What are the elements of a good business plan?

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Photo credit:  Chesney Bradshaw (Copyright 2014)

You get some new or would-be business owners who scoff at the idea of preparing a business plan. For the business hobbyist, someone who may only be growing vegetables in their garden for sale to friends and family, perhaps a business plan is not required. But for any business that requires reasonably substantial resources, investing money from your savings account or using other people’s money, then it’s hardly likely that you are going to get away without a business plan.

Not having a business plan is like taking a road trip but not planning beforehand. You don’t have a map, you have no petrol in your tank, you haven’t taken the right things to go with you on your journey and you have a general sense of where you going but no specific idea. Well, if that’s how you like to travel in a spontaneous, free-flowing way, then don’t blame anybody if you get lost along the way and never reach your final destination. Continue reading “What are the elements of a good business plan?”

How are you going to handle this?

Rewire
Rewire (Photo credit: Passetti)

When you retire, will you be worried all the time about running out of money? Business Week recently quoted a senator involved in retirement savings who said that when he started out in the 70s every two people had a pension but today it’s one out of five and “getting worse”.

“If trends continue, we will have many more people living close to poverty in retirement,” says the managing director of a think tank that offers policy-making proposals. Continue reading “How are you going to handle this?”

How long will it take before your idea becomes profitable?

Cover of "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Cover of The Wolf of Wall Street

If you believe in overnight success, perhaps you are one of the people standing at the Lotto queue on a Saturday/Saturday afternoon.

Movies like “The Wolf of Wall Street” give the impression that money can be made quickly. Perhaps it’s the truncated form of the movie, portraying a life and business that took many years to develop, that gives the impression that overnight successes possible. I’m only talking about Jordan Belfort and the time it took for him to get his boiler room penny stock operation going rather than the ethics of the type of business idea he came up with. Fleecing people from their hard earned money and pension savings is the work of a crook and con artist rather than what we believe to be a honest business person. Continue reading “How long will it take before your idea becomes profitable?”

Stupid mistakes home-based business owners make

Chow Chow, Mi?dzynarodowa Wystawa Psów Rasowyc...
Chow Chow, Mi?dzynarodowa Wystawa Psów Rasowych, Szczecin 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don’t you get just a bit uneasy when you hear statements like “do what you love, the money will follow”? It’s the kind of statement that can get you into a lot of trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing.

One of the biggest mistakes is thinking that your hobby or passion automatically leads to money. But the so-called gurus leave out the crucial step – the time that it will take to acquire and develop skills that enable you to sell your products or service at a commercially viable level.

Continue reading “Stupid mistakes home-based business owners make”