Brainstorm Business Planning Ideas with the LCS System
Brilliant business plans are not created with the snap of a finger. To nurture brand-new ideas and allow them to grow, use the three-part LCS system: [more…]
How to Translate an Idea into a Great Business Plan
A successful business plan doesn’t necessarily require an original idea. Consider this success story:
A few years back, a California chef who was vacationing in Spain discovered the joy of [more…]
How to Find Business Plan Ideas within Your Work Environment
Solutions to business planning challenges for existing companies often come from within. After all, who knows your business better than you and your employees? [more…]
How to Identify Business Plan Opportunities
According to Thomas Edison, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” The same goes for business planning. Coming up with the idea is the inspiration part. When you begin to think [more…]
How to Test Your Business Plan Ideas
After some combination of brainstorming, market analysis, and a few random flashes of brilliance, you may accumulate a drawer full of promising business ideas. Following are two guidelines to help you [more…]
Give Your Business Plan a First Reality Check
When writing a business plan, asking questions like “Is this really such a good idea?” and “Who am I kidding, anyway?” doesn’t mean you lack confidence. What it does mean is that the time has come to step [more…]
How to Conduct a Self-Appraisal for Business Planning
If you are planning for a small business or are a sole proprietor of your own business — even if you’re an entrepreneur hoping to create the next Cisco — you still have one very important question to answer [more…]
Identify the Business You’re Planning
Business planning history is littered with the remains of companies whose founders thought they knew what businesses they were in, only to discover that the industries weren’t quite what they seemed. Consider [more…]
Identify Business Plan Profit Sources
A great business idea isn’t enough to ensure its long-term success. You must define and develop a workable business plan and business model, or a method that your company uses to generate revenue, earn [more…]
Create a Business Plan Mission Statement
Your mission statement defines the purpose of your business and the approach you want to take to achieve success with your business plan. Crafting a mission statement forces you to take a long, hard look [more…]
How to Frame and Craft Your Business Plan Mission Statement
Mission statements come in all shapes and sizes, each reflecting the nature of the company and business plan it represents. Some mission statements begin with definitions of company values; others begin [more…]
Set Goals and Objectives in Your Business Plan
Well-chosen goals and objectives point a new business plan in the right direction and keep an established company on the right track. Just think about what football would be without end zones or what the [more…]
Why Values Matter in Business Planning
A company’s strong sense of values can guide its business planning through troubled times and also improve the bottom line. Studies have shown that companies that recover best from man-made catastrophes [more…]
Value and Vision Statements in Business Planning
When writing a business plan, your mission statement and your business goals and objectives provide a road map that will keep your company moving in the right direction, but a map isn’t enough by itself [more…]
Business Planning Case Study: The Future of the Education Industry
Understanding the conditions and forecasts of the industry in which you are planning your business is crucial. For example, never have the terms business plans [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Creating Entry Barriers for Competitors
If the business you are planning is entering a new (to you) industry or market area, expect to face some barriers as you seek to compete profitably with companies already up and running in your area. At [more…]
How to Conduct Customer Research for Your Business Plan
How green is your business plan? To paint a clear picture of your customer when developing a business plan, undertake research activities. Your efforts may involve highly customized efforts tailored specifically [more…]
How to Define and Address Market Shifts in Your Business Plan
Whether the business you’re planning serves specific geographic market areas or customers of a certain type anywhere in the world, your business environment is in constant flux — the result of a changing [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Buyer Tastes and Trends
In addition to defining market growth trends, your business plan also needs to address how you’ll deal with changes in the way customers choose, value, and buy products like yours. [more…]
How to Green Your Business Plan
Before concluding the assessment of your industry, customers, and competition in your business plan, analyze the importance of environmental stewardship to your business success. As you weigh the importance [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Assess Strengths and Weaknesses
Companies with visionary leaders are moving into the passing lane by adapting their business plans to steer clear of trouble and seize the opportunities they see on the horizon. In business, strengths [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Know Your Capabilities
As you write your business plan, don’t be afraid to toot your own horn by announcing important company strengths. After all, these strengths provide evidence that you have what it takes to succeed in your [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Capabilities of Sole Proprietors
If you’re the boss and entire staff of a one-person company, you may wonder what all this talk about capabilities has to do with your business planning or your success. The answer: Plenty. The same issues [more…]
How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis for Your Business Plan
So how do you create a business plan that will seize business opportunities and sidestep potential threats? You conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. A [more…]
Business Planning Considerations: Profitability
Sooner rather than later in the business-planning process, you need to figure out where the money will come from. Who will pay? How much? How often? And what portion of every sale will make its way to [more…]
