Category Archives: News

I know what you’re thinking: “Do I really need a business plan? It sounds like a lot of work, plus I heard they’re outdated and I like figuring things out as I go…”.  The answer is: yes, you really do need a business plan! As entrepreneur Kevin J. Donaldson said, “Going into business without a business plan is like going on a mountain trek without a map or GPS support—you’ll eventually get lost and starve! Though it may sound tedious and time-consuming, business plans are critical to starting your business and setting yourself up for success. To outline the importance of business plans and make the process sound less daunting, here are 10 reasons why you need one for your small business. 1. To help you with critical decisions The primary importance of a business plan is that they help you make better decisions. Entrepreneurship is often an endless exercise…

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What is the purpose of a business plan and why are business plans so important? Below are our top 20 reasons why you need a business plan. 1. To prove that you’re serious about your business. A formal business plan is necessary to show all interested parties — employees, investors, partners and yourself — that you are committed to building the business. Creating your plan forces you to think through and select the strategies that will propel your growth. 2. To establish business milestones. The business plan should clearly lay out the long-term milestones that are most important to the success of your business. To paraphrase Guy Kawasaki, a milestone is something significant enough to come home and tell your spouse about (without boring him or her to death). Would you tell your spouse that you tweaked the company brochure? Probably not. But you’d certainly share the news that you launched your new website…

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  When you start planning is important—the earlier the better So, if business planning increases your likelihood of success, and in fact helps you grow faster, when should you start working on a business plan? Research shows (7) that entrepreneurs who started the business planning process early were better at what the scientists call “establishing legitimacy.” That’s a fancy way of saying that these entrepreneurs used business planning to start the process of talking with potential customers, working with business partners, starting to look for funding, and gathering other information they needed to start their business. Entrepreneurs that did a good job of using their business plan to “establish legitimacy” early were more likely to succeed and their businesses tended to last longer. Not only that, starting the planning process before starting marketing efforts and before talking to customers reduces the likelihood that a business will fail (8).  That said, planning should…

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Should you spend some time developing a plan for your business, or just dive in and start, figuring things out as you go? There has been plenty of debate on this topic, but no one has pulled together the scientific evidence to determine if planning is worthwhile—until now. With the help of my friend Jeff, from the University of Oregon, I’ve been looking at academic research on business planning—the actual science around planning and how it impacts both startups and existing businesses. But, before we dive into the data, why do we even need to look at research on business planning? It seems like most advice on starting a business includes writing a business plan as a necessary step in the startup process. If so many people encourage you to write one, business plans must add value, right? Well, over the past few years, there’s been a lot of controversy about the…

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Business plans are like road maps: it’s possible to travel without one, but that will only increase the odds of getting lost along the way.  Owners with a business plan see growth 30% faster than those without one, and 71% of the fast-growing companies have business plans. Before we get into the thick of it, let’s define and go over what a business plan actually is. What is a business plan? A business plan is a 15-20 page document that outlines how you will achieve your business objectives and includes information about your product, marketing strategies, and finances. You should create one when you’re starting a new business and keep updating it as your business grows. Rather than putting yourself in a position where you may have to stop and ask for directions or even circle back and start over, small business owners often use business plans to help guide them. That’s…

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A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives. Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” While a business plan is essential to entrepreneurship, not every entrepreneur sees the need for one. Many are reluctant to have their plan written down and there are numerous articles online claiming that the business plan is dead or irrelevant. Of course, not everyone agrees with that. A large number of business funding experts support the idea that having a good business plan is not enough. Even excellent business ideas can be useless if you cannot formulate, execute and implement a strategic plan to make your business idea work. If you are…

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