What is a Good Length for Your Business Plan?

Business Plan Length

A Comprehensive Business Plan will typically be over 50 pages and can be upwards of 100+ pages.  This is highly dependent on the size, scope and sophistication of the business, venture or project.  From the Comprehensive Plan it is a simple task to form your Ancillary Plans, such as a Funding Business Plan.  Ancillary Plans typically are no more than 30 pages with 20-25 pages being the goal.  Ancillary Plan brevity forces you to decide what is most important and all important(p) for the type of plan and the intended audience.

Business Plan Writing and Development Time

300 Hours would be the maximum in most circumstances with 75-100 hours being a typical range.  Again this depends on the scope and complexity of the Business Project. If you use the services of a  Business Plan Writer, then you can share the time estimation roughly 50-50.

Packaging

1)     Clear Front Cover, Dark back cover, bound

2)     Cover distinctly denotes the Type of Business Plan (i.e. Funding Plan), Your Company Name and name of the Venture Project.

3)     First page should contain any Disclaimers, Non-Disclosure Requirements and Proprietary Protections. 

4)     Table of Contents

5)     Organized by Sections

6)     Cover Letter accompanies the Plan with Hot Button highlights for the specific reviewer.

7)     Use a Long Version Executive Summary, Fact Sheet, Venture Overview, Investment Overview and / or  Loan Summary (as applicable for your type of deal and targeted reader) to solicit interest.  Follow up with the Business Plan if serious interest is obtained, after having your Non-Disclosure Agreement signed (if applicable and really necessary—unnecessary NDs turn off potential investors).

8 )     Neat.  No sloppiness or errors.  Good Grammar and Punctuation.

9)     Use concise language.  This is a business document, not prose.  Don’t be too technical for external plans.

10)  Have paper copies, email version and online versions.  When sending a Paper Copy to someone, also include a DVD so different parts can be printed off as requisite for department or committee review.

11)  Keep your Loan Package and the Business Plan as separate documents.  The Loan Summary should accompany the Loan Package and the one sheeters (Venture Overview, Fact Sheet and Investment Overview) should accompany the Business Plan (these summaries can be used as standalone documents as well).  

12)  Package is specific to the audience.  Include Sections specific to that audience’s requirements and interests. Each Business Plan is packaged and edited for the Type of Plan and customized for the audience.  Select the particular sections from your Comprehensive Plan and adjust as necessary to target the audience and use.

13)  Some examples of specialty / ancillary Business Plans:

a)     Funding Business Plan:  i.e. for Lenders, Venture Capitalists, Investors, Finance, etc.

b)    Strategic Plan:  i.e. For the Strategic Planning Team, Sales director, Strategic Partners, Suppliers, Customers, etc.

c)     Marketing Plan:  Internal Company Version and External Version (i.e. for Customers).

d)    Sales Plan: blend the applicable parts of the Strategic & Marketing Plans for your Sales Division.

e)     Supplier Plan

f)     Customer Plan

g)    Distributor Plan

h)     Government Relations Plan

i)      Public Relations Plan

j)      Technical Plan

k)     technology Plan

l)      Joint Venture Plan

m)   Strategic Alliance Plan

n)     Product Development Plan

About this Article Writer

Frank Goley is a business consultant, business turnaround consultant, and business planner for ABC Business Consulting. Frank is an expert in writing, developing and implementing business plans, business turnaround plans, business funding plans, marketing plans, strategic plans and web marketing plans. Frank offers comprehensive business consulting, business coaching, business turnaround consulting, along with web seo, web development and web marketing consulting, to small and medium size companies.. Frank is author of the business plan book, The Comprehensive Business Plan Workbook – A Step by Step Guide to Effective Business Planning, and he has over 120 published articles on business success strategies. He also writes the Business Success Strategies Blog.