Many new business plan writers think the perfect business plans format is one that covers as many pages as possible and feels thick and heavy in the hands of the investor or banker they are handing it over to for review and possible funding. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that bankers and investors are busy people and as exciting as your business it to you they don’t actually have a lot of time or interest in wading through your opus of a plan.

What this means is that the perfect format for a business plan is one that conveys the critical information they will need to make an investment decision in the shortest and most efficient form possible. If this results in a plan that is only ten pages long instead of twenty five then that is fine.

The key thing to remember is that if you generate interest you can always provide more information later but you are not going to get anywhere by trying to drown people in information right off that bat.

Therefore, the best business plan format is one that highlights only the critical information that you need to put in a plan: who the product or service is for, how it provides a better solution than whatever is currently available, how big that market is and how you will reach that market. The plan must also address the capabilities of the team planning to pull this ambitious plan off with the money they are hoping to raise. If the business plan format you are using can do all that then you have found a winner – if not, keep looking.