Business Plan

* What is a Business Plan?
o Why prepare a business plan?
o What to avoid in your business plan

* Business Plan Format
o Vision statement
o The people
o Business profile
o Economic assessment

* Six Steps to a Great Business Plan
o Basic business concept
o Feasibility and specifics
o Focus and refine concept
o Outline the specifics of your business
o Put your plan into a compelling form
o Review sample plans

* Does Your Plan Include the Following Necessary Factors
o A sound business concept
o Understanding your market
o Healthy, growing and stable industry
o Capable management
o Able financial control
o Consistent business focus
o Mindset to anticipate change
o Plans for online business

* Formulate (and Reformulate) Your Business Plan

* Top Ten Do's and Don'ts

* Sound Byte Transcriptions

* Sample Business Plans

* Session 1 and 2 Business Plans

* Session Feedback
What Is A Business Plan?



Read Transcript The primary value of your business plan will be to create a written outline that evaluates all aspects of the economic viability of your business venture including a description and analysis of your business prospects.

Since the My Own Business, Inc. course is broken down into sixteen of the most important topics to consider in starting or operating a business, your business plan can easily be organized into this same format. Included in this session, and in each of the following sessions, there is one-page business plan template, which you can fill in and print. (Session 2 contains templates for both Sessions 1 and 2.) When you put these all together, you will have completed your personalized, overall plan.

We suggest that you fill in each section of the business plan, found at the end of each session, as you proceed through the course.

Each of the sixteen Business Plan Sections can be downloaded from our Web site and provide you with a single, attractively presented document. To begin, let's take a preview look at each of the 16 Business Plan Sections:

Click to view each of the 16 business plan sections

Keep in mind that creating a business plan is an essential step for any prudent entrepreneur to take, regardless of the size of the business. This step is too often skipped, but we have made it easy for you by providing this ready format to build your plan as you progress through this course.

Business plans can vary enormously. Libraries and bookstores have books devoted to business plan formats. This course is a starting point. You can then go on to design one that would be ideal for your particular enterprise.

Be aware now that most start-up entrepreneurs are reluctant to write down their business plan. It is, therefore, strongly recommended that you complete each segment of the plan as you progress through this course. We make it easy for you by providing sample plans for both product and service businesses and also an attractive blank form that you can download onto MS Word and customize yourself.

Your business plan will become your roadmap to chart the course of your business. But at the outset you cannot predict all of changing conditions that will surface. So after you have opened for business, it is important that you periodically review and update you plan.

Business Plan

Preferred format of SBA, lenders, and investors

Business Plan Pro uses a format that meets the most stringent requirements of banks, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Customize your plan

Business Plan Pro creates a plan that is unique for your business. Rearrange the outline and add as many additional text topics as you need. Delete sections that you don't need for your plan. Premier Edition users can also add financial spreadsheets. Don't be squeezed into an inflexible one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter planning product.
Custom reports and documents

We have compiled the most common reports into a single Report Writer tool so you can automatically print or export exactly the portions of your plan that you need. Reports include business plan presentation, all your charts, your Appendix, and more. Printing is automatic, and export options include standard Office and Web-oriented formats.

Businessman

Businessman

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun 1. businessman - a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive)
man of affairs
amalgamator - a businessman who arranges an amalgamation of two or more commercial companies
arb, arbitrager, arbitrageur - someone who engages in arbitrage (who purchases securities in one market for immediate resale in another in the hope of profiting from the price differential)
big businessman, business leader, magnate, top executive, tycoon, baron, mogul, king, power - a very wealthy or powerful businessman; "an oil baron"
bourgeois, businessperson - a capitalist who engages in industrial commercial enterprise
industrialist - someone who manages or has significant financial interest in an industrial enterprise
oilman - a person who owns or operates oil wells
operator - someone who owns or operates a business; "who is the operator of this franchise?"
owner, proprietor - (law) someone who owns (is legal possessor of) a business; "he is the owner of a chain of restaurants"
small businessman - a businessman who runs a business employing less than 100 people
suit - (slang) a businessman dressed in a business suit; "all the suits care about is the bottom line"
syndicator - a businessman who forms a syndicate
transactor - someone who conducts or carries on business or negotiations

The Link Between Planning & Doing

If you have read the preceding articles in this section on

strategic planning, YOU will have a sense that strategic

planning involves more than getting together for one

day a yearto develop a strategic planning document.

Strategic planning is both a logical, rational process,

and a process that involves people. It takes more than

developing a plan for that plan to be implemented. In

this article, we consider that the critical link between

planning and doing is leadership.

Traditional Planning Methods

The traditional way for government organizations to plan

is for a group of people, usually executives/management,

but sometimes including employees, to get together for

some period of time each year. Generally, inadequate

time is allocated to the exercise, but if it is completed,

it results in a document that contains a mission statement,

broad organizational goals, and other elements as is

deemed appropriate. Then, the plan is usually hidden

away somewhere, never to be seen again. Traditional

methods yield traditional results. As a wise man once said

"If you keep doing what you have been doing, you will get

what you have always got".

It needn't be this way.

Reconceptualizing Strategic Planning

Planning should be considered as a blueprint for change.

The plan should be the basis for introducing controlled

change into an organization so it can adapt to changing

times. By anticipating shifting demands, the plan serves

the purpose of allowing the organization to control its

own direction, rather than waiting until political forces

demand change (and demand change NOW). In addition,

the plan allows for consistent monitorin~ofsuccess,~nd

re-examination of the degree to which organizational

resources should be structured and allocated to achieve

future goals.

But, if we look at strategic planning in this light, as a

blueprint for change, we also need to consider that any

organization has built-in inertia.. the tendency to keep on

doing what one has been doing. On its own, the strategic

planning process, as traditionally undertaken, is insufficient

to overcome this inertia. Other forces need to come into

play if the plan, and proposed changes get implemented.