Creating a business plan has immediately benefits for your company, from the moment you start the process. An excellent free resource for starting this process is the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Business Plan Tool.
There are some great Business Plan Templates available that focus on specific industries that work well along with the SBA tool.
The immediate benefit is that writing the plan helps bring your dreams into focus, and helps organize your thoughts and goals into a realistic plan.
Sharing a plan has several benefits, including building credibility with colleagues, partners, investors and clients. Another less tangible, but equally important benefit is that sharing goals increases the likelihood that those goals will be attained. Despite a recent web meme that says "Don't share your goals" , Articulating goals does help to make them happen. Who you share goals with requires some common sense, but ultimately sharing goals with the right people will help you to attain them.
Despite the best laid plans , the map is not the territory. As the founders of Huckberry told 37signals, "Your first business plan, your first design, is gonna be thrown out. You learn so much by doing, so get out there and do it."
