IThe days of the fifty-page business plan have passed, investors and business partners are now much more interested in a plan that is concise and contains only important information. The challenge lies with determining what information is most important and how to structure the short business plan in a way that is quickly understand and sounds attractive to its readers. This article by Pro Business Plan contains information about how to structure the plan in a way that makes the most of its limited contents.

The most wasted part of a business plan is often the marketing section. Entrepreneurs and their brokers often fill it with unwanted information that, in many cases, has little direct impact on the business. By removing most of the market information, you can slim down the plan and focus on more important sections like the business model, marketing strategy, and financial projections.

When presenting these sections, it is important to be both concise and quickly communicate what the company does that is either unique or superior to the existing competition in the market.

The business model is the most important part of a short business plan and demonstrates what problem your company addresses in the market and how it proposes a solution. In most cases, investors will also be concerned with how your company will translate this market solution into tangible profits. Proposing a generic business model that lacks a competitive advantage will likely get significant resistance from investors and have a constant uphill battle as it enters the market. When creating a short business plan, clearly present what problem you are addressing at the beginning of the plan and make it the core theme of the plan.

The marketing strategy should not be comprehensive for a short business plan, but rather focus on what the management team will do that may be unique or innovative. If the company has strategic partnerships setup for the product launch or expansion strategy, these ought to be communicated. Providing an extensive generic product launch plan is probably unwarranted, but communicating a plan that leverage the latest techniques in the industry may be encouraging when received by its readers.

Many larger business plans will contain a five-year projection period or longer with full financial statements and several financial analysis models. For a short business plan, this is often consolidated to a three-year period and only contains revenue, expense, and net profit forecasts. In some cases, the use of funds and proposed valuation may be enclosed. However, the financial projections for a short business plan should be concise and easy to understand, omitting major visuals in exchange for the core information. Investors get many proposals on a daily basis, so providing with them with an extensive amount of unnecessary information is likely to leave them confused or uniformed.