costs. Other costs may be i rrigation systems , packaging and trucking.

What is the most profitable farming business?

Poultry farming is currently the most profitable – and common – farm business in the world. It includes chicken, turkey, quail, ducks and goose, that are being raised for meat or eggs.

It’s also one of the most expensive businesses to start, requiring significant capital investment. The industry is very labor-intensive and labor costs are high.

Image: Depositphotos

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Free Webinar | May 7: How to Write Your One-Page Business Plan Workshop Did you know entrepreneurs with business plans are 260% more likely to launch? Join our workshop on May 7th and learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you get your business off the ground. Register now!

By Entrepreneur Staff • Apr 16, 2024

Do you wish you could run a business that would make the most of your skills, experience and earn you the money that you're really worth?

Or perhaps you've already started your own business but it seems like no matter how hard you work you're no closer to the dream that inspired you to start your company in the first place.

If you're not hitting your goals, it's not due to a lack of ambition, you just need a better plan to make it happen.

Specifically, a business plan.

Related: Join our workshop on May 7th and learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you get your business off the ground. Register now!

A study from BusinessDIT revealed that:

Entrepreneurs with business plans are 260% more likely to launch

71% of fast-growing businesses have plans

With the right business plan, you'll be more likely to launch and grow faster once you do.

So, why don't you have an updated plan? There are a few common reasons.

"I'm too busy"

"It's too confusing"

"I have too much else going on"

It's time to end the excuses so you can achieve predictable revenue growth without going back to school for an MBA.

Join Our Free How to Write Your Business Plan Workshop

During this workshop, you'll learn how to create a one-page business plan that will help you perfect your strategy, marketing and business processes.

You're just one hour away from having the clarity needed to reduce confusion, improve your offer and maximize your revenue potential.

You'll also receive a customizable one-page business plan so you can immediately apply what you've learned.

Now is the time to work on your business so the time you spend working in your business will be more efficient and rewarding.

Imagine knowing that at any given time, you're taking the right actions that are directly aligned with the vision you had when you first started your business.

There's no need to imagine. Just sign up for the workshop and then commit to applying what you've learned.

All registered attendees will get a recording of the presentation and a copy of the one-page business plan template. And if you know of anyone else who should attend, share this with them so they can hold you accountable.

Sign up now and turn your business idea into action.

About the Speaker:

Terry Rice is a high-performance coach to entrepreneurs, keynote speaker and journalist at Entrepreneur magazine. He's also the host of Reclaim + Advance, a podcast that helps entrepreneurs overcome setbacks and perform at their highest level.

Prior to becoming a creator-entrepreneur, Terry's previous experience includes internal consulting roles at Adobe and Meta.

In addition to his role as Director of Growth and Partnerships at Good People Digital, Terry is an instructor at New York University, speaks at events for leading companies - including Amazon and Google - and has been featured as a subject matter expert by Good Morning America, Fast Company and the Wall Street Journal.

Based in Brooklyn, he is a husband, father of five children, and is an advocate for mental and physical fitness.

Entrepreneur Staff

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