What style business plan should I use?

What style business plan should I use?

William A. Cohen (Author & Founder, Institute of Leader Arts) gives expert video advice on: What is the key to a successful business plan?; What are the top business plan mistakes?; Should I hire someone to write a business plan for me? and more...

There are ten-thousand styles I believe. There are many different recommendations regarding "structure it this way" or "structure it that way" or "structure it some other way". I would for one, go to a book so you can look at some models and see how they structure theirs. Use what you think it applicable to use and don't worry what is not. Usually your financials are three to five years in the future and how they are going to work out. The one thing I would say is, you want to be positive but truthful. In other words you never forget that a business plan is also a sales document if you're trying to get money, but you want to be truthful about it. The big mistakes are if you try to hype everything. Another big mistake is people tend to inflate sales either consciously or uncontionally. I always say to think what you think the sales should be and "half-them."