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 ...]
Market Research
5 Page Business Plan: Wave of the Future?
Lately I’ve been rethinking business plans. On the one hand, in the consulting and academic world, what is meant by a business plan is a fairly comprehensive research project with thorough analysis of issues including customers, markets, competitors, pricing, marketing strategies, risks – always followed with detailed multi-paged financial projections looking three to five years [...]
Articulate The Value Your Business Will Deliver
For this blog, I’m simply going to quote from an excellent comment recently posted to my social enterprise blog Risky Business by Jeffrey Wallk: “Clear articulation of value. This is not the value proposition (here’s what we do / offer). This explains in very simple terms exactly how your product / service will help someone [...]
Financial Projections & Other Business Planning Fantasies
Every business plan has them, and they belong in the fiction section of the library. Like romance novels, you can usually see what’s coming: we’ll lose some money in the first year, approach break even in the second year, and then (gasp) become profitable in year three. And the business lives happily ever after, achieving [...]
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 [...]
