Yahoo!
Ideas are a dime a dozen – but turning good ideas into a viable business is another matter. What determines whether one idea gets executed and another doesn’t? One of the best ways to discover whether your idea will shake up the business world and be a real business is to write a business plan. Contrary to popular opinion, writing a business plan, as Woody Allen once said, doesn’t have to be like spending an evening with an insurance salesman.
Writing a business plan is a critical process, which can help you analyze your business idea, customers, competition, and marketplace. A vague business plan won’t help you get your idea off the ground. A detailed, specific, well-researched plan can help you roll up your sleeves and take that crucial first step toward turning your vision into reality.
You wouldn't think about hiking into the woods without a map, compass, food, and clothing. The same goes for business. Writing a business plan can make mapping and executing your business idea a more streamlined process.
A business plan should be both an organizing tool for your goals and strategies and a document that sells your business idea, demonstrating that your product or service can make a profit.
As an organizing tool, a business plan is a navigation chart that shows you how to get where you’re going. But a business plan isn’t static. It should change as your business grows and you develop new ideas. It should be a flexible document. As with any journey there are occasional detours, but a solid plan will help you avoid costly mistakes that may sink your business before it even starts. A complete business plan can be a guidebook for your business, telling you what you should be doing and how well you should be doing it.
As a selling tool, your business plan should sell you and others on your business idea and give you confidence that your time and money have been well spent. A business plan should convince at least one other person of the value of your business idea. If it isn’t convincing, then you should reconsider your idea or rewrite your plan.
Your business plan can help you organize thoughts, refine goals, identify risks, set priorities, allocate resources, and prepare for future opportunities. It also shows potential clients or partners that you’ve done your research and that your idea is worthy of financial support. It’s evidence that you have the skills, talent, and goals to execute your business idea.
| Want to learn more about writing a business plan? Read Chapter 4 from Frank Fiore and Linh Tang's Launching Your Yahoo! Business. |  |