Between the firm and my work at Common Angels, I probably "read" 500 "business plans" a year.  Some are tomes of 25 text-driven pages with carefully crafted financials and tables, while others are poorly pasted together pitch decks with 10 badly done slides.  The best are created by highly experienced CFOs, like Mike McEachern at Brainshark, Ken Goldman at Black Duck Software,  and Dennis Hanson at Steinway, who take on the added responsibility of being the business plan czars at thier companies since they have both a top-down and bottoms-up view of their businesses. Those that are created by first time entrepreneurs, are generally okay for outlining the concept at least to the point where the reader can decide whether it's worth his or her time to engage in a follow up call.

But all of this assumes that someone "reads" the document that you've laboriously poured your heart, soul and money into.  In my own case, the act of "reading" might consist of sitting down in my office early on Saturday morning and going through the details. Other times, I might be in front of the TV watching the game and waiting for the commercials to do a quick flip-through.  In the summer, I'm headed to the beach most weekends with a bag holding 5 or 10 plans that I've printed out because I'm not going to bring my electronic toys anywhere near the sun and water anymore.  At the end of any of these processes-the thorough read or the quick flip through-all I'm trying to do is make a judgment as to which ones I am going to take the time to follow up with in a longer call.

So, in addition to all of the 75 pages of the ideas and tips in our ebook, what is most important for you to think about is that your business or sales plan needs to personally and emotionally grab the reader's attention.  Pull them up from their comfortable chair, shake them around a bit and shout out..."Keep reading!", "Don't you dare put me down!"

What could you do in the imaging, the coloration and the presentation formats of your text and PPT docs that would be be more alluring and have more appeal to look further? There's a reason that Victoria Secret is a $6 billion corporate powerhouse with $1 billion in net income, and that their annual pre-Christmas runway show typically overwhelms numerous website capacities.

Think about how might your media look more like a Mercedes or Porsche ad rather than one for a Ford Focus?

First, begin with general, but exciting information about this large opportunity.  That might be data about the size and the velocity of your exciting market.  It might be a clear definition about the dramatic, but still emerging need in your market that you've seen before anyone else. Whatever the opening, you need to get the reader immediately engaged in a straight line that takes from a short beginning to all of the great content in the middle and then shows the conclusive opportunity at the end such that they are going to contact you immediately in order to learn more.

Second, give them examples.  Introduce personas as typical users.  Put a face to the buyer and the decision maker at a customer.  Tell a story about how a customer will become incredibly successful because they have worked with your company or bought from your sales team.  Engage your reader!