While I’m not a big fan of surveys, this one is pretty straight forward, and I like the results. Palo Alto Software asked thousands of Business Plan Pro users a couple of dozen questions about their businesses, goals, type of business, years in existence, and business planning. Almost 3,000 people responded. And here, in the chart below, is one good summary:

Simply put, those who finished their business plans were about twice as likely to successfully grow their business, get investment, or land a loan than those who didn’t. You can see the numbers on the chart.

For the record, we sent the results to the University of Oregon Department of Economics for validation. I posted more details about that study and the statistical validation yesterday on our Business in General blog.