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Business Planning Demystified

Your company's business plan is a key document for both planning and funding purposes. Get actionable advice on how to write and refine your plan.
tim berry_80 Tim Berry
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Oregon Business Boost Gives Business Plan Software to Thousands
June 30, 2009, 1:25 PM
Tomorrow July 1 Palo Alto Software is going to give away thousands of copies of Business Plan Pro (and not a light version, the upscale, premier version) for free to Oregonians who want it.

Webinar June 9 on Teaching Entrepreneurship
June 07, 2009, 10:40 PM
If you teach entrepreneurship, please join me June 9 in a webinar offering tips for teaching with business planning ...

Forget those Free Lists of Investors
May 29, 2009, 1:50 PM
Recommending that you never get use or much less pay for free lists of investors, and a post that explains why not.

Blog Inaction Month
May 29, 2009, 1:45 PM
Sorry I haven't been posting much because of the April-May business plan marathon I described in my April 7 post ...

Valuation and Investors in Your Business Plan
April 14, 2009, 4:05 PM
As my business plan marathon (my last post) continues, I'm seeing a lot of plans that don't see to deal well with valuation as a critical element of the relationship with potential investors. Valuation is definitely one of, if not ...

Business Plan Marathon
April 07, 2009, 10:10 AM
So far this month I've read 43 executive summaries and 16 business plans. This is my business plan season.

What Sort of Plan Do You Need?
March 24, 2009, 1:20 PM
This is a link to a five-minute Youtube video -- me talking, showing slides -- about what sort of plan you need.

The Business Plan for a Franchise
March 12, 2009, 5:45 PM
Recommending a nice post elsewhere on the business plan for a franchisee business. Also offering some highlights of that post.

Segmentation Is Critical to Marketing Success
March 11, 2009, 10:10 AM
Recommending Ivana Taylor's 'How to Segment Your Customers, Differentiate Your Business, and Thrive' on her DIYMarketers blog. It's a very nice summary of the how and why you break your target markets into meaningful groups, called segments.

5-Minute Summary of the Business Plan Process
March 05, 2009, 7:50 PM
I found this 5-minute business plan video produced by Bloomberg. It's a pretty good summary. I particularly like the way they make the distinction between the business plan for venture capitalists and the business plan for just running a company.


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Latest Comments in Business Planning Demystified posts

It seems there are lists for everything today readily available for the right price. Anyone trying to use these should be wary even if it seems they are getting what they wanted at first.
By: Kim Shuford on 5/31/09 at 11:13 AM
Forget those Free Lists of Investors
Excellent post. I appreciated in particular your argument against multi-directional business plans. Your focus on the value of clarity overriding the value of 'covering all your options' is one I support completely.

The kind of clarity that leads to results has to be the main objective of any planning process.

Clemens
www.clemensrettich.com ...
By: Clemens Rettich on 2/25/09 at 1:54 PM
5 Points on Business Planning and Imminent Change
I agree with Tim's insight and would add just a little more to it. When we create financial projections, almost all of the emphasis is placed on the income statement. We cannot forget to forecast the balance sheet - this is the key to understanding the cash flow of the company in the future months and years.

Most entrepreneurs do not have enough formal education or experience to create an accurate balance sheet projection that ties to the income statement projection. This is where i agree with Tim's advice that a coach would be helpful in the process, especially if they have lots of experience with creating income statement and balance sheet projections.

Ken K
www.cfowise.com ...
By: CFOwise on 12/10/08 at 10:22 AM
7 Points About Business Planning and Spreadsheets
Enough cash is often exactly what we needed in creating your own business, and also to achieve our goals and dreams. Of course we need to fix some problems to ease some minor crisis. When something crazy happens, we can depend on quick loans out get out of jam. I can?t tell you how many times quick loans have come to my rescue when something crazy has happened. I thought I was the only one, but apparently my secret is out. Quick loans are a convenient way to get life back to normal after something unexpected happens. I mean, I?ve never been kite boarding nor do I plan on it. So getting hit in the head by a whale tail might be the last thing that ever happens to me, unless whales hang out in knee-high lake water or Shamu decides to jump into the stands next time I?m at Sea World. However, Mother Nature recently dealt me a nasty blow. A few weeks ago there was a windstorm. The power went out, which was no big deal because I just went to bed. I woke up to a loud crash. To my dismay, the beautiful maple tree in our backyard had splintered under the force of the wind and plummeted through the kitchen roof. I am thankful that no one in my family was hurt, but an enormous hole in my roof was the last thing I was expecting. Our insurance covered most of the cost, but I needed quick money to get my family a hotel for a couple of nights and to pay the deductible. Quick loans were a quick solution to an unwelcome surprise.

Click to read more on http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/what-are-short-term-installment-loans/ ...
By: Quick Money Loans on 11/22/08 at 3:52 AM
5 Fundamentals for Business planning
I'm leaving the investtalk.com comment here because maybe it's a good resource, but FYI the comment looks and feels like somebody's promoting oneself. Of course we all do that, me included, but perhaps not as blatantly as this one.

Tim ...
By: Tim Berry on 8/8/08 at 12:36 AM
Planning as a Way to Look Forward and Reduce Uncertainty

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