For your company, a written plan can crystallize your thinking and serve as a blueprint for your company's success. In our experience in investment banking, we have helped clients increase the price at which they sold their business by 50% or more vs. prior offers by providing buyers with a compelling description of the business and its future prospects and opportunities. Did the value of the business increase because of the plan we helped write? No, but buyers could understand the big picture much better, and that led to higher offers.

Writing a strong business plan will help you maximize your success in:

• Selling your company
• Raising capital from investors
• Arranging bank financing
• Starting a business
• Planning for a business expansion
• Integrating an acquisition
• Building a successful company

A business plan can help you introduce your business and yourself to the reader in the most favorable light. An attractively packaged business plan helps create a good first impression; a careless or inadequate plan will reflect badly on a company. Always prepare a cover letter and an executive summary (2-5 pages) of your plan, because many times you need to convince not only the person you are dealing with but other colleagues – investment or loan committees, for example. The actual organization will vary in response to your needs. The content of a plan should be tailored to the targeted audience and purpose. For example, if the plan is only for internal management, the content should be more geared toward action steps rather than descriptions of the company. Keep your plan concise, about 20 pages should be enough. For selling a business, it may be longer because you may need to include relevant exhibits. There are many resources and books on how to write a business plan. One that I like is: Writing a Convincing Business Plan, by Arthur R. DeThomas, Ph.D., and William B. Fredenberg, Ph.D. Barron's, 1995.