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Rolfe Larson provides consulting and training in areas such as strategic planning, market research, feasibility analysis, business planning, marketing, and implementation strategies.[Read more ...]
business
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 [...]
Halloween Special: Five Business Plan Tricks
Here are five tricks from business planning expert Tim Berry. Excellent advice to follow to avoid getting spooked by your business: 1. Keep the planning simple and practical. Your plan should be measurable, and include strategy, dates, deadlines, metrics, and basic projections, plus a review schedule. This is critical: when will we review and revise? [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Feasibility Testing: A Lost Art?
I know, you’ve got a great business idea. Everybody says it’s a winner, even your business friends. It’s amazing no one else has thought of it before. You’re feeling you should jump on it right away before someone else gets there first. But you realize you need to do some research before taking the plunge, [...]
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Successful entrepreneurs tend to be frugal. They have to be. They know that money and time is scarce. Too many things to do, too little time. So they focus, prioritize, cut to the bone, do what only needs to be done to get from point A to point E (skipping point B, C and D [...]
"What's your business plan?"
If you’re running a business, you get asked this question often. It could come from your banker, your accountant, your business-savvy aunt, or your teenager taking that first business class. They want to know: what’s your business plan? And they all want different things. Some just want a sentence or two about customers, competitors and [...]
