can: Don’t bother with any of these time and money wasters. What I’m about to tell you will be more practical to your start-up than any 250-page textbook: The only things you need to develop effective strategies are your brain, intuition, and common sense. Not only will those other remedial planning materials burn a hole in your wallet, they will overwhelm you with unnecessary worksheets. If you really have an urge to fill in some blanks, go buy a MadLibs.
Never use traditional business plans for samples . The only thing more useless than reading a business plan book is reading someone else’s business plan. What do you expect to learn from someone else’s plan? Formatting tips? The proper way to structure a table of contents? What other people wrote about their businesses? I assure you that your dog-walking company will gain nothing from looking at plans for Mary Jo’s Cleaners or Sam’s Car Wash. More often than not, free plans are nothing more than sales tools disguised by business plan product companies to look like online resources. Most of the time, their only goals are to lure you into making a purchase.
The only time you should bother reading someone else’s traditional business plan is if it outlines a business model similar to yours, and you can directly benefit from its content . Otherwise, don’t concern yourself with how other people wrote their plans. All this exercise will do is sucker you into plagiarism—and trick you into writing a useless document.
Only the right people should ever read your work . Unless your parents, friends, teachers, or colleagues are partners in your venture or have the ability to offer valuable and relevant insight—that’s based on real-world experiences—then don’t bother asking them for opinions on your business-planning efforts.
It’s not their business, after all: It’s yours!
Validation, grammar corrections, and general feedback are not good enough reasons to bring someone inside your inner planning circle. Only let individuals who can truly add value assist you during your business-planning process. Keep your judgment unclouded and don’t just give anyone and everyone the right to become a cook in your kitchen. Make sure that your planning mentors are qualified before inviting their interpretation. If you can’t think of any direct questions for an individual then don’t even bother to value or entertain that person’s opinions.
Don’t try to impress imaginary bankers, angel investors, and venture capitalists . Wake up: Who do you think will be reading your start-up’s business plan? Banks won’t. Investors won’t. No one will believe that your business is more than just words printed on a page until the moment you demonstrate and prove its viability with real revenues and profits. To them, it’s not about what you say you will do; it’s about saying what you did , and the lucrative results of those efforts.
The biggest mistake you can make is planning a strategy with the wrong person’s needs in mind. Never include anything in your planning tools simply because it sounds or looks good or contains information you think other people need to hear. I assure you that they won’t be listening or caring about you or your business. Stop concerning yourself with them and worry about yourself, your product or service, and your target market. Your plan must be for you and only you. Simply produce a strategy based on what’s doable, practical, and makes good sense for your company—one that will help you to turn your words into profitable realities.
Nothing is ever written in stone . The real world isn’t simple, static, or stationary. This remains true whether your business goes bust or knocks one out of the park. Both a business and its environment can change on a dime. Don’t be afraid to follow your gut instincts. Savvy entrepreneurs adapt as the environment changes. They don’t rely on old information—old
Never use traditional business plans for samples . The only thing more useless than reading a business plan book is reading someone else’s business plan. What do you expect to learn from someone else’s plan? Formatting tips? The proper way to structure a table of contents? What other people wrote about their businesses? I assure you that your dog-walking company will gain nothing from looking at plans for Mary Jo’s Cleaners or Sam’s Car Wash. More often than not, free plans are nothing more than sales tools disguised by business plan product companies to look like online resources. Most of the time, their only goals are to lure you into making a purchase.
The only time you should bother reading someone else’s traditional business plan is if it outlines a business model similar to yours, and you can directly benefit from its content . Otherwise, don’t concern yourself with how other people wrote their plans. All this exercise will do is sucker you into plagiarism—and trick you into writing a useless document.
Only the right people should ever read your work . Unless your parents, friends, teachers, or colleagues are partners in your venture or have the ability to offer valuable and relevant insight—that’s based on real-world experiences—then don’t bother asking them for opinions on your business-planning efforts.
It’s not their business, after all: It’s yours!
Validation, grammar corrections, and general feedback are not good enough reasons to bring someone inside your inner planning circle. Only let individuals who can truly add value assist you during your business-planning process. Keep your judgment unclouded and don’t just give anyone and everyone the right to become a cook in your kitchen. Make sure that your planning mentors are qualified before inviting their interpretation. If you can’t think of any direct questions for an individual then don’t even bother to value or entertain that person’s opinions.
Don’t try to impress imaginary bankers, angel investors, and venture capitalists . Wake up: Who do you think will be reading your start-up’s business plan? Banks won’t. Investors won’t. No one will believe that your business is more than just words printed on a page until the moment you demonstrate and prove its viability with real revenues and profits. To them, it’s not about what you say you will do; it’s about saying what you did , and the lucrative results of those efforts.
The biggest mistake you can make is planning a strategy with the wrong person’s needs in mind. Never include anything in your planning tools simply because it sounds or looks good or contains information you think other people need to hear. I assure you that they won’t be listening or caring about you or your business. Stop concerning yourself with them and worry about yourself, your product or service, and your target market. Your plan must be for you and only you. Simply produce a strategy based on what’s doable, practical, and makes good sense for your company—one that will help you to turn your words into profitable realities.
Nothing is ever written in stone . The real world isn’t simple, static, or stationary. This remains true whether your business goes bust or knocks one out of the park. Both a business and its environment can change on a dime. Don’t be afraid to follow your gut instincts. Savvy entrepreneurs adapt as the environment changes. They don’t rely on old information—old
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