August 11, 2005
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Business Plan And Start Up Newsletter
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August 2005
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Shaunta Pleasant
Writing Editor, TL Manage Inc.
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Business Plan Pro... Everything banks; lenders and the SBA look for! Produce your business plan quickly and easily... For entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Business Plan Pro 2005
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Table of Content
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Gathering Information For Your Plan
How Can We Help You Write Your Business Plan?
“Why You, Why Now” - A Critical Component
of a Winning Business Plan
A Few Cool Helpful Notes
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Gathering Information For Your Plan
By Palo Alto Software, Inc.
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A common problem people encounter when writing their business plan is finding information about their business industry and competitive companies.
Fortunately, in recent years the Internet has made information gathering simple and easy, but sometimes the best information is found much closer to home, with real people, in real time.
Always take a look at other businesses similar to your own, as a very good first step. If you're looking at starting a new business, you may well be starting one similar to one you already know.
If you're doing a plan for an existing business, you are even more likely to know the business well. Even so, you can still learn a lot by looking at other similar businesses.
- Look at existing, similar businesses.
- If you are planning a retail shoe store, for example, spend some time looking at existing retail shoe store businesses. Park across the street and count the customers that go into the store. Note how long they stay inside, and how many come out with boxes that look like purchased shoes. You can probably even count how many pairs of shoes each customer buys. Browse the store and look at prices. Look at several stores, including the discount shoe stores and department store shoe departments.
It takes a little hard work but by using the Internet and doing some research at local businesses, you should be able to gather all the information necessary for your business plan.
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How Can We Help You Write Your
Business Plan?
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Everyday we have people contacting us and asking for help with writing a business plan for their business. It would be impossible for us to give everyone that asked personal help.
So I have written a manual that will help you with writing your business plan.
This manual is intended to aid you in the preparation and the writing of your business plan for your business.
The first part of it is written to help you write your business plan. There is plenty of note space for you to take notes as you move through it. You can also take additional notes on other paper as needed.
You should write your business plan as you go through this manual. Or, you can go to the Quick Start... Business Plan Work Shop.
This section is written for those of you that want to write a quick little business plan in a speedy amount of time.
This section also includes some worksheets in a printable form. You can use these worksheets to help you figure out some of the financial information that your business will need to complete.
For More Information about; How To Write A Business Plan... Made Easy
Go To; http://www.yourbusinesspal.com/business_plan.html
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“Why You, Why Now” - A Critical Component
of a Winning Business Plan
by: Dave Lavinsky
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Business plans continue to be an essential element of the capital-raising process. They must convince investors to take notice - investors that are shrewder today due to the ups-and-downs they have experienced over the past few years.
Adding to the financing challenge is the plethora of high-quality companies, both public and private, in which investors can choose to invest. In this environment, more and more investors are asking companies seeking capital the question "Why You, Why Now"?
The question seems simple at first, but has many complexities. The management team must clearly delineate what it is about the business opportunity that makes it such a good investment now. Should this investment have been made a year ago to cement a market leadership position? Or, is the venture before its time - will slow market adoption cause slow sales over the next few years, and as such, should the investment wait. Questions like these, based on investment failures from the past few years, continue to surface and must be addressed by the management team in their business plans.
Likewise the team must address what it is that makes them uniquely qualified to succeed. Does the team have proprietary (and protectable) technology, management talent and experience that competitors do not, long-term strategic partners? According to Growthink president, Dave Lavinsky, "Management teams must prove to investors why they are unique and why they will succeed. They can't just state how wonderful they are - they need to prove it through detailing past successes and unique qualifications."
A business plan that fails to address the "Why You, Why Now" question, is most likely a business plan that will remain in the stack of "not now" business plans. Business plans must present a compelling argument as to why the investor should invest and in our fast-paced world with unbelievable opportunities and opportunity costs, why investors should invest now.
About The Author
Dave Lavinsky
Since its inception, Growthink has developed over 200 business plans. Growthink clients have collectively raised over $750 million in financing, launched numerous new product and service lines and gained competitive advantage and market share. Growthink has become the firm of choice for venture capital firms, angel investors, corporations and entrepreneurs in the know. For more information please visit
http://www.growthink.com.
dave@growthink.com
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A Few Cool Helpful Notes
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Business Plan Pro
Save time. Let Business Plan Pro lead you through every step of creating your business plan. The plan may be about the final document for your banker or investor, but for you it is about the process of gathering your ideas and developing and growing your business. Business Plan Pro creates a great looking document for your banker, while helping you to better understand and grow your business.
Business Plan Pro 2005 includes:
- Help at Every Step with instructions and examples to build your plan quickly and easily.
- 400+ Sample Plans give you a jump-start with a diverse collection of start-up and on-going business plans.
- EasyPlan Wizard® guides you through every step from start to finish.
- Most Preferred Format to give banks, lenders, and VCs what they are looking for.
- Most Complete with everything you need to define your business, compare industry ratios, set schedules, create personnel and mini-marketing plans, and find funding.
Order now to save time and money!
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Choosing The Right Resource To Build A Successful Web Site
If you are planning on building a web site for your business Site Build It (SBI) is a really good choice. I believe in it, because I used it to create this web site site. And if you found me via the World Wide Web, that means it is doing what it is suppose to do.
- This resource will help you save time and money in the long run due to the all-in-one approach it offers.
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"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunity to come; you have to get up and make them." -Madame C.J. Walker
All the best,
Shaunta
http://www.tlmanage.com
http://www.yourbusinesspal.com