Building the Ultimate Business Plan Webinar by SBDC
by Joe · 49 things on Twos
- https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGmvfTwXpRRKxlpGhzNqbRBKtTp
- Hosted by Bill Burr (25 years in corporate America, business broker, and small business owner)
- Validate the opportunity you are looking at
- Or grow the opportunity of an existing business
- Businesses are 94% more likely to attract capital into their business
- Every business should start with a problem or an unmet need they think they can satisfy
- The business plan helps identify whether an idea is a good business opportunity
- Why are they gonna buy from us?
- What is unique about us?
- Identify the road blocks
- Often “where are we gonna get the money to start this business”
- Who is the competition
- Potential business owners tend to underestimate the competition
- Different kinds of business research
- Primary: done by ourselves
- Secondary: done by someone else (trade associations, census bureau, economic development councils)
- SBDC have a lot of subscriptions to these services
- If you are ever thinking about purchasing a franchise, contact other franchise owners
- Look back at old marketing initiatives and try to determine what worked vs what did not work
- NAICS code
- Benchmarks and forecasts are always important
- Avoid pitfalls
- Feasibility analysis
- Sales and purchase methods are dramatically different for B2B vs B2G
- Random Thoughts
- Questions
- Copy your competition. If it worked for them, it can work for you.
- Don’t forget about the 4 p’s of marketing
- Everything we do we need to measure. If it works, do it again. If it doesn’t, try something else.
- Financial forecasting (one of the first things a bank would look at as part of your business plan)
- Don’t get carried away with our future plans
- The number 1 reason businesses fail is lack of cash
- If your business plan isn’t working, find one that works for you
- The executive summary is a summarization of everything in your business plan
- 3-5 pages and JUICY
- Want it to be attention grabbing
- Break up text with graphs and tables
- Pictures are good
- Write it last, even though you may be tempted to start with it
- Need to rebuild our customer profiles
- Really delve down into 3-5 competitors
- Industry
- Marketing plan
- Milestones and metrics
- Appendix
- Size does not always matter with business plans
- 20-30 pages have raised millions
- We can request to speak with Bill specifically
- Didn’t get a chance to fill out survey - app crashed