IntroductionA sample business plan is the first stop for any entrepreneur who wants to draft one for attracting investors. Is a sample plan a good way to start off. I would say it is just right to get started and understand what it is all about. It also helps in understanding the structure of a Bplan. However a sample is a starting point of creating a personalized plan.The ChallengeIt is a general trend that entrepreneurs start writing the plan but along the way get stuck, primarily in projecting income and expenditure, competition research and brining a professional touch. There are several online resources that allow download a sample. These templates have a well defined structure of different sections of a business plan and also provide hints to make the financial projections. In my experience, I have seen that the confusion starts when making projections. People are not sure where to start, how to derive approximate numbers and how to make a logical projection. At this stage the plan goes awry until a professional business plan writer is engaged. SolutionThe solution is a 2 phased approach to BPlan writing. As an entrepreneur you know your business better than anyone. So you would be the best person to write sections like the Executive Summary and marketing strategy. You can refer to a sample business plan to structure these sections and make them professional. Certain sections of the business plan like financials and market research require special expertise from people who have done it . Financial forecasting is not everyone’s job. It takes special skills and tools to forecast sales and calculate the break-even point. It needs to be understood that VC’s and angels are interested in numbers. They want to figure out how close they are to reality and how soon can they exit the venture after making handsome gains. To get all these parameters in place, taking the help of a business plan professional is very important. For an entrepreneur, writing a professional plan can be time consuming and frustrating. ConclusionWhile I agree that a sample is great to start off but it may not help an entrepreneur to write a professional business plan that is complete in all respects. Just incase you still want to go ahead there are professional business plan writing tools available that can help you to create a decent document that can be presented to VC’s and Angel Investors.