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I might mention that despite conventional wisdom there are cases where you do not need a business plan. If your business is 100% entreprnuer than yes a business plan is needed. However if your a franchisee and a franchise member you really do not need a detailed business plan. Your Franchise will do most of that for you via their General Manager program (which you should go through so you can supervise a GM) and teaching you the min metrics you must hit to achieve profitability, they will also coach you as you go along though what I found is not all their advice is relevant and some of their suggestions are useless. So it pays to have some previous business training or a college degree in business as well. So if your going the franchise route you do not always need a business plan as it is broken down for you and laid out for you by the franchisor. It is very important to have an exit plan though in all circumstances. That is if you do not achieve X metrics by X date, you need to make a decision to either pull out and maintain your future viability for a business or you need to declare bankruptcy depending on where you are with your finances. Always better to pull out and stay in the black then it is to file for bankruptcy, in my opinion. Helps a lot if you plan to try again in the future if you don't have a hard failure where you could not pay the bills. A soft landing while still a failure looks a lot better on your record and ability to manage things.

My personal experience. I have a BBA in Finance and after going throgh a GM program for a fast casual restaurant, had all the stats in my head, could do spot inventory in my head via eyeball check after 2 months operation and could balance the financial books and General Ledger, do Payroll and Taxes (with CPA's help which was only $400 a year fee for the CPA). So most people of average intelligence can do that without a business plan as long as they have an exit plan. GM training program was 4 weeks long and very intensive (it was not easy to pass but not impossible either). So you have to pay for the Hotel and Meals while that is going on. Franchisor usually picks up the tab for the class itself. So not hard brain wise to run a fast casual restaurant. The hours you put in is where you get nailed. Be prepared to spend a min of 80 hours a week if you do not have a paid GM. You cannot afford a paid GM unless the site is very profitable. With a paid GM be prepared to spend 40-45 hours a week with supervision and monitoring. If you or someone else does not spend that time with GM supervision or site supervision, your going to lose fairly substantial money to graft, inventory, and clients to food not prepped or delivered to standards.

Hey, I appreciate your response. It sounds like you've been through the ringer with franchising. Thank you for highlighting these points.

We are currently focused on skilled labor small businesses seeking to expand their operations through licensing options. We have worked with franchises at the executive level to create a visionary plan and objective based business plans for at the unit, or store, level. The 5 Paragraph Business Plan works really well across the entire franchise.

We pride ourselves in creating a simple to use method for tackling situationally dependent problems in business. "Situation dictates", right?

The majority of business planning methods being used today are either one of two main types: pitch style for seeking funding and execution style for running process based operations. The 5 Paragraph Business Plan is better served in a more fluid environment, hence our focus on skilled labor; primarily residential contractors.