LibGuides: Business Planning Guide: Business Plans

Business Plans Handbook

A great way to start a business plan is to look at business plans that have been written by entrepreneurs or small business owners in your industry. For years, Gale has compiled actual business plans written by actual business people across North America into a publication called the "Business Plans Handbook."

The Business Plans Handbook series of reference books are available at the Business & Career Center at Brooklyn Public Library's Central Branch. Electronic versions of the plans included in the Business Plans Handbook series are included in the Gale Business: Entrepreneurship database.

Other Sample Business Plans

Bplans.com
Bplans.com has over 500 sample business plans from businesses in a variety of different industries. These plans can be searched categorically or by keyword.
Business Plan Index from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has made a categorical index of sample business plans. Most of these plans come from the Business Plans Handbook and Bplans.com, but they also list sample business plans from additional websites and some plans that are included in books.

Business Plan Templates

Bplans.com Business Plan Template
Bplans.com has a business plan template that can be downloaded as a word document. According to them, this template has been used by over 500,000 businesses and has been approved by universities such as Princeton and Babson.
SBA's Build Your Business Plan Tool
The U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA, has created a step-by-step tool for building, editing, and downloading your business plan. Once you register with the SBA, you can edit all of the sections of your plan, save them, update them, and export them to PDF files.
SCORE Business Plan Template
SCORE, which stands for the Service Corps of Retired Executives, has created a downloadable business plan template that includes instructions and fillable worksheets for each section.

Learning Resources

Gale Business: Entrepreneurship This link opens in a new window
Information on opening, operating, and growing a small business including financing, managing, marketing, and accounting; contains sample business plans.
Gale Business: Plan Builder This link opens in a new window
A step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing and optimizing a business or nonprofit; the Gale Business: Plan Builder dashboard walks users through five areas of exploration to develop a business plan focused on long-term success.

LinkedIn Learning
The library subscribes to a database of full length video courses called LinkedIn Learning. There is a "Become a Small Business Owner" Learning Path with several video courses on starting a business. One of these courses is "Creating a Business Plan," and this course also has downloadable exercise files so that you can work along with the course.

Books and eBooks

There are several books and eBooks in the library catalog on how to write a business plan. In addition to our general business planning books, we also have several books on how to start a business in a particular industry, and these books also cover how to write a business plan. Click the Subject Headings below to find our general business plan writing books and eBooks.

Business Planning

Small Business

Planning

Several of the books and eBooks on how to start a business in a particular industry in the Library Catalog or either from the Home-Based Business Series or Entrepreneur Magazine's start up series. Click the series links below to see if there is a book on your industry or search for other titles by keyword searching "how to start a" and keywords about your type of business.

"Home Based Business Series"

"Entrepreneur Magazine's Start Up"