A Free
Business Plan Sample Will Jump Start Your Presentation!
Getting a free business plan sample is the easy part.
In fact, every single business plan package that we put together has at
least a few business plan samples; many have quite a few.
For example, all of these include links to over 40 free
business plans:
... and lots more!
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Check the links at the top
of the nav bar for more options. |
Sometimes even 40 free business plan
samples weren't enough, so we included literally
HUNDREDS.
Each of the following business plans comes with a separate ebook listing
over 400 links to free business plans:
Once you've got your free business plan
sample, what do you do with it?
Do you use it verbatim? Not a chance.
A free business plan sample is going to
represent vanilla style writing and presentation for some non-existent
business. Honestly, most of them are pretty lousy.
But yours is not a "non-existent business".
Your business is very real, even if it doesn't have a home yet. Your
business has a personality, a direction, a sense of style that sample
business plans just don't have.
Let's look at a "for instance".
Here's a typical paragraph from a free
business plan:
The pizza parlor will serve the residents
of Sunny Hollow. It will be more successful than existing pizza
parlor because the pizza will be better. We have tried out our pizza
on lots of test groups, and they really like it.
Now this paragraph has good intentions.
For instance,
- It tells what population will be served.
- It explains why it will be successful.
- It notes that there has been testing on
the product.
These are all important things to include
in a business plan. But you can do it a whole lot better. Lets
take just one of those sentences and show how you can write it. Let's
take that last sentence: "We have tried out our pizza on lots of test
groups, and they really like it." Here is what your page may look
like:
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Testing Our Pizza What good is a
pizza if kids don't like it? So we decided to test it with the
toughest panel in town: my son's sixth grade class.
We made three pizzas. We bought three
from Pizza Heaven, and another three from Round Table Pizza. We
took all this to Baker Street School Cafeteria, and with the able
assistance of the food service staff, we served it all steaming hot.
As with a good blind test, we simply labeled
each pizza "A", "B" and "C". We invited the kids (and Ms.
Johansen, of course!) to try whatever pizza they wanted and rate them.
Here are the results, as calculated
by Ms. Johansen:
| Round Table Pizza |
B- |
| Heavenly Pizza |
C+ |
| OUR PIZZA |
A- |
[insert a picture of the "testing panel"]
We were thrilled! (Not
surprised. Just thrilled.)
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Will this approach get you funding if the
projections aren't right? NEVER!
But will it bring a smile to your lender?
Absolutely. And smiles are worth a lot in this economic climate.
This kind of approach for a pizza parlor
makes you a real person. This isn't a cold, calculated business plan
from a free business plan sample. It is a real business plan from a
nice person with ingenuity and humor.
SO WHY EVEN BOTHER WITH A FREE BUSINESS
PLAN SAMPLE?
It would be easier if we just left out the
free business plan samples. They take a long time to track down and
categorize. There are actually two reasons we include them: the
troops would rebel, and they really do serve a useful purpose.
Everyone asks for free business plan
samples. When we started writing business plans years ago, we wanted
samples to go from too.
And that brings me to the "useful" part.
Reading through a few business plans to get an idea of what they cover, how
they are organized, etc., is very useful. As you read through your
free business plan sample, there are some things you should be looking for,
such as:
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Formatting that looks clean and
sharp.
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Color schemes that "work".
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Strong descriptions of business.
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Marketing plans that are persuasive.
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Biographical summaries that describe
a successful person.
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Types of funding that have worked,
especially those non-obvious ones.
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Mention of sources for demographics
or marketing stats.
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Specific language or phrases that
sound snappy.
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Cover art that is interesting.
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Projections that make sense.
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Clues to the basis of projections.
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How to handle the catastrophe
contingency, an increasingly important issue.
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How much money to set aside for a
rainy day.
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How others found ways of saving
money and locating bargains.
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How to use charts and graphs and
maps to present your demographics.
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What they do to entice the reader to
read more.
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What do they do if the industry is
in a slump.
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What makes you like one business
plan, and not like another.
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There is a lot more that you can discover in a free
business plan sample. Whatever your special circumstances are, keep an
eye out for how other people handled the issue. You will be amazed at
how often you can devise a better solution for yourself.
Back to top of Free Business
Plan Sample
C.J. Ralph,
