Meet the Blog’s Host
Rolfe Larson provides consulting and training in areas such as strategic planning, market research, feasibility analysis, business planning, marketing, and implementation strategies.[Read more ...]
Basics and Overviews
Case Against Business Planning
One of the hallmarks of good business planning is being open to disconfirming information. Now let’s apply that principle to the decision on whether to do business planning itself. We think it’s a good idea, but maybe we’re wrong. Maybe it’s OK to do what most business owners do all the time: just wing it, [...]
Make a Business Plan and Reduce Chances of Incurring Debt
Guest post from Ryan of Debt Consolidation Care Community It is imperative to make an effective business plan when you start a business. A good business plan helps to reduce your chances of incurring business debt. Lots of people don’t give much thought about creating a good business plan and make costly mistakes. They incur [...]
Business Planning Doesn't End with Your Plan: Part 2 of 2
Rolfe Larson is on vacation. This blog was written by guest writer Jan Cohen. Regardless of how thorough your business plan is, the start-up period always brings surprises. This is the second of a two part series on lessons learned, based on experiences working with many business ventures. 3. The product or service won’t be [...]
Business Planning Doesn't End With Your Plan: Part 1 of 2
Rolfe Larson is on vacation. This blog was written by guest writer Jan Cohen. When you start a new business, whether for profit venture or social enterprise within a nonprofit, you’ve spent a lot of time and effort on the business planning process. And now you are ready to “execute”. The start-up period always has [...]
Sample Business Plans
People are always asking us for examples of business plans, which is a bit ironic, in that every credible plan I’ve ever seen has “Confidential” stamped all over it. That said, there are samples out there, which is fine as long as you don’t assume you should do it the way they did it. Here [...]
Ten "Best" Business Planning Web Sites
Sometimes the best things in life are free. So if your preference is to find out what’s available on the web before investing in a business planning book (see previous blog entry for a list of books), here’s a quick list of ten “best” business planning web sites. My next blog will indicate where you [...]
Be Nimble, Be Quick; Be Disruptive, Too
In a world with dynamic markets and fickle customers, it’s best to build into your plan strategies to respond quickly to new opportunities and threats. Long gone are the days when you could just create a valuable product, price it to attract customers while making a profit, and then just keep doing the same thing [...]
Business Plan Software Recommendations
Writing a business plan takes time. Using software can help organize your work and save you some time, especially if you haven’t written one before. Here’s a quick summary of what, from my experience, are the three best choices: Business Plan Pro by Palo Alto Software claims it’s the best selling business planning software for [...]
What Do We Need: Strategic or Business Plan?
Depends. All too often, these two terms have become blurred. But they are different concepts. Here’s a good way to distinguish them, quoting from the Free Management Library’s strategic plan blogger, Carter McNamara: Strategic Planning Should Be Organization-Wide Strategic planning is best viewed as clarifying the overall purpose and priorities of the organization. There are [...]
Short Is Beautiful
Good business plans do not need to be long business plans. With rare exceptions, keep your plan to no more than twenty pages, including financials and appendix. If you can say what needs to be said in fewer pages, that’s even better. It’s unlikely anyone will actually read a longer plan, so don’t waste your [...]
