"A comprehensive guide to every aspect of preparing and using a business plan--newly updated and revised. New businesses and existing businesses fare better with well-thought-out plans. It is essential to have a good business plan to raise capital--either for a new venture to get additional capital or within most corporations for new initiatives or for accelerated growth"--Provided by publisher.

A readable and structured guide for the increasing numbers of people each year who consider setting up a small business or becoming self-employed. 'Business Planning' outlines the options and risks involved in setting up a business. The importance of thorough planning is often overlooked and only becomes evident if the business fails. This is highlighted in a recent study by the SFEDI of 486 bankers and accountants where lack of planning was the most common reason cited as to why businesses fail. 'Business Planning' shows how to avoid this failure by focusing on the planning stage and building on this framework as the business develops. This is the only book based around the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) for first time owner-managers. It contains all the underpinning factual information required to prepare and present a successful Business Plan for presentation to a bank manager, or an alternative potential source of finance, or for use in an NVQ portfolio. It is in line with the major syllabuses for Business Start-Up, and can be used as a course book for anyone completing a formal NVQ level 3 qualification in this area, with tips on NVQ structure and assessment.

Entrepreneurs—and entrepreneurial companies—live or die by the quality of their plans and proposals. Whether it's to get funding for a new product line or business from a client, writing hard-hitting prose that answers essential questions and makes specific requests is an indispensable skill. Entrepreneur, ad man, and writing teacher Dennis Chambers shows how entrepreneurs can persuade people, through skillful writing, to pony up capital or contracts. This ability—which can be learned—is rare in today's media-saturated world. But it counts more than ever if an entrepreneur wants to make it over the magical five-year hump and on into lasting business success. Numerous examples and exercises ensure that entrepreneurs understand how the writing game is played—and that they play it well. Unfortunately, most don't play this game well. Most business writers mistakenly believe their task is to inform. They write to fill an information gap or to update the reader on a particular project. Or they write about what's important to them. What these writers do not take into account is that the speed of today's work world has reached overdrive. The typical reader simply doesn't have time to ponder dense, poorly organized information and intuit the appropriate action. And readers don't give a hoot about what's important to the writer—they want to know what's in it for themselves. Business writers need to use all the tools at their command to persuade, inspire action, and in general move a project forward. This book is about how to be persuasive in two key skills in business: writing proposals and writing business plans. Step by step, Dennis Chambers illustrates the techniques of effective business writing, with numerous examples throughout. Whether the objective is to secure financing from an investor, lay out a marketing strategy, or secure a large contract, getting results requires crafting an effective structure for the proposal, and using words that sell. Chambers is an able guide in saving entrepreneurs time and undue effort while reaching the goal of long-term business success.

In today’s turbulent and financially stressful times, public health managers need business planning skills. They need to become “civic entrepreneurs,” who can creatively finance and manage needed programs using business school savvy. Public Health Business Planning: A Practical Guide is based on the curriculum of the highly successful Management Academy for Public Health, offered by the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A Lewin Group evaluation showed that teams of Management Academy graduates have generated millions of dollars in revenue for local agencies through implementing business plans. This book teaches what it means to use entrepreneurial strategies for social good, and key business planning skills such as: Assessment and strategic planning Program planning, implementation, and evaluation Financial planning and budgeting Market research and social marketing Strategies for getting funded including business writing and speaking Project management and business plan execution strategies

Forbes calls The Successful Business Plan one of the best books for small businesses. This new edition offers advice on developing business plans that will succeed in today's business climate. Includes up-to-date information on what's being funded now.

Now in a newly updated and expanded 3rd edition, SBP30 is a concise, reader-friendly guide that contains all the information needed to craft a comprehensive business plan for any type of entrepreneurial activity within a 30-day time frame. It provides step-by-step procedures as well as hundreds of company startup and operating strategies. There is even a section showing readers how to create a mini- one day business plan in a single afternoon to give any current ideas they have a needed focus when time is of essence. Revised with international readers in mind, this 3rd edition also offers more than 200 educational and motivational quotations as well as 33 profit tips and 11 entrepreneurial success stories from around the globe. Enhanced with more than 100 time-saving checklists and worksheets, a sample business plan, and over 150 newly added sample paragraphs to help readers with the language of business, this guide is a key ingredient for anyone interested in planning a business.

A good business plan should impress potential financial backers by clarifying aims, providing a blueprint for the future of your company and a benchmark against which to measure growth. Part of Kogan Page's Business Success series, with over 50,000 copies sold worldwide, How to Prepare a Business Plan explains the whole process in accessible language and includes guidance on: producing cash flow forecasts and sample business plans; expanding a business; planning the borrowing; and monitoring business progress. The author introduces several small businesses as case studies, analyses their business plans, monitors their progress and discusses their problems. How to Prepare a Business Plan helps new business owners to consider what they really want out of their business, and to map their own journey and gain a new understanding of their product's place in the market, as well as writing a business plan with the clarity, brevity and logic to keep bank managers interested and convinced. Whether looking to start up or expand, this practical advice will help anyone to prepare a plan that is tailored to the requirements of their business - one that will get the financial backing they need.

Full of practical help on how to build the best, most flexible, and easy-to-use business models that can be used to analyze the upsides and downsides of any business project, this new edition of the Guide to Business Modeling is essential reading for the twenty-first century business leader. This radically revised guide to the increasingly important fine art of building business models using spreadsheets, the book describes models for evaluating everything from a modest business development to a major acquisition. Fully Excel 2010 aligned with enhanced Excel and business content More model evaluation techniques to help with business decision-making Helpful key point summaries New website from which model examples given in the book can be downloaded For anyone who wants to get ahead in business and especially for those with bottom-line responsibilities, this new edition of Guide to Business Modeling is the essential guide to how to build spreadsheet models for assessing business risks and opportunities.

A fresh, compelling approach to establishing a sustainable, results-driven nonprofit business plan. Nonprofits often use the terms “strategic planning” and “business planning” interchangeably, but a good business plan goes beyond the traditional strategic plan with its focus on mission and vision, goals and objectives. The Nonprofit Business Plan, created by the nationally recognized nonprofit consultant experts at La Piana Consulting, helps your nonprofit organization understand what a strategic business plan is and why you need one, then provides a practical, proven process for creating a successful, sustainable business model. This groundbreaking resource further explains how your nonprofit can determine whether a potential undertaking is economically viable—a vital tool in today’s economic climate—and how to understand and solve challenges as they arise. With detailed instructions, worksheets, essential tools, case studies, and a rigorous financial analysis presented clearly and accessibly for executives, board members, and consultants, The Nonprofit Business Plan is also an important resource for non-specialist audiences such as potential funders and investors. This innovative step-by-step guide will provide your team with a solid set of business decisions so that your nonprofit can achieve maximum results for years to come.

At last, a complete business plan guide just for independentconsultants! . . . And who better to write it than North America's#1 bestselling author on consulting? Unlike most general business plan books that focus on raisingcapital and applying for loans, this unique do-it-yourself guideconcentrates on defining services and products. Written by HermanHoltz, the nation's leading expert on making it as an independentconsultant, it tells you everything you need to know to develop arealistic, workable business plan that prepares you for anycontingency and helps guide your day-to-day decision making as yourbusiness flourishes and grows. Numerous illustrations andworksheets guide your every step and save you the drudgery ofstarting from scratch. This book covers all business planningtopics of crucial concern to consultants, including: * Defining your products or services * Market research and sales strategies * Rate structures and income projections * Worksheets to help you create objectives and set goals * Sample business plan Includes the Author's Disk to help you prepare your business plan,from defining your services and target market to estimatingstart-up costs, setting rates and consulting fees, and projectingincome. Boilerplate contracts and letters of agreement are alsoprovided.