I'm looking for any advice about writing a business plan. For those of you who have done it did you do it yourself? Hire someone to do it? Use a software? There are so many books and on line articles about it it's overwhelming.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

If you google search "business plan", you'll find a lot of helpful information.

Here are a few to get you started:
Business Resource Software, Inc. (businessplans.org)
Entrepreneur.com
Palo Alto Software, Inc. (bplans.com)

Definitely do it yourself. Done properly, it will be a detailed document that will take you quite a bit of time to do. Some people try to get one that is industry specific, but any one will do, as long as it is complete. Top-rated books are a good place to start. Another excellent source for advice is your local bank. If you have a personal relationship with your bank, once yoted, see if someone who does business loans will look it over for missing information. These people use business plans to study viability of the businesses asking for loans.

Make sure your plan encompasses demographic research, market research and basic information on your competition. Don't guess on the numbers. Your Chamber of Commerce will have demographic information for your area.

Once you get started, if you get stumped, we can help you with how to find the answers.

The Small Business Association has a group called the SBDC. I don't have their website with me, but they are free to meet with people to help write business plans. Most people don't know about them, but your tax dollars pay for it, so it's worth using. Interestingly, they actually make money for the government in increased tax revenue from business.

All Excellent suggestions. Thank you!