The Standout Business Plan is an immensely practical and readable guide that shows you how to create a business plan that not only speaks directly to investors and lenders but also makes it easy for them to say yes. At the beginning of every successful business is a well-thought-out and exceptionally prepared business plan that was written with one audience in mind--investors. However, too many budding entrepreneurs have written their business’s bible with a focus on details most important to managers or employees or even themselves, completely avoiding the questions most crucial to those who determine the fate of the business’s genesis…its potential backers. Renowned leadership expert Brian Tracy and business strategy consultant Vaughan Evans share case studies and examples of both what to do and what not to do when developing a plan for your business. In The Standout Business Plan, Tracy and Evans reveal how to: Include the vital information backers need, while leaving out extraneous fillers that gets in the way Address key factors such as market demand, competition, and strategy Spell out the essence of your business proposition Outline resources and financial forecasts Assess risk from the backer's perspective Evaluate and improve the plan to ensure its success Your business plan is too important to not get exactly right from the beginning. With the easy-to-follow guidance in The Standout Business Plan, now anyone can present a clear, concise, and convincing case that will win them the funding they need to succeed.

Whether you seek financial backing or board consent, this bestseller gives you the critical knowledge you need to get the go-ahead. Written by a seasoned practitioner with years of experience in both writing & evaluating business plans for funding, you'll formulate a coherent, consistent & convincing plan with your backer’s needs in mind. Follow its guidance and your plan will have every chance of winning the backing you need. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed. Samples Preview sample pages from The FT Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan

Understand and decode the inner workings of great business teams with the more than 30 in-depth examples in Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance. Author Howard Guttman examines and dissects teams at top-management, business-unit, and functional levels and isolates five key factors that drive team performance to offer you insight into the ways these teams achieve success. Using this book, go directly to the marketplace to scrutinize teams in a variety of industries, evaluating the challenges they face and the methods they choose to manage these challenges.

“An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” —New Yorker “An excellent and original economic history of venture capital.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “A detailed, fact-filled account of America’s most celebrated moneymen.” —New Republic “Extremely interesting, readable, and informative...Tom Nicholas tells you most everything you ever wanted to know about the history of venture capital, from the financing of the whaling industry to the present multibillion-dollar venture funds.” —Arthur Rock “In principle, venture capital is where the ordinarily conservative, cynical domain of big money touches dreamy, long-shot enterprise. In practice, it has become the distinguishing big-business engine of our time...[A] first-rate history.” —New Yorker VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from America’s longstanding identification with entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Whether the venture is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the latest Silicon Valley startup, VC is a state of mind as much as a way of doing business, exemplified by an appetite for seeking extreme financial rewards, a tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a faith in the promise of innovation to generate new wealth. Tom Nicholas’s authoritative history takes us on a roller coaster of entrepreneurial successes and setbacks. It describes how iconic firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia invested in Genentech and Apple even as it tells the larger story of VC’s birth and evolution, revealing along the way why venture capital is such a quintessentially American institution—one that has proven difficult to recreate elsewhere.

Making Big Decisions Better is leading a global movement to equip present and next generation leaders with proven strategy tools that enable agile thinking that ignites stronger, more predictable, direct paths to profit. No more academic theories. These are real tools and a system that enables improved strategic thinking and leadership. This book bridges an unspoken gap in strategy thinking that until now, only provided leaders with just SWOT and Porter’s 5 Forces as the language of strategy. By using the decision making tools in Making Big Decisions Better, you’ll finally remove the mystique of those you manage up to, and lead those that report to you. You will standout and have a transportable set of tools for any role or industry. There’s never been a better time to break away from the outdated, mainstream strategy planning process that misused scarce resources, burned out its leaders and never delivered the results. It’s your turn to learn and lead!

With stories and advice from a fleet of trusted experts, this book is for anyone wishing to get their business off the ground and become the next wildly successful entrepreneur everyone is reading about. For decades, makers, doers, and dreamers have turned to Inc. for help in getting their businesses off the ground. The insanely successful entrepreneurs behind organizations like Skullcandy, Spanx, Elon Musk, and Airbnb learned lessons at every stage, experienced unexpected setbacks, and in the end triumphed wildly. All along, Inc. was there capturing it all so that others could experience even greater successes than these titans of business. From brainstorming to crowdfunding to building partnerships, the book walks new and aspiring founders through seven crucial stages, including: Establishing a brilliant business idea Selecting the best structure and strategy for your startup Getting the word out and building clientele Preparing to go global Learn how Elon Musk stays wildly productive. Discover how Sarah Blakely got the inspiration for Spanx. Read the stories of how a hashtag accelerated Airbnb’s success and how Warby Parker shook up the eyewear industry with its innovative, socially conscious business model. Start a Successful Business gathers these important lessons into a single path-charting guide.

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.

Professional-level information empowering you with over 75 key strategic tools to ensure both short term and long-term success for your business and providing the full gamut of tools and techniques needed for you to create your own strategic plan. Following the footsteps of the hugely successful Key Management Models and Key Performance Indicators, this book delivers information in the practical and accessible framework synonymous with the Key series. Key Strategy Tools covers strategy tools and techniques within seven distinct areas: - Setting goals and objectives - Forecasting market demand - Gauging industry competition - Rating competitive position - Identifying strategic gaps - Bridging strategic gaps - Addressing risk and opportunity

The design marketplace has never been more competitive, or demanded more from emerging talent. To succeed, you must navigate the transition from learner to professional with purpose and precision. In Stand Out: Building Your Design Portfolio, Denise Anderson offers a hands-on, three-step, full-color action plan for establishing your unique brand, crafting a killer portfolio, tailoring and delivering your message, getting your perfect design job, and excelling once you're hired. In this superbly organized and beautifully designed book, Anderson distills 20+ years of experience as a graphic designer, entrepreneur, instructor, and mentor, offering you powerful insights and easy-to-use tools for successfully launching your career. Whether you're in graphic design, advertising design, interactive or web design, fashion, or any other design field, Anderson will help you identify what makes you unique, and use it powerfully differentiate yourself from everyone else. Stand Out's step-by-step approach, hands-on work exercises, and short, easy-to-absorb chapters guide you through: Clarifying your brand purpose and unique attributes Designing your brand identity, encompassing all brand touchpoints Creating an online presence that showcases you at your best Self-promoting your brand, from social media to print "leave-behinds" Optimizing your portfolio for the industry and company where you want to work Discovering what's hot in portfolio design and strategy - and what's not Understanding what employers want from you Producing your digital and/or print portfolio Choosing your mentor(s) and creating your personal advisory board Developing a personal job plan you can start executing right now Protecting your work against theft Identifying your dream job Writing and designing outstanding resumes and job-specific cover letters Interviewing and presenting your work effectively Accepting a position and negotiating salary Succeeding in your first job, and preparing for the next Stand Out brings together all the easy-to-use forms, checklists, and tools you'll need... multiple examples of great student and young professional portfolio work to show you how it's done... dozens of great tips and tricks... "in the trenches" insights from recent graduates... all you need to get where you want to go!