[trackshark]

Too many people think of business plans as something you do to start a company, apply for a loan, or find investors. Yes, they are vital for those purposes, but there's a lot more to it.


Preparing a business plan is an organized, logical way to look at all of the important aspects of a business. First, decide what you will use the plan for, such as to:

Define and fix objectives, and programs to achieve those objectives.
Create regular business review and course correction.
Define a new business.
Support a loan application.
Define agreements between partners.
Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes.
Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion.

[radreality]

good topic, there was actually a thread regarding this same thing a few days ago. A lot of people do have the wrong impression of the use of a business plan.

______________________________
Robert Falk
Business Developer / Investor
Self Help & Success Forum

[Dylan Phelan]

yeah... i also started a thread along these lines quite some time ago...

[a-d-a-m]

and I'm sure that it will pop up again and again :P

[john82]

Business plan should have wider scope to work on.

[raw.eri]

Originally Posted by a-d-a-m

and I'm sure that it will pop up again and again :P

Offcourse that are wright

[mbolton2181]

I find that writing a business plan really helps me find what ideology my organization really belives and you get to the core of your target market.

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The biggest problem I see is that entrepreneurs don't know HOW to write a business plan. It's not as simple as pulling a sample off the internet and filling in each section. The entrepreneurs who I've helped a bit here have ALL failed to have a good grasp of the desirable target market, the value they provide to the market, their competition, etc. A business plan is a great tool. But ONLY if you know how to use it properly.

[rogercbryan]

Regularly evaluating your business plan is a necessary task. With out a clearly defined mission you most certainly can to loose focus. Business plans are a living thing. They can be changed at almost any time. The key is that you make sure that any small change is correctly applied to all other aspects of your business.

I'm guilty of not always having a current business plan. I try to at least reevaluate my plan every six months. That does not mean that I write a completely new one, instead I add new market segments, I change my growth outlook, I reevaluate my finances, and I look to see if my position has changes against my competition. Every day that passes when running your own company brings about new lessons. A business plan in a way to organize those lessons in a clear and concise manner.

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As you briefly mentioned here, the financial section is a great place to start when looking to update. More often then not, the financial section of a business plan is created as just a shot in the dark. Once it is up and running and you have real numbers, you can compare them to your estimates and see where you're more realistically headed in the future.