Writing Successful Business Plans

If you’re going to plan a business and anticipate major success, it’s more than apparent you’re going to have to come up with a good business plan.  Now, I know what you’re thinking...sounds long and boring, right?  Well, don’t think of it that way.  Take the advice from Rhonda Abrams by visioning your business plan into a business-model process.  “With the business-model process, you lay out your broad vision if your company…” …just envision that “a business model is a sketch and a business plan is a blueprint” (Rhondaonline.com n.d.).  That sounds little better, right?  Sketch…?  Vision…?  No…?  Okay, maybe it’s just me.  Well, if you don’t want to take her advice, you can also seek some advice from TimBerry.  Both of these professionals are recognized professionals in the field of writing and/or reviewing business plans.

Rhonda Abrams is a graduate of Harvard University with more than fifteen years of advising, mentoring and counseling entrepreneurs and small business owners (Rhondaonline.com n.d.).  She also takes on the task of being a popular public speaker, best-selling author, and a syndicated columnist.  Her column “Small Business Strategies” is the nation’s most widely-read column about entrepreneurship, reaching 20 million viewers and readers (Rhondaonline.com n.d.).  According to Abrams, her business-model process will lay out a broad vision for your company: how you will make money and how you’ll relate to your customers” (rgj.com n.d.).  Once the broad key components are sketched out, then each component is divided into sections and researched in detail.  She also has an organizer for purchase that keeps everything in order during this planning process.  This woman thinks of everything!

She’s not the only one though!  Tim Berry may be more experienced. Not only does he have two Master degrees and a BA from Notre Dame, but he has written and co-written a few books about business plan planning, as well as being founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software.  He also taught business planning class at the University of Oregon for 11 years (timberry.com n.d.).   In Berry’s blog, he stated that your plan should be realistic and credible.  It should also include cost of sales, projections, profit or loss, balance sheet and cash flow projections.   Berry states that it’s important because “it’s a matter of having dots connected and making reasonable projections, which you can pull apart the track plan vs. actual so that times goes on you have something you can review, revise and manage” (timberry.com n.d.). 

Now, both experts have a lot to say in their blogs and their numerous writings, so it’ll be important to check those out.  It’s obvious writing a business plan will take a lot of work and research, but there are numerous tools as well as tons of information available.  If first starting out, I’d definitely recommend seeing what you can learn from these two individuals first.  They seem to know a little something about the business planning process.

SOURCES:

About Rhonda Abrams, keynote speaker and bestselling author. (n.d.). RhondaOnline.com: Starting a Business--advice and tips from business guru Rhonda Abrams. Retrieved May 11, 2013, from http://rhondaonline.com/content/aboutRhonda/aboutRhonda.asp

Abrams, R. (n.d.). Small Business Strategies with Rhonda Abrams - USATODAY.com. USA TODAY: Latest World and US News  - USATODAY.com. Retrieved May 11, 2013, from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/columnist/abrams/index

Abrams, R. (n.d.). Rhonda Abrams: Delve deep, be specific for best business plans. RGJ. Retrieved May 10, 2013, from www.rgj.com/article/20130409/COL0807/304090032/Rhonda-Abrams-Delve-deep-specific-best-business-plans

Business Plan Software and Sales and Marketing Software - Palo Alto Software. (n.d.). Business Plan Software and Sales and Marketing Software - Palo Alto Software. Retrieved May 11, 2013, from http://www.paloalto.com

Tim Berry | Business Planning Expert. (n.d.). Tim Berry | Business Planning Expert. Retrieved May 11, 2013, from http://timberry.com