Do You REALLY Need a Business Plan?
It’s a trick question.
You almost certainly need a plan – no matter what kind of business you own. And it needs to be more than JUST a business plan – it needs to be a realistic implementation plan that will guide you on how to get from where you are today – to where you want to be in the future.
There are few guarantees in business – but there is one I can make: You and your company will face a LOT more potentially lethal dragon attacks if you don’t have a written business plan.
Guaranteed.
So, why take the needless risk when your probability for success is greatly enhanced with a minor cost and a few hours of your time focused on planning?
“The plan may be useless, but the planning process is invaluable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
You already know all the generic reasons you need a plan.
My guess is that you also already know all the specific reasons YOU need one for your company. Whether you are seeking investment or debt capital, want business partners, intend to raise funds for a non-profit organization or just need internal clarity and focus, you need a plan.
Your Business Plan & Your Business Planning
If you select CEO RESOURCE for your planning and management consulting needs, I will be the one working with you – with CEO RESOURCE, your business will not be delegated to a junior-level staffer with a new MBA.
My own Presidential / Key Executive MBA is seasoned and amplified by over 30 years of CEO-level experience. (My first business plan, written 30 years ago as my MBA Masters thesis, was a plan for starting my own real estate investment company. I not only exceeded my five year projections in less than two years but went on to build the company into one of the Top 10 self storage companies in the nation.)
With CEO RESOURCE, you will benefit directly from my three decades of personal hands-on experience conceiving, forming, founding, funding and building nearly four dozen corporations, joint ventures and partnerships.
Does it REALLY make sense for you to risk all the time, effort and money you intend on investing in your new venture by choosing a cheaper, less experienced approach for your business planning?
Or, does it make much more abundant sense to choose a business planning consultant who is a proven, successful entrepreneur – someone who has raised over $25 Million from angel investors and venture capitalists?
Shouldn’t you choose a proven expert who can both coach you with practical advice and who can genuinely help guide you and your new company past all those dragons and other obstacles that currently stand between your company’s present and the successful future you envision?
Your Startup & Venture Capital
I have consulted with over THOUSANDS of entrepreneurs and CEOs, in over 150 very different and diverse industries, worldwide – helping my clients identify, clarify and extend the vision of the future of their own company by working with them to:
- Help develop the realistic and implementable strategies and tactics that provide a solid foundation for both startup and emerging companies.
- Produce a comprehensive action plan, including the critically defined W Cubed – Who? Is Doing What? When?
- Develop very detailed financial projections to fully refine their business model before they invest substantial time, energy and money to start or expand their business.
- Produce a full business plan geared toward their intended audience that conveys their vision in an understandable format for both lenders and potential investors.
- Provide critically important brainstorming to identify additional opportunities and avoid potential dragons. Based on client feedback, this is often the most pivotal, course-changing benefit gained from working with CEO RESOURCE!
- Direct, manage and coordinate their very time consuming fundraising efforts to identify and close prospective investors and to help ensure that all steps are done in compliance with state and federal securities laws.
- Serve as a Virtual Executive – to help my entrepreneur and CEO clients to fully and successfully implement the immediate multitude of executive-level action items required to move forward after funding.
With this three decades of experience gained from running my own four dozen businesses and from working with so many diverse client companies, I’ve probably already successfully fought, more than once, many of those same dragons that you and your company are facing today. With this experience, I can help you map out a path to success that avoids many of these battles that can threaten your company’s future.
And, if the dragons have already hatched and are standing in your way, I can pick up a sword and help you identify the most potentially lethal ones and implement the steps necessary for us to slay them together.
Doesn’t it make sense for you and your company to benefit from this extensive experience and expertise – before you take that next major step?
I invite you to check out my website for details on my business planning and consulting services; my own credentials, experience and background; free sample documents and other information that can help you pro-actively move forward with your own company toward your desired Point B.
Your Starting Point For Your Business Planning: Deviled Details
During the past couple of decades, I’ve discussed business plans with thousands of startup entrepreneurs and emerging company CEOs in hundreds of different industries located all over the world.
As a long time entrepreneur myself, I know the kind of excitement that comes with starting something from scratch and growing it from an embryo.
Virtually all of those thousands of entrepreneurs who needed a business plan felt that same exhilaration – and they couldn’t wait to get to their own vision’s successful Point B. Regardless of type of industry or geographic location, entrepreneurial exuberance seems to be a universal constant!
However, besides the shared kind of enthusiasm each had for their own company, a large majority of these entrepreneurs shared another common trait.
The problem was that most of them weren’t yet ready to start their business plan. They simply had not yet thought through some of the fundamental business issues that require decisions before you can even answer the driving assumptions that are necessary for planning.
The upshot was that wrong answers, wrong decisions for these driving assumptions ended up being major road blocks to many of these entrepreneurs, often waylaying them with dead end trails so they never got to their Point B.
The good news is that I’ve discovered a quick, straight forward solution for quickly and easily destroying many of these road blocks – minimizing dead end trails and “analysis paralysis.”
Before you are ready to produce a meaningful business plan for your startup or emerging company, you need to have thought through your Deviled Details in order to end up with a realistic plan for implementation.
Click Deviled Details to see how well prepared you are to provide the critically important strategy, tactics and driving assumptions that are required to even start a realistic business plan.
The Kick Start Plan
If you find that many of these 101 Pivotal Questions and concepts are new to you, don’t feel badly.
Most entrepreneurs simply don’t have an extensive background in many of these areas – nor have they had meaningful experiences with these broad ranging issues.
You can probably sense that these 60+ Questions cover a lot – even if this isn’t everything – that you need to know to greatly increase your probability of success with your new or emerging company. Your know that your own expertise, training and experience are in other crucial areas that will be equally needed for the success of your new or emerging company.
But what are you going to do about these questions so they don’t become a road block keeping you from your Point B?
You can already sense that once you have drilled down and have detailed answers to many, if not all, of the above questions, your vision will be more clear for your company’s Point B! And, the clearer your vision, the higher the probability of your success.
So, what are your realistic options for finding these answers – and knowing the right driving assumptions for your business plan? Who are you going to call that can really help with you with this kind of decision making?
My Kick Start Plan Service is one of the ways I can help – by mentoring you, and consulting with you, by phone and email to help you find your best answers possible for many of these questions, you can much more quickly and accurately implement the steps necessary to get to your vision’s Point B.
The mentoring, consulting and brainstorming will be specific answers and solutions for your company, your vision and your Point B so you have realistic driving assumptions – so you don’t end up with a cookie cutter business plan that will have little to do with your company’s specific Point B!
Ready To Get Started?
I recommend we start with my simple Kick Start Plan Service: Two hours of mentoring and consulting by phone and email – specifically focused on helping you to answer your dozen most important questions out of the above 60+ questions. Kick Start Plan Service: Cost: $500.
We’ll start with the above questions and issues that are your dozen biggest concerns so that you get the most bangs for your buck, up front. Then, we can move on to the secondary questions and issues to start filling in those blanks as we have time. Of course, depending on how much prior drill down you have done on these questions, we won’t be able to explore all 101 Pivotal Questions in only two hours.
But we should be able to focus on destroying your dozen biggest road blocks.
After those initial two hours, you can decide if you want to stop – or go for additional hours of mentoring and consulting – or if you decide that you would best benefit from my Deviled Details Strategic and Action Planning Service. Or, we can move on directly to my various business plan services if you are ready.
Business Plan Financials Service – The Financial Baseline for All Plans
Once you know the answers to the 101 Pivotal Questions , you will be able to provide the driving assumptions to generate a realistic business plan. The first next step is to make sure that, with those driving assumptions, you have a business model that makes financial sense and provides a worthwhile ROI to you and a motivating ROI to lenders and prospective investors.
My Business Plan Financials Service, when used in conjunction with my copyrighted Business Plan Planning Worksheet, is the baseline for all plans. It often saves my clients significant time and expense in the plan development process – especially for a brand new venture when the vision of the company may be clear but the details are not yet fully defined.
My Business Plan Financials Service includes up to five years of detailed financial projections with tables and charts in both Microsoft Word and Excel spreadsheet formats. Projections include: Start up capital requirements, revenue forecasts, profit and loss, break-even analysis, cash flow, balance sheet, ratio analysis and future valuation analysis.
The Business Plan Financial Service also includes up to two hours of telephone and email Kick Start Plan Consulting on your business model, operations, implementation and funding goals and working with you to enhance your answers to the 150 questions in the Business Plan Planning Worksheet. Business Plan Financials Service with the Kick Start Plan for Standard Service: Cost: $895.
Concise Business Plan
I will work with you and your answers to my Business Plan Planning Worksheet, combine it with your answers to my Financial Assumptions Worksheet and current business model, existing research, narrative and information to produce a three to five page executive summary. This executive summary will be combined with the same financial projections generated by the Business Plan Financial Service to produce a Concise Business Plan for your company.
The Concise Plan also includes up to two hours of telephone and email Kick Start Plan Consulting on your business model, operations, implementation and funding goals and working with you to enhance your answers to the 150 questions in the Business Plan Planning Worksheet.
The Concise Plan is recommended for clients who wish a simplified narrative for internal use or for pursuing simplified bank debt financing or investor taste tests. Note that the narrative for the Concise Business Plan typically includes only an executive summary and narrative lead-in and discussion of the underlying assumptions for each section of the financial projections. Concise Business Plan Service with the Kick Start Plan for Standard Service: Cost: $1,195.
Comprehensive Business Plan
The Comprehensive Plan includes all the Concise Plan information plus a PowerPoint presentation along with greater in-depth narrative, fundraising tactics and strategy.
As with the Concise Plan, the Comprehensive Plan also includes up to two hours of telephone and email Kick Start Plan Consulting on your business model, operations, implementation and funding goals and working with you to enhance your answers to the 150 questions in the Business Plan Planning Worksheet. The Comprehensive Plan is recommended for clients who intend to pursue equity investment or more complex bank debt financing. Comprehensive Business Plan Service with the Kick Start Plan for Standard Service: Cost: $1,995.
Priority Service and Time Requirements
Please see The Queue and Priority Services to understand the way your planning process is handled with respect to other Clients and how you can choose between Standard, Priority and Top Priority Services. If your timeline is critical, you should read this link.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
CEO & Chief ImpleMentor
PS: Click Sample Business Plan if you would like to see an example.
PPS: Click Funding Foreplay to check out my five audio course, Funding Foreplay, it’s available at Amazon.com and on this website for immediate delivery for only $19.95.
Note: All prices and terms are subject to change and to my time availability. Priority Service is available at a 50% premium and Top Priority Service is available at a 100% premium over the Standard Rates listed above. Please click Queue / Priority Service for details.
Note: Market research and/or additional hours of mentoring and help are optionally available at my standard rates subject to availability. Since genuine and meaningful, in-depth market research and competitive analysis is generally so time intensive, this research and analysis is not included in the above prices. However, I am glad to provide these additional services for my clients on an incremental hourly basis, at my standard billing rate, to whatever level of depth is desired. All prices and terms are subject to change and to my time availability. Priority Service is available at a 50% premium and Top Priority Service is available at a 100% premium over the Standard Rates listed above. Please click Queue / Priority Service for details.