Write a Company and Purpose Description for Your Business
Your company description is the component of your business plan that states what kind of business you’re in and what you look like as a company. The company description tells exactly what your business [more…]
How to Plot Your Small-Business Strategy
The strategy section of your small business plan focuses on the aspects of business planning most critical to small businesses — especially those that are just starting up or ones that are playing catch-up [more…]
Develop Your Small-Business Financial Plan
Your business plan absolutely has to include a complete financial picture of your company — including planned income, estimated balance sheet, and cash-flow projections. No ifs, ands, or buts. Your financial [more…]
Develop Your Small-Business Action Plan
Your business plan should include an action plan that outlines the sequence of all the steps you intend to take to implement your business plan, focusing first on the most immediate and pressing tasks [more…]
Monitor the Changing Environment for Your Small Business
Change is an inevitable, and it’s coming faster than it used to, especially for small businesses. In the first section of your business plan, where you describe your business environment, make sure that [more…]
How to Grow (or Not Grow) Your Small Business
Many small businesses want to and always will remain small. Other businesses start small with the dream of growing big — sometimes very big. Take Starbucks, which began as a local Seattle coffee shop, [more…]
Planning Considerations for a Family-Run Business
Many small businesses are family-run operations. The latest economic turmoil may be generating more family-run businesses, some experts think. When the economy encounters a rough patch and jobs are in [more…]
Planning Considerations for an Established Business
Owners of established businesses sometimes need a little (or even not so little) push to get into business planning. When you’re starting a venture, creating a business plan feels essential. You need all [more…]
Raise Small-Business Capital with Bank Financing
If a primary motivation for developing your business plan is to raise capital through bank financing, bankers are your primary audience, and the bank where you have established relationships is likely [more…]
Raise Small-Business Capital with Investor Capital
Major capital investors fall into two categories: venture capitalists and angel investors. Venture capitalists are professional investor groups whose major motivation is return on investment. [more…]
Small-Business Planning in Times of Trouble
Sometimes the going gets tough, and your strategic plan is reduced to tatters as a result. Maybe your business model — your plan for how you make money — isn’t quite what it was cracked up to be. Maybe [more…]
Small-Business Recovery Planning: Assessing the Current Situation
To begin developing a plan to get your troubled business back on course, you first have to know exactly where you stand — with an emphasis on the word [more…]
Small-Business Recovery Planning: Charting a Turnaround
If your company is facing a business downturn or even a crisis, create a revised business plan that reflects your new realities and sets out a step-by-step action plan to address them. [more…]
Timing and Tips for Small-Business Recovery Planning
When you’re creating a turnaround plan, time is critical — and not just because your money may be running out. When times get rough, employees grow restless, morale slides, and your company’s reputation [more…]
Add an Internet Presence to Your Existing Business
There are very few companies that don’t already have at least some level of online presence, even if it’s just a company contact website — which is like an online Yellow Pages ad — or the ability to send [more…]
Social Networks and Viral Marketing in Your Business Plan
These days, anyone with a silly pet video can make a bundle on the Internet. Websites and even single items of web-based content strike gold when one person sends a link to ten friends, and those ten friends [more…]
Develop a Budget for Your Online Presence
Estimating and budgeting costs for website presence is notoriously difficult because every site is different, with its own features and unique challenges. Creating an online presence is a lot like remodeling [more…]
Nonprofit Business Planning and Organization
Every organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit, needs to manage its staff, set goals, market, deliver products and services, maintain budgets, and measure progress. The business rules are pretty much [more…]
Nonprofit Business Mission and Vision Planning
Mission and vision statements are important to all business planners, so be sure that your nonprofit business plan describes exactly what kind of a future you’re working to create [more…]
Nonprofit Management During Economic Downturns
Nonprofits, like almost everyone else, are affected by downturns. But surveys show that the effects of the recent slump varied widely. Some charitable organizations, such as food banks, saw an increase [more…]
Nonprofit Business Legal Structure
As you organize your nonprofit venture, you want to choose a legal structure appropriate for your situation. The following nonprofit business structures represent your basic options: [more…]
Nonprofit Business Goals and Objectives
Goals and objectives help nonprofit companies measure success not in dollars, but in how well the organization addresses the cause(s) it champions. They provide a road map that helps keep your organization [more…]
Sample Nonprofit Fundraising Letter
Business planning makes nonprofits more businesslike in how they operate and how they achieve success. A business plan provides a clear mission and vision, and establishes goals and objectives for the [more…]
Nonprofit Business Cash Reserves
Just like for-profit companies, nonprofits need cash reserves, a cushion of cash or other liquid assets on hand. The question is, how much? The answer depends largely on the nature of your nonprofit’s [more…]
Nonprofit Operations Planning
The term operations typically refers to how companies carry out their business; that is, how they handle day-to-day activities and how they produce products and provide services efficiently and cost-effectively [more…]
