Finding a good business plan book can be overwhelming. Type “business planning guide” into Amazon and you’ll get almost 5000 citations. Your local bookstore or library is more selective, but it’s still hard to sort through them. And, truth be told, there’s no one book for everybody. So, for that reason, we’ve listed the “best” …
Starting a Business/
Business Planning
Resources for Starting a Business
Legal Structures of Organizations Legal Forms and Traditional Structures of Organizations Market Research — Inbound Marketing Planning Your Research Market Research Find and Feed the Feeling Strategizing Understanding Strategy and Strategic Thinking Competitor Analysis Porter’s Five Competitive Forces (Part I) Porter’s Five Competitive Forces (Part 2) Competitive Intelligence Product Planning Product Management E-Commerce Sales and …
Few plans are implemented as intended. That’s one of the reasons that people lose faith in planning. They expect their plans to be implemented exactly as described in the plan. One of the unfortunate aspects of this situation is that many consultants assert that “planning doesn’t work.” It does work when it’s done well. During …
In a world with dynamic markets and fickle customers, it’s best to build into your plan strategies to respond quickly to new opportunities and threats. Long gone are the days when you could just create a valuable product, price it to attract customers while making a profit, and then just keep doing the same thing …
Over the years, I’ve noticed that when things get really tough or it’s difficult to identify strategies during planning, there are always three strategies you can try. My clients seem to love it when I describe the Solution to them. Try it yourself. Strategy #1: Try Get More Resources? This is the most popular, but …
Writing a business plan takes time. Using software can help organize your work and save you some time, especially if you haven’t written one before. Here’s a quick summary of what, from my experience, are the three best choices: Business Plan Pro by Palo Alto Software claims it’s the best selling business planning software for …
Far too often, organizations choose the wrong approach to strategic planning. As a result, strategic plans sit untouched on shelves and planners become even more cynical about goals-based or issues-based planning. This occurs especially with 1) new organizations, 2) organizations having many current issues, and 3) organizations having very limited resources. Here’s how to fix …
Depends. All too often, these two terms have become blurred. But they are different concepts. Here’s a good way to distinguish them, quoting from the Free Management Library’s strategic plan blogger, Carter McNamara: Strategic Planning Should Be Organization-Wide Strategic planning is best viewed as clarifying the overall purpose and priorities of the organization. There are …
