Do-It-Yourself Business Plans

It's done.

I finally expanded the quick 10-Minute summary into a Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plans.


Including:

• A clear concise 50-page Guide that describes all the requirements for a great Business Plan .


• Valuable ideas and information on the personal and strategic business decisions required before you start


• Recommended Templates for your Financial Projections


• A quick summary 10-Minute Guide to Business Plan basics


• An actual sample Business Plan that delivered results

Check it out at: http://www.diybusinessplan.com/DIYcompleteGUIDE.htm


Why Do-It-Yourself?


As a management consultant, I have often been hired to help with Business plans. (As an entrepreneur, I've also written a few of my own.) But if you hire someone, it still needs to be "your" plan. Nobody can go away and write it for you.


It needs to reflect the entrepreneur's passion, competence, knowledge and commitment to the business. A consultant can help with the planning process, words, numbers, and presentation, but investors, lenders and strategic partners need to know the entrepreneur behind the plan, not the consultant.


Learn how. And do it yourself.

Breaking even is hard to do

Checking my portfolio after reading the Canadian market was up 60% since March last year, I was disappointed to see that I was just barely above the original investment values before the crash.

That didn't seem fair as the crash of 2008-2009 was widely reported as knocking values down by only 40%. I was expecting to be up by more than that.

Unfortunately, it's a lesson in the inconvenient truth of basic arithmetic. If your original investment is down by 40%, then it has to come back by 67% to return to break even. Do the math.

I agree it doesn't seem fair, but that's how it works. Breaking even is hard to do.

Being concise

Finally we're writing the all important Executive Summary to the Business Plan. And, of course, it has to be concise.

(Most advice also says to write it last, but I think it's a good starting point as an outline of all the points you will cover in more detail - so I recommend that you do a draft Executive Summary first.)

But the final objective is prepare a brief (1 - 3 page) summary of the key points in your Business Plan, which might be a 20-page document or more, plus all the supporting data in appendices.

An excellent guide to the Executive Summary is available at Garage Technology Ventures (Garage.com). They emphasize that aside from being concise and still answering all the important questions the Executive Summary is primarily a selling tool for your Business Plan. It allows potential lenders, investors or strategic partners to quickly decide if they are interested in participating in your plan.

And even more important than the executive summary is that one sentence or paragraph in your cover letter or e-mail (or elevator pitch) that convinces them you may be onto something that could be a viable business.

Golden Glow of Winter Olympics 2010

This week it feels especially good to be Canadian. Sorry (which we apparently say too much), but I just cannot help myself.

Being Canadian is sufficient to feel proud and strong after being such successful hosts of the Winter Olympic Games and winning an all-time record 14 gold medals. I know I didn't do much more than watch and cheer, and clap with my red souvenir mitts, but I still feel part of the team that hosted the games and did so well in almost every event.

Proud to get to know so many new Canadian heroes.

So many who worked so long and hard for their few seconds, or their long ordeal over ice and snow, to prove they could be the best in the world. Such an inspiration to us all to persevere in pursuit of our own goals - however humble they may be.

Go Canada! There is more for us to accomplish and more of us to expose to the world.