When developing a good business plan one of the most important steps is the establishment of sales forecasts. Sales forecasting is an art. The best sales forecasts are developed out of experience. Using indices or data supplied by economists or other experts is a good way to gauge forecasts but you will be better served by talking to customers, suppliers or other people in your industry.

…..Click here to read more

Every business no matter what stage its at faces risks. It’s managements responsibility to identify, assess, and take steps to avoid or mitigate the risks. While all businesses face similar risks, Start-up and small business managers need to focus on risks they can actually control. Leave economic, political and regulatory risks to the corporations that can afford to pay people to hedge them or lobbyists to fight them. For start-ups and small businesses the key is to identify those critical business risks that they can mitigate or avoid all together.

…..Click here to read more

If your starting a business you really should learn about the concept of Sales Enablement. Sales Enablement is strategy employed by salespeople or sales manager for dealing with customers. What is sales enablement? Well according to Wiki it is the process of arming an organization’s sales force with access to the insight, experts, and information that will ultimately increase revenue.Why is this important for your business plan?

…..Click here to read more

When it comes to baseball, golf, lacrosse, basketball and a number of other sports involving moving a ball forward every athlete has heard and every coach has said, “It’s all in the follow through.” Well guess what? This applies to business plans as well. I’d say that something like 1/5 entrepreneurs I work with give up before completing the business plan. The reason for giving up vary but most often it is due to a perceived road block. The road block is usually the first one they encounter and for those of us that have started a company before…the first road block especially at the Business Plan stage is nothing. In the end, it’s probably good that they have quit because things tend to start getting expensive (Time & $) after the completion of the business.

…..Click here to read more

There is a lot of emphasis put on networking when your starting your business. No matter who or what source you read there is no doubt a reference to building a network for your start-up. Networking is not for everyone. Some people love networking while others hate it. I would be interested to see the correlation between an individual’s feelings towards networking and their results in entrepreneurial development. There always seems to be a certain number of people that I always see at networking events but they haven’t progressed anywhere  with their businesses. I suppose this is why entrepreneurial tandem is necessary….one salesmen and one executioner.

…..Click here to read more

I was thinking about how much more entrepreneurial activity there would be if entrepreneurs were provided with health insurance. I wonder how big of a hindrance this is to people striking out on their own. For young, single people I guess this doesn’t matter much unless you have some type of medical problem that would result in a real disaster if you didn’t have insurance. When I started out, I could of cared less about health insurance because I thought I would be able to afford it in a year or two. The reality is that a year or two can and probably will turn into many more. The fact that the U.S. spends the greatest percentage of our GDP on health insurance (15+%) with the closest large industrialized country Germany spending (10%) seem ridiculous to me. We spend all this money in such an inefficient way that it makes no sense. People argue and I had previously agreed with the capitalist merits of a non-socialized system. However, I can’t help but think that a socialized system of some sort would lead to more entrepreneurial activity especially by experienced professionals who are the most likely to succeed.

…..Click here to read more

The business plan critique blog has focused mainly on creating and critiquing your business plan. I think its important to begin to think about action and where to take action as well as different aspects of execution of the business plan. This will be particularly interesting for me because I have begun the process of launching a new business. So I plan to use this as a way for me to motivate myself and ensure I am executing

Writing a business plan can be daunting, especially when you figure out that business plan 1.0 will become business plan 8.0 by the time the business is started. As you learn about the business, business model, competition, the market and a number of other aspects you will find that you have to change your whole plan. Or if your anything like me you will eventually decide that the business plan doesn’t really work so you have to move onto something else. The effort and time put forth in creating the business plan often gets chalked up to a “Learning Experience.” After a few of these “Learning Experiences” you become pretty familiar with writing a business plan, however you begin to realize that to much time is spent writing and researching rather than doing. So what are the alternatives to a business plan?

…..Click here to read more

After you have written the majority of the verbiage for your business plan you have to begin thinking about how you will format the business plan. The formatting of the business plan is an important step because you want to create a document that the reade gains understanding of the business proposition and plan as they read through it. Formatting also allows the reader to quickly search for information when they are vetting the venture. The other important aspect of formatting is that when done right it proves that you have a handle on the business. The following is a brief checklist that can be used for the business plan critique.

…..Click here to read more

When developing a business plan executive summary there are three goals for the document you are creating. Executive summaries should be able to stand alone as a overview of your business accomplishments and future plans. Anyone should be able to read the executive summary and know exactly what it is you do and what you need or maybe even want. We’ll assume you are using your executive summary to show to other people, bankers, investors, suppliers, prospecitive employees and even family. The following are three key goals for your executive summary.

…..Click here to read more