What Is a Business Plan and How to Create One

Business Plan vs. Strategy and Process

A business plan is often confused with a business strategy or sales process—but there are key differences.

A business strategy, unlike a plan, is used by already established companies aiming to improve their sales process and better achieve their goals. Strategies can be outlined in the business plan, but as a company grows, its strategy is updated and refined.

The sales process is a framework of specific tasks and activities that lead to profit—typically serving as a guide for the sales team on how to generate leads, create offers, or behave in client meetings. This process is repeatable, flexible, structured, and measurable. You can learn how to set up a sales process in the relevant chapter of our SalesDriver.

Why Create a Business Plan

A business plan serves several purposes:

• it helps you clarify your long-term business goals and define how to achieve them,
• it reveals potential risks and outlines how to prevent them,
• it helps attract investors or banks for funding,
• it gives business partners and employees a clear understanding of your shared direction.

What a Business Plan Includes and Its Format

There is no single template for a business plan. You can choose the format that suits you best. However, if you're creating a business plan for a bank or investor (where it's formally referred to as a business proposal), make sure to ask what format and content they require.

Generally, every business plan should include:

• an introduction describing your business idea,
• a profile of the entrepreneur and their experience,
• a detailed description of the product or service, including why there will be demand,
• a customer profile (ideally with personas),
• market and competitor research,
• risk analysis,
• financial and marketing plan,
• required human resources including organizational structure,
• a rough timeline (laying out steps before and after launching the business).

Although a business plan contains a lot of information, it should always be concise. The maximum length of a business plan is 20 pages. With every additional page, reading it becomes more demanding—making it more likely to discourage your colleagues and potential investors.

The Most Important Part of a Business Plan Is Data

The most common flaw that causes business plans to fail is empty statements and a lack of data. Many entrepreneurs get excited about their idea without having any data to back up that the plan will actually work.

When creating your business plan, support every claim with research, studies, or statistics. Feel free to include them in the document as graphs or links so you can easily refer back to them anytime.

What to Watch Out for When Creating a Business Plan

Don’t be overly optimistic – When preparing your timeline or projected profit, don’t automatically assume the best-case scenarios. Be realistic, stay grounded, and plan for less favorable outcomes as well.

There’s no such thing as a universal business plan – Just as every entrepreneur is different, so is every business plan. Don’t try to copy a one-size-fits-all template; instead, tailor your plan to your specific idea and product. Only when applying for a bank loan should you check whether they require a specific format. In that case, first create the plan for your own purposes and then adapt it for the bank.

Don’t let your business plan gather dust – Make sure it doesn’t end up as just another forgotten document. Share it with your team and revisit it regularly to check if you're on track. Update it when needed. You can conveniently track your plan’s progress in a CRM, where you have all your leads, clients, deals, and sales results in one place.