When you’re starting up a business, there are so many pieces of detail that confront you that it becomes really tempting to look for paint-by-numbers solutions. One of these pieces of detail that we often can’t ignore is the business plan that the bank needs before they’ll consider you for a loan or the landlord wants before taking your lease application seriously.

The pressure is so great and you hate so much to write that you look for something that tells you exactly where to start, what to do, and how to do it. Something that works a lot like a run book that explains what buttons to push. Something like one of the computer based business planning software applications that are around today.

The concern with a push-button business planning system is that you can pay any moron to push the buttons. In so doing, you are creating a business plan where the business knowledge resides in the button pushing system and not in you. What will happen when a competitor shows up and can push the buttons more efficiently or less costly than you can?

My problem with paint-by-numbers business planning systems isn’t that they don’t generate good looking and credible business plans. My problem is that they’re risky. You end up not taking all of that knowledge and passion in you and putting it on paper. You take the easy way out, download a sample plan and massage the text to make it resemble what you think your business is without digging deep inside to express the genius that brought you to this place and time.