October 13, 2005
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Business Plan And Start Up Newsletter
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October 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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Business Plan Mistakes
How Can We Help You Write Your Business Plan?
Building An Online Business Is Like Starting A Garden, You First MUST Plant Your Seeds
A Few Cool Helpful Notes
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Business Plan Mistakes
By Palo Alto Software, Inc.
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Often you may hear about what a business plan consists of. While including the necessary items is very important, you also want to make sure you don't commit any of the following common business plan mistakes:
1. Putting it off.
Don't wait to write a plan until you absolutely have to. Too many businesses make business plans only when they have no choice in the matter. Unless the bank or the investors want a plan, there is no plan.
Don't wait to write your plan until you think you'll have enough time. "There's not enough time for a plan," business people say. "I can't plan. I'm too busy getting things done." The busier you are, the more you need to plan. If you are always putting out fires, you should build firebreaks or a sprinkler system. You can lose the whole forest for paying too much attention to the individual burning trees.
2. Cash flow casualness.
Cash flow is more important than sales, profits, or anything else in the business plan, but most people think in terms of profits instead of cash. When you and your friends imagine a new business, you think of what it would cost to make the product, what you could sell it for, and what the profits per unit might be. We are trained to think of business as sales minus costs and expenses, which equal profits. Unfortunately, we don't spend the profits in a business. We spend cash. So understanding cash flow is critical. If you have only one table in your business plan, make it the cash flow table.
3. Idea inflation.
Plans don't sell new business ideas to investors. People do. The plan, though necessary, is only a way to present information. Investors invest in people, not ideas.
Don't overestimate the importance of the idea, particularly the importance of the uniqueness of the idea. You don't need a great idea to start a business; you need time, money, perseverance, common sense, and so forth. Very few successful businesses are based entirely on new ideas. A new idea is much harder to sell than an existing one, because people don't understand a new idea and they are often unsure if it will work.
4. Fear and dread.
Doing a business plan isn't as hard as you think. You don't have to write a doctoral thesis or a novel. There are good books to help, many advisors among the Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), business schools, and there is software available to help you (such as Business Plan Pro, and others).
5. Spongy, vague goals.
Leave out the vague and the meaningless babble of business phrases (such as "being the best") because they are simply hype. Remember that the objective of a plan is its results, and for results, you need tracking and follow up. You need specific dates, management responsibilities, budgets, and milestones. Then you can follow up. No matter how well thought out or brilliantly presented, it means nothing unless it produces results.
6. One size fits all
Tailor your business plan to its real business purpose. Business plans can be different things: they are often just sales documents to sell an idea for a new business. They can be detailed action plans, financial plans, marketing plans, and even personnel plans. They can be used to start a business, or just run a business better.
7. Diluted priorities.
Remember, strategy is focus. A priority list with 3-4 items is focus. A priority list with 20 items is something else, certainly not strategic, and rarely if ever effective. The more items on the list, the less the importance of each.
8. Hockey-stick shaped growth projections.
Have projections that are conservative so you can defend them. When in doubt, be less optimistic.
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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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Building An Online Business Is Like Starting A Garden, You First MUST Plant Your Seeds
by: Cory Threlfall
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I know what your thinking, "what the heck does starting a garden and planting seeds have to do with building an online business?"
Well... it all depends on how you perceive what I'm about to share with you.
I'm merely using that headline as an analogy to a Powerful marketing strategy that I use to send HIGHLY targeted traffic to my online business... Effortlessly, that almost every website on the Internet is hungry for.
Now, we all know that in order to be in business you need to either provide a Product and/or Service that cater's to an particular Niche.
That's the easy part to figure out.
The part that is usually the hardest with most online businesses is growing that business, and we both know that in order to grow your business online you need "TRAFFIC".
We've all experienced these growing pains, myself included.
And, finding a cost effective marketing strategy these days like the one I'm about to share with you takes a little time to learn, but, in the long run will benefit You and your business for years.
Here are just a few benefits you'll receive when you incorporate this marketing strategy into your existing online business...
- It'll BOOST your websites "Link Popularity"...
- It'll give YOU and your business INSTANT credibility...
- It'll build TRUST with your potential customers...
- It'll send your website Residual traffic for years...
... and best of all, it'll put You infront of thousands of HIGHLY targeted customers... for FREE!
Do any of those Benefits get you excited?
They sure get me excited simply because I know it works and well at that.
So, with that said, I'm sure your getting a little anxious to find out what these "SEEDS" are that I'm so fond of that will put your online business infront of thousands of HIGHLY targeted customers Absolutely FREE!
Are You Ready?
!!WRITING ARTICLES!!
That's right... Writing Articles, in my mind, is one of the BEST and most cost effective forms of online promotion, no matter what business your in.
WHY?
Read the BENEFITS I listed above one more time to refresh your memory.
Where else or what other marketing strategy online will give you a list of benefits like that.
And, the best part is... it doesn't cost You anything, and yet, almost every website owner online is starving for it.
Here's another quick reminder for you, why do you think they call the Internet... "The Information Super-Highway".
The Internet received that name for a reason because that is exactly what it IS.
All you need to do is supply the Information in the form of an well written "Article" and send it to related websites and/or newsletters around the web related to your particular Niche.
Just imagine for a minute, what one article or half a dozen articles, for that matter, would do for your online business?
You'll never know until You get started, so my suggestion to You is, start brain storming some article idea's about your Product or Service and write them down on a piece of paper.
Once you have a clear idea, "Start Writing".
So, there you have it, and that's why I stated... "Building An Online Business Is Like Starting A Garden, You First MUST Plant Your Seeds" in order for your online business to grow.
I truly hope you understand the importance of writing Articles and why they are considered one of the BEST forms of online promotion for your business.
Copyright 2005 The IWE, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
About The Author
Get YOUR "Step-By-Step" roadmap for Unlimited FREE traffic using Articles! FREE Details=> http://compactURL.com/wgwf
-- Or if you want to get MORE 'Insider' marketing Secrets subscribe to Cory Threlfall's Free 'Weekly' ezine called... The Internet Wonders eZine at -- http://www.internetwondersezine.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 WizardŽ 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!
All New! Affiliate Masters Course 2005
The Affiliate Masters Course has been called...
"the best info on succeeding as an affiliate...
at any price...
and it's free."
Net marketing gurus have lined up to pronounce it as "the perfect affiliate system". This complete, FREE 10-day course focuses 100% on helping you, the affiliate, succeed. It pulls no punches, it holds nothing back. It leads you step by step, day by day through a flawless process...
To download it now simply click here
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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"The biggest mistake people make in life is not making a living at doing what they most enjoy." - Malcolm S. Forbes
All the best,
Shaunta
http://www.tlmanage.com
http://www.yourbusinesspal.com