Only begin doing an actual business plan if you have determined if the business is feasible. A business plan is very different from a business feasibility study. If you have not done the feasibility study to determine that your business idea meets both your financial and personal objectives, do this first. (The First Step to Starting A Small Business - Feasibility Workbook)

The business plan templates below are best described as business plan development workbooks. They will help you bring order to chaos.

The Business Plan Development Workbook has a series of exercises that will help you in thinking through the business requirements that are as important as you move toward the goal of producing a formal business plan document. The Business Plan Development Workbooks is intended to allow you to challenge your assumptions, and produce a rough format with which to guide the creation of your business plan.

You will use the notes from this workbook, as a reference for when you create your formal business plan. Follow through the business plan outline questions and write your responses on a separate piece of paper. The Business Plan Development Workbook was created to help you take ownership of your work. Use your own style. It should be a personal expression (an art form) as much as a professional document (scientifically and structurally sound).

READ THIS FIRST BEFOR LOOKING AT SAMPLE BUSINESS PLAN Keep in mind that business plans do not have to be extensive to be useful. They do not have to be full of charts and graphics to be useful. Business plans that are “pretty” but lack content are worthless. The business plan is nothing more or less than an organized repository of the assumptions you are founding your business on and the process you will undertake to achieve your objectives. The most dangerous thing you could do right now is to begin focusing on the development of your business plan as an end product. This is very easy to do and is a stumbling block for many first time entrepreneurs. To avoid this danger we suggest just focusing on becoming a student of business plans and see what business plans typically involve. The link below will take you to Bplans.com. This site has over 60 sample business plans that were developed using Business Plan Pro software. These are samples only. This is not an endorsement to use this software to develop your business plan. Often the time necessary to learn the software could be best spent actually developing your business plan. Remember that the business plan is not the end product – your business is. Therefore use these examples only to understand the parts of a business plan and not as an example of how your business plan must look. Most often your plan will not need to be as extensive and/or as “pretty” as these sample plans. We suggest you select a couple of business plans that are similar to the business you are considering and study them beginning to end. This will give you an idea of the information needed to develop a useful plan is organized.