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 There is really not one way to develop a business plan.  Every company is very unique, therefore, each and every business plan will be as well.  Here are some things to think about prior to developing your plan.  Even if you are not going to develop a plan, make sure you read through these items, they will help you in how you think about your business.

 Why a Business Plan:

• To use as a guideline, and a checklist for your business.

• To raise capital for your business.

• To formalize your business and identify strategy.

• To present to potential business partners 

• To use as a feasibility study.

• To identify, consider, focus and execute on each aspect of your business.

• To help you learn about your business.

 Products and Services:

• Present status of your product or service
• How do you differentiate
• Who will purchase, and why
• What niche do you fit into
• How do you create demand
• Define product and service deliverable
• Customer Perception
• How do you add value

 Sales and Marketing 

• How do you intend to sell
• How do you want to be perceived
• How do you intend to manage leads
• How do you intend to generate and qualify leads
• How to market your product or service - to whom, what vehicles
• Once introduced to a potential customer, how do you intend persuade the customer to purchase your product or service
• How do you intend to generate incremental revenue
• Sales and marketing are different

Here are the five pieces 

Parts of your business plan:

• Executive Summary
• Markets, Customer and Competition
• Products and Services
• Sales & Marketing
• Finance and Legal

Executive Summary:

• Mission statement
• Status of the company
• Products or services you will sell
• Benefit to the customer (what business problem will your product or service solve
• Company objectives, 1,2, 5  years, how  it plans to reach those objectives and how much money it will take to reach those objectives
• Management team

 Finance and Legal:

• Start up costs
• Projections (most businesses lose money in the first year)
• Income Statements, Balance Sheets, Cash-flow statements
• How to break even and achieve profitability
• Set up for tax purposes S corp, C corp, LLP, LLC
  Set up to legally limit your liability and your investment

 Markets, customer and competition:

• Present market
• Market short term/long term – trends
• Target Market
• Competition - who, barriers, differentiation, budgetary
• Customer identification, who, service, benefit, Why will they purchase

 Other considerations:

• How do you intned to price your product or service? Does it fit into your marketing, sales, financial and customer strategies?
• Demographic research, perception pricing.
• How to market: direct, mail,telemarketing, radio, television,
• Marketing strategy, what are your competitive advantages.
• Packaging, company logo, name.  How do you differentiateyour product or service
• Barriers to entry/exit
• What is the competitions stregths/weaknesses, how does your customer perceive the competition?
• Five nearest competitors
• Identify, identify, identify Who is your customer? Where is your customer? when do they purcehase?why do they purchase? how often do they purchase?
• Why will they buy your product or service, why will they purchase or prefer it over a competitor
• Hows the economy, who is spending and on what, supply/demand disposable income