Business Plans..... Are They Important

Hello, today  I have a few questions for you concerning your business.  What is your business plan?  How important is this to your goals? Finally can you honestly have a productive and successful business without a business plan?

Well, let's start from the beginning.  According to wikipedia,

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

In addition business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, taxpayer, or larger community. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture, a 3 to 5 year business plan is required, since investors will look for their annual return in that time frame.


When you are a start up or new business, banks, small business administrators, urban leagues, and other entities will often ask you for a business plan before they will even talk ,to you and/or   counsel you and definitely before loaning any money.  Also as we see in the above definition, your goals are defined within your business plan, therefore stating your goals are very important and necessary.  Taking this into effect it is safe to assume the  answer to  the final question is a resounding no,

you must have a sound business plan which definitely defines your goals in order to have maintain and succeed in business.