Do Business Well

I’m often asked how it is that writing is “so easy” for me,how it is that I can just “turn the copy out” on demand. I haveto explain that writing really isn’t easy for me or for most professional writers. I can’t just turn the copy out on demand.

Just because the final copy turns out well doesn’t mean that the process of writing it was easy. Writing is as demanding for professionals as it is for other people for the following three reasons:
1. It’s rarely right the first time. There’s a perception that good writers sit down at their computers and somehow put together flowing prose at will, on the first try. But most professional writers will tell you that effective written material is rarely produced on the first try. Rather, they will explain, the key to effective writing is frequent rewriting. Continue Reading »

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Just as we judge books by their covers and people by the way they dress, so we judge business plans by the way they look. In addition to being clearly and concisely written, the business plan must also be accessible in other ways. The way the plan is bound, typed, and organized sends a message to readers.

At the same time, the plan differs from a book in that it isn’t intended for general circulation. Much of the information is confidential, and you don’t want it falling into the hands of unauthorized customers, suppliers, or competitors. How you package the plan can affect who it goes to—and doesn’t go to.

Here are some suggestions for making the most of your plan’s overall appearance:

1. Make it businesslike. The plan should look neither too slick nor too shabby. Too slick could be leather binding and Linotronic typesetting. Too shabby could be faded Xeroxed pages stapled together. Continue Reading »

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If you’re using your plan to try to raise cash, you may be called upon to present your business plan personally to bankersor investors. In this event, be prepared to impress your audience. Many of the same rules that apply to preparing the business plan also apply to a personal presentation. Here are those I have found to be most important:

1. Keep it short and to the point. Unless you’re told otherwise, your presentation should be kept to half an hour or less. Like the written plan, the presentation should be concise and easy to understand. That means extracting the most important points from the plan and running through them in an interesting and logical way.

Continue Reading »

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Once you get yourself past some of the barriers that seem to be an inherent part of the writing process, you can confront some of the issues particular to the business plan. The overriding point, though, is to keep yourself focused as much as possible on business issues rather than on writing issues. My experience is that the better understanding you have of the business issues, the more easily the writing comes.

While there’s no one right way to write the business plan (or any other material), here are some approaches/techniques I have found to be useful:

1. Determine the priority of issues/success factors for each area of the business. In other words, for each section of the plan—the company, marketing, product/service, sales, and financial sections—list in order of importance the challenges facing your business. Also provide your approaches/solutions for handling the challenges.

For example, for the sales segment, suppose that key issues are whether you can justify an in-house sales force, how you will train it, and how much advertising you can accomplish within the $10,000 advertising budget you have available. List each of these issues and then explain the justifications or solutions for each. This is how your analysis might look: Continue Reading »

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