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 ...]
writing a business plan
Low-Cost Startups and Business Plans
Not every would-be entrepreneur has deep pockets, or rich friends and family, to get their business started. Indeed, most small businesses are started on the cheap. Here are some tips on how to start your venture with minimal cash.
Interns help write your business plan
Creating a business plan takes a lot of time. But you can get help. Consultants can be valuable, but to save money, find out if there’s a qualified college intern who could carry some of the load. Many college courses require students to participate in internships. With the right intern and a carefully structured project, [...]
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.
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 [...]
Breakeven Analysis
One of the common challenges in business planning is that one often has a better handle on predicting expenses than revenues. It doesn’t mean you’re 100% sure about what your costs are going to be, but for many folks, when they start looking at sales, it’s a crap shoot. As a result, many business plans [...]
Business Plan Competitions
One way to develop and test your plan is to submit it to a business plan competition. These competitions are mostly associated with business schools. Most offer winners consulting assistance and in many cases seed money. But here’s the catch: in most cases, only students can apply and competition can be stiff. But check out [...]
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? [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
