If you are going to be looking for lenders or investors for your new online business, you are going to want to make sure that you have created an accurate, complete and professional looking business plan that reflects your business goals. After all, why would anyone want to invest if you provide a thrown together, messy business plan?

You will want to create a business plan that covers all of the aspects of your business and most lenders have come to expect a specific format in business plans. If your business proposal does not meet those expectations you might find your business plan stuck somewhere in the bottom of a pile to look at later or worse it might just make it to the trashcan. If you are not aware of the format that your lending institute or potential investors prefer, ask them, or at the very least do your homework and find out what the expectations are.

Make sure that you personalize your business plan. Businesses come in every size and shape and so do business plans. Make sure that your business plan is reflective of your business – in other words, it’s as unique as your business.

If you use a standard business plan template and you simple plug into the blanks your information, do you think you will gain the interest of investors? What they will think is that if you can’t be bothered to create a business plan as unique as your own business you either don’t think enough about your business to put the effort in or your business isn’t unique enough for them to consider investing.

Make sure that you do a very good job of your executive summary. This is a summary of all of the key points in your business report. For you, it’s the last thing you should put together after you have completed your full business report, but for your potential lenders, investors or venture capitalists this is most likely the very first thing that you read. If what you put in your executive summary isn’t enticing enough then it’s likely that they will not bother to read the rest of your business plan. Then again, don’t exaggerate or add fluff to your executive summary because potential investors will see right through that.

Impress your lenders with a professional looking business plan that makes you stand out in the crowd.