Manage your Enterprise and Resources to Achieve Your Goals - Start With a Business Plan

10. Check your progress.

The SBA has an online interactive checklist at www.sba.gov if you want to quiz yourself on all you've learned so far and figure out what you still need to learn. It's under the Startup Basics section and it addresses seven key components: identify your reasons; self-analysis; personal skills and experience; finding a niche; market analysis; planning your startup; and finances.

Double Check Your Business Plan

Whether your plan is written on a stack of paper napkins or you've kept it in an electronic folder on your home computer, it's time to make sure it's foolproof. That means showing it to some people who are more experienced than you are and letting them try to poke holes in it to make sure it doesn't leak. But first, relax.

"Sometimes we preach so much about the importance of the business plan that I think we intimidate people a bit," says Edward Daum, Minnesota District Director for the SBA in Minneapolis. "They get so involved in writing the business plan that they get discouraged and never get around to starting the business."

Your business plan should reflect the complexity of the business itself, Daum says. For instance, if you plan on selling items on eBay from your home or offering your services as a hiring consultant or a freelance writer, your business plan won't be as complicated as that of your friend who's opening a manufacturing plant for a line of electronic equipment. Hers will address issues yours might not, including real estate, inventory, employee health plans, manufacturing and production equipment, and distribution.            

The best business plans, Daum says, are clean, straightforward and realistic. They include an executive summary right up front. They don't try to dazzle with charts and graphs. They don't use technical jargon only found in your industry. And they're not overloaded with explanations of technical processes - although if needed, you can include in-depth information about those in attachments. The best plans simply tell the reader who you are, what your business is about, and how you're going to make it all work out.

And the financials, as always, are key. After all, you're in business to make money, right?

"The capitalization of the business, including sources and uses of funds, should be clear," Daum says. "The operating projections are critical and should include break-even sales, worst-case scenario, best-case scenario, and the most likely scenario."

Checklist

1. Research what a business plan looks like and what information it contains.
2. If you're not comfortable with the analysis that goes into starting your business, take an online course through www.myownbusiness.org or enroll in classes through a local college or the SBA, SCORE, the SBDC or the Women's Business Centers. These are designed for career people who can't take time out to pursue an MBA but need to learn or brush up on basic skills.
3. Decide what you want your business to accomplish - such as fulfilling a temporary need to fit into your lifestyle or developing into a long-term enterprise.
4. Create your company's "competitive advantage" by asking people who know you for feedback to help you discover your strengths.
5. Examine and list your company's customers and competition, as well as industry trends that will affect your product or service.
6. Learn the basic principles of accounting so you can handle the financial part of your business.
7. If you're still working for someone else, start observing everything around you and absorbing information you can use when you start your business.
8. Write your business plan! Get help tweaking it from another entrepreneur or a counselor from one of the organizations that helps entrepreneurs, such as the SBA, the SBDC, SCORE or the Women's Business Centers.

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