TOP TEN DO'S
- Prepare a complete business plan for any business you are considering.
- Use the business plan templates furnished in each session.
- Complete sections of your business plan as you proceed through the course.
- Research (use search engines) to find business plans that are available on the Internet.
- Package your business plan in an attractive kit as a selling tool.
- Submit your business plan to experts in your intended business for their advice.
- Spell out your strategies on how you intend to handle adversities.
- Spell out the strengths and weaknesses of your management team.
- Include a monthly one-year cash flow projection.
- Freely and frequently modify your business plans to account for changing conditions.
TOP TEN DON'TS
- Be optimistic (on the high side) in estimating future sales.
- Be optimistic (on the low side) in estimating future costs.
- Disregard or discount weaknesses in your plan. Spell them out.
- Stress long-term projections. Better to focus on projections for your first year.
- Depend entirely on the uniqueness of your business or the success of an invention.
- Project yourself as someone you're not. Be brutally realistic.
- Be everything to everybody. Highly focused specialists usually do best.
- Proceed without adequate financial and accounting know-how.
- Base your business plan on a wonderful concept. Test it first.
- Skip the step of preparing a business plan before starting.
