How to Write a Business Plan

Everything you need to create a business forecast that potential investors can embrace!

Thinking of starting a business or raising money to expand an existing one? This popular book will show you how to write the business plan and loan package necessary to finance your business and make it work.

With How to Write a Business Plan, you'll learn how to:

# evaluate the profitability of your business idea
# estimate operating expenses
# prepare cash flow
# create profit and loss forecasts
# determine assets, liabilities and net worth
# find potential sources of financing (up-to-date sources provided)
# think first before borrowing from friends and relatives
# present your plan to lenders and investors

How to Write a Business Plan now provides a CD-ROM with spreadsheets that help you determine and forecast cash flow, financial statements, sales revenue, and profit and loss. It also provides three sample business plans you can modify for your own use.

The 8th edition is completely updated, providing all-new resources, both online and off.

While this book may not be for the MBA grad, it is for the entrepreneur who is breaking on the scene with a dream that they have to make happen. How to Write a Business Plan must have used as it's mantra, "baby steps, baby steps in the right direction." Take a project that can be overwhelming and use this book to go through the process in manageable steps.

Napoleon Hill said it and so did Robert Kiyosaki...every successful business starts with an idea. Are you ready...why just sit there thinking about your great idea...why not go ahead and make it happen?!?


Easy steps for writing a business plan without need for software   October 2, 2005
Catherine Gallanti (San Diego, CA USA)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

I gravitated towards this book after realizing that my business idea did not fit easily within any of the prepackaged business plan software. The idea of writing the financial forcasting projections and tables on my own was quite daunting, but following this book I not only understood how to write the plan, but learned a great deal about small business financials in the process. I had use the software in the past and I had not learned a thing. Here, for the first time I actually understood why a good business plan is important, aside from being a tool for getting people to lend you money, as an actual tool to making the business work. I highly recommend this book to anybody that wants to learn a bit more about financial planning before setting out to accomplish their dream. Personally I am very grateful to have found this book, as it made a hard job easy to do. Thanks Mike, your book is a winner.


Almost Addictive   August 27, 2006
Bridget Smith (Juneau, AK USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

While writing a business plan, I spent two intense weeks with this book, reading and writing furiously every day. I came to understand phrases that had eluded me such as cash flow, profit and loss forecast, and gross profit percentage. It took me step by step through the process using simple, highly readable language, and short and interesting examples. The tear out forms in the back for filling in numbers are invaluable, and for the first time, while filling in the profit and loss forecast, the term "bottom line" took on real significance. The author also includes other extensive resources for new business owners and an excellent index. Scattered throughout are axioms and pieces of advice that I found truly helpful. Whether I succeed with this business or not is still up in the air, but it won't be for lack of having a good business plan!


Writing Bankable Business Plan   May 16, 2007
Elijah Chingosho (Nairobi, Kenya)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful



The book is a step-by-step guide on how to write a practical business plan particularly for entrepreneur starting a business. The reader is guided through the interrelated elements of a typical plan. These elements are the mission, market, competition, self-evaluation, opportunities, objectives, strategies, programmes, goals, resources and financials. The book has several examples from actual strategic plans, making it easy for the reader to understand the subject fully. The course is easy to follow and will help you think through your business and come up with a bankable business plan.

This is a well-written and thorough self-help book that will lead you through the business plan writing process. After reading the book, its several examples and worksheets, you should be able to present a convincing business plan with well-laid out financials that should be convincing, understandable and impressive to banks and investors.

The book is an excellent companion for the entrepreneur that is well worth having.



It's a step-by-step primer no entrepreneur should be without!   May 19, 2007
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

There are plenty of basic books on the market on how to write a business plan: but how many come branded with the Nolo Press badge of authoritative presentations; and how many provide an accompanying cd-rom with spreadsheets to help forecast cash flow, sales revenue and profit and loss - plus three sample business plans which can be plugged in and modified for personal needs? It's a step-by-step primer no entrepreneur should be without!

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch