Comments on: The Living, Breathing Business Plan

By: Plan as You Go Business Plan Book – Today’s Giveaway

Plan as You Go Business Plan Book – Today’s Giveaway — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:28:14 +0000

[...] is an excellent book and I highly recommend it for any entrepreneur. I wrote about The Plan as You go Business Plan book a while back, noting: The “plan as you go business plan” emphasizes the importance [...]

By: Sticker Printing

Sticker Printing — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:29:58 +0000

We started with no real business plan but we had a direction and we know where we wanted to end up. The great thing we learnt from this was the best market research you can do is by actually going out to the market and seeing if you can sell your product. After 12-24 months we also had the right pricing model and had been trading for a period of time which others would have been planning.

By: Linette Singleton

Linette Singleton — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:32:31 +0000

Matt has hit the issue right on the head. Writing a business plan should not result in an overwhelming document devoid of a business’ reality. The benefit to writing a business plan is to consider possible opportunities and risks to making your business a success. The exercise can help keep a business owner from being unexpectantly blindsided.

And to follow-up on Neil’s earlier point, I would like to see the annual end-of-year update to the business plan take place in conversation with one’s accountant as part of year-end tax prep/return planning.

By: izle

izle — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:16:27 +0000

Thanks a lot..

By: Martin Lindeskog

Martin Lindeskog — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:30:43 +0000

I will get this book. We have used this approach in our business. It the business “landscape” changes or some new external thing comes to play, then you have to update your business plan accordingly.

By: Noobpreneur

Noobpreneur — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:28:22 +0000

Anita,

Thanks for pointing the book out – I’m always a fan of Tim and his great software – I use it to plan for my current businesses (and future businesses).

Planning is crucial, indeed – Planning minimise the unexpected things that might happening to your business.

Cheers!

By: Neal O'Sullivan

Neal O'Sullivan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:46:59 +0000

Beth you post a very interesting point-of-view. Mike writes a very entertaining article. I am sure that he writes from experience. However, consider that any organization must integrate both short term and long term considerations simultaneously. That means GAAP reporting consistently. The short term stuff – “Daily Metrics” is just a simple “Dashboard” report of the controlling pulse points that drive each individual business. This is pretty straight forward stuff and plows no new ground.

Quarterly reports, in order to be useful, should be reduced to monthly point-of views.

Prosperity plan is the only shelf article entitled to collect dust. It is an intermediate life product ( <= 5yrs) and thus serves only as a macro reference guideline.

However, the business plan being a one year point-of view remains indispensible. The thrust of the post as I read it was to remind small business owners that a business plan is only valuable when it is properly maintained. “Three Sheet” approaches are closer to the role of an FP&A function.

An important role of business plans vis-à-vis actual vs. forecast is to lay the groundwork for eventual due diligence when the hard working business owner cashes out. Without this data, subjective risk adjusted rates could cost the seller a ton of cash.

In my humble opinion, a business that views active business planning maintenance and its corollary learning process as “living in a dinosaur age” is akin to building your house on sand.

By: Susan Oakes

Susan Oakes — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:58:35 +0000

We have a business plan for our company and I agree it should be a working document. The key reason is like the marketing plan within the business plan it saves you time and money if you have one and keeps you from getting sidetracked.

Also I believe it works only if you analyze and track your results and progress on a regular basis. This has allowed us to make adjustments during the year and be proactive not reactive when market conditions change, new competitors etc come into play.

By: Andertoons

Andertoons — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:47:22 +0000

I didn’t have a business plan per se, but I did think long and hard about what I was going to leave my job for. And you’re right, it’s constantly evolving and changing!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:41:31 +0000

It’s great to hear that Mr. Berry is getting behind this strategy. So often, it seems to me, small businesses are intimidated by the idea of creating some huge, ungainly business plan that’s divorced from their actual operations. As long as a business thinks strategically about their industry, their competition, and their customers – and as long as they keep that research up to date – they won’t be surprised by something unforeseen. And that research really isn’t very difficult – no more than an afternoon or two at a library with a librarian who knows what he/she is doing