Writing a Business Plan - The Executive Summary

Ahh, the mighty and dreaded business plan. Some experts say everyone should have one, while others suggest you only really need one to present to investors or lenders. In fact, if you need less than $100,000 from a lender, you may not need to present a business plan. For investors or larger loans, most experts will tell you that the business plan itself won't get you the deal, but any number of business plan mistakes will keep you from getting funded.

Perhaps the most important part of the business plan is the executive summary, the one or two pages at the beginning that will often determine whether the reader even wants to bother with the rest of it. While it's the first thing the reader will read, it's actually the last part you will write, so that you can draw on information from the rest of the plan.

I'll be running a series over the next couple of weeks looking at the various sections of the business plan in more depth. As Julie Andrews once sang, "Let's start at the very beginning - a very fine place to start":

• Writing a Business Plan - The Executive Summary
• How to Write an Executive Summary That Gets Your Business Plan Read