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 ...]
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Structure Your Business Plan
Business plans appear in many different formats, depending on the audience for the plan and complexity of the business. However, most business plans address the following five topic areas in one form or another.
Plans for Business-to-Business Ventures
While many entrepreneurs tend to think first of selling products or services to consumers, far larger markets exist in selling to other companies. Those sales, known as business to business, or B2B, roughly account for ten times the sales directly to consumers. So if you are undecided about what kind of business to launch, and [...]
Competitive Analysis
Since every business has competitors, every business plan needs competitive analysis – also known as competitive intelligence. Direct competitors provide more or less similar products or services, such as coffee shops. Indirect or generic competitors provide different things, but customers will often choose between them. For example, nearby restaurants may offer different eating options, but compete [...]
Plan Your Work, Then Work Your Plan
Every business should do at least SOME business planning before starting or expanding operations. Whether that’s the two page version with targets, the five page variant with some analysis (more on that next week), or the 37 page detailed masterpiece, every business needs to do some of this. There are two basic steps to business [...]
"Best" Business Planning Books
Finding a good business plan book can be overwhelming. Type “business planning guide” into Amazon and you’ll get almost 5000 citations. Your local bookstore or library is more selective, but it’s still hard to sort through them. And, truth be told, there’s no one book for everybody. So, for that reason, we’ve listed the “best” [...]
Executive Summary Says It All
The most important section of your business plan is its executive summary. That’s right. It’s the first thing that people read, and it should crystallize everything that’s compelling and essential about your business and how you will succeed with it. And you need to do that all on one page. Gulp. If you’re looking for [...]
All Your Need is …. Luck
Over the years, I’ve reviewed books and articles about business planning, and written some myself, but I can’t remember one of them that said much about luck. Sure, risk – which is really bad luck – comes up often. Watch out for things like slow sales growth, unexpected competitors, new regulations, price drops, expensive labor [...]
