What do you do about sharing your business plan to outsiders? The idea is that you manage your lean plan always. When you need to share a business plan with outsiders, you dress it up. You take your core updated lean plan and add the summaries, descriptions, and supporting information you need to serve your business purpose.

This section of the website explains how to take your lean plan and dress it up to with a pitch presentation, summary memo, or elevator speech.

It includes

• The Business Plan Event: That’s what we call it when you have to take your lean business plan and dress it up for presentation to outsiders, such as bankers, or potential investors. With lean planning, the planning stays lean until you hit the business plan event.
• Lead with Stories: It’s amazing how much of business planning is within the frame of the stories around which you build the business. The story of the problem, the solution, for example. There’s a story in the ideal customer transaction, how they find you and how you help them. And another story in your own unique business identity, how you got here.
• Developing Summaries: Dealing with banks and investors almost always go better when you start with summaries. That includes summary memos and the executive summary at the front of your plan document.
• Your Business Pitch: You have to summarize your business plan in slides and talk, and questions and answers. We call that the business pitch, or pitch presentation.
• Your Elevator Speech: You should be able to say your business plan in about 60 seconds, with the classic elevator speech.
• For the formal business plan document, I pass you over to How to Write a Business Plan, on the main business plan site at bplans.com.