Has anyone ever built a successful business without a business plan? Sure they have. However, I’m hard pressed to believe many interested partners, private investors or investor organizations give money to entrepreneurs with out seeing a well outlined business plan and a professional presentation first. Unless this individual or group has started many great businesses prior, blind investing won’t happen. If it does, the investors are most likely betting on the “jockey” (individual), not the “horse” (business concept).

Chances are you’re here because you don’t have that reputation of turning out more million dollar businesses than you can shake a stick at. To help, here are two very useful tips for business plan writing and presenting.

1) Being to the point wins people over: Don’t lengthen content because you feel it looks more legitimate. Audiences tend to pick up on that and will get irritated their time is being wasted. This goes for writing and presenting. Explain up front you’re going to keep it short and sweet because you know their time is valuable but you plan to cover everything important. Incase you don’t, you’d be happy to answer any questions.

2) What are you going to say (or present) in the first few lines to grab the audience’s attention? For a potential partner, it may be articulating the passion of the concept. For an investor, it may be presenting them up front with an enticing return on investment to make them listen the whole time to understand how it will happen and leave the details of the finances for the end.

A visually appealing one to two page executive summary is key for both of these points. People will read an executive summary, become interested and want more detailed information. If they are blindly sent an entire business plan, they may be overwhelmed and chances are not read anything at all!

What if you may never need partners or outside investment? Are you starting a lemonade stand? If your business does not require outside relationships than a business plan still serves as an internal roadmap for your company. What does that mean? You have a living document where you have written out your vision that is up in your head. It helps you focus and not allow you to waver or forget the reasons you started your company in the first place.