Business Plan Experts

According to SBA.gov, a business plan “defines your business, identifies your goals and serves as your firm’s resume” (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2012).  Many times entrepreneurs, looking to start a new business, will seek out the help from business plan experts.  Some experts help write the business plan with you, or they give you the necessary tools needed to write a successful business plan yourself.  I am currently in the process of writing my own business plan, so after researching some business plan experts; I want to share with you the thoughts and ideas from Dave Lavinsky and Tim Berry.

Dave Lavinsky is an expert in business planning, capital raising, and new venture development (growthink, 2012).  Lavinsky is the President of Growthink, which has written over 2,000 business plans, and has helped more then 250,000 entrepreneurs by providing training materials to help them begin and grow their businesses (Lavinsky, 2012).  Lavinsky has been called a business plan expert by BusinessWeek and received his MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA (Lavinsky, 2012).

 Lavinsky created a video on how to write a business plan and he feels there are 4 critical things that you must start with in order to be successful.  He believes the first thing you should do when writing a business plan is one line the clearly summarizes what your company does (Lavinsky, 2012).  Lavinsky feels this is critical because he has been involved with investors when they read new business plan, and they can read through the first page of the plan and have no idea what the company is about.  The second thing that must be covered is your financial model (Lavinsky, 2012).  This lets the investors know how much you will need, how much you will pay back, how long it will take you to make revenue, and the cost of your products or services.  If you need investors to help you pay to start, they need to know how much you are expecting them to provide.  The third area starts with a question, “what are your risk mitigating milestones?” (Lavinsky, 2012).  This shows your action plan in order to achieve success and when it is completed it makes a company more likely to succeed (Lavinsky, 2012).  This is important to investors because every time a milestone is achieved, the risk becomes smaller for the investor (Lavinsky, 2012).  The fourth step is answering the question “why are you uniquely qualified to succeed?” (Lavinsky, 2012).  Lavinsky feels this is the most important thing that the readers of your business plan care about, but about 90% of business plans don’t include them (Lavinsky, 2012).

Tim Berry is the President of Palo Alto Software and the founder of bplans.com (Berry, 2012).  Berry is the author of Business Plan Pro, The Plan-As-You-Go Business, and has been named as one of the top 20 entrepreneurs to follow on twitter by Business Week (Berry, 2012).  Berry has an MBA from Stanford.

Berry feels there are 8 factors that make up a good business plan.  Factor number one is, it fits the business need (Berry T. , 2009).  When starting a business you want to make sure that the plan achieves its business purpose (Berry T. , 2009).   Factor number two is, the plan is realistic.  It can be implemented (Berry T. , 2009).  You want to make sure that your business plan can actually happen.  If you present a plan to investors on a business that is impossible to start, investors will not support your plan.  The third factor is, it’s specific. You can track results against plans (Berry T. , 2009).  Your plan must be measurable; this will help you evaluate your results.  The fourth factor is that it clearly defines responsibilities for implementation (Berry T. , 2009).  Make sure someone if responsible for every task required in your business plan.  This will show investors that no task will be unnoticed.  The fifth factor is, it clearly identifies assumptions (Berry T. , 2009).  This is important because these are what we think is going to happen.  Showing these throughout our process keeps consistency.  The sixth factor is, it’s communicated to the people who have to run it (Berry T. , 2009).  Make sure that everyone involved with the plan knows exactly what the plan is about.  The only way a plan can be implemented is if all of the parties involved are all on the same page.  The seventh factor is, it gets people committed (Berry T. , 2009).  The plan has to get the team wanting to commit to the idea.  The last factor is, it’s kept alive by follow up and planning process (Berry T. , 2009).  Make sure you do not write a business plan that ends up in a drawer and is never managed or implemented.  Berry feels you can finish the first 7 factors and still drop the ball with this last factor.  Of course, the last 3 steps touch more on the process surrounding the plan, but Berry still feels they are just as important as writing the plan itself (Berry T. , 2009).

References

Berry, T. (2009, February 18). 8 Factors that Make a Good Business Plan. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from Planning Startups Stories : http://timberry.bplans.com/2009/02/some-key-questions-on-business-plans.html

Berry, T. (2012, January 1). Introducing Myself. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from Planning Startups Stories: http://timberry.bplans.com/introducing-myself

growthink. (2012, January 1). Dave Lavinsky. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from growthink: http://www.growthink.com/team/dave-lavinsky

Lavinsky, D. (2012, January 1). How to Make a Business Plan: Free Business Plan Tips. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from Growthink: http://www,growthink.com/businessplan/help-center/key-components-business-plan-part-1

U.S. Small Business Administration. (2012, January 1). What is a business plan and why do I need one. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from SBA.gov: http://www.sba.gov/content/what-business-plan-and-why-do-i-need-one