Business Plans For Dummies. Paul Tiffany
Key Financial Projections Don’t Pan Out Too Much Growth, Too Fast An Unwanted Surprise Pops Up Chapter 19: Ten (Or So) Questions to Ask about Your Plan Are Your Goals and Mission in Sync? Can You Point to Major Opportunities? Have You Prepared for Threats? Do You Know Your Customers? Can You Track Your Competitors? Do You Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses? Does Your Strategy Make Sense? Can You Stand Behind the Numbers? Are You Really Ready for Change? Is Your Plan Concise and Up-to-Date? What’s the Worst That Can Happen, and How Will You Deal with It? Chapter 20: Ten (Or So) Business-Planning Never-Evers Failing to Plan in the First Place Shrugging Off Values and Vision Second-Guessing the Customer Underestimating Your Competition Ignoring Your Strengths Mistaking a Budget for a Plan Shying Away from Reasonable Risk Allowing One Person to Dominate a Plan Being Afraid to Change Forgetting to Motivate and Reward Faking It
11 Appendix: A Sample Business Plan SUITE 07 BUSINESS PLAN I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY II. COMPANY OVERVIEW III. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IV. SUITE 07 — THE COMPANY V. SUITE 07’s STRATEGY VI. FINANCIAL PROCESS AND SAMPLE PROJECTION VII. ACTION PLAN AND NEXT STEPS CONCLUSION APPENDIX I APPENDIX II APPENDIX III
12 Index
List of Tables
1 Chapter 7TABLE 7-1 The Buyer’s Five-Step Adoption ProcessTABLE 7-2 How Businesses Behave When They Buy
2 Chapter 12TABLE 12-1 Flavored Yogurt Revenue Projection for Yenta’s Yogurt Co. (YY)
3 Chapter 13TABLE 13-1 Customer Personality Types
4 Chapter 15TABLE 15-1 Major Characteristics of the Introduction StageTABLE 15-2 Major Characteristics of the Growth StageTABLE 15-3 Major Characteristics of the Maturity StageTABLE 15-4 Major Characteristics of the Decline Stage
List of Illustrations
1 Chapter 5FIGURE 5-1: The Industry Analysis Questionnaire. FIGURE 5-2: The four major components of analyzing an industry.
2 Chapter 6FIGURE 6-1: Define market segments by asking three basic questions and then ans...FIGURE 6-2: Consider these business situations.
3 Chapter 7FIGURE 7-1: A basic overview of people’s needs, as sketched out some 50 years a...
4 Chapter 9FIGURE 9-1: Fill out the questionnaire to get a quick take on your company’s st...FIGURE 9-2: Compare your capabilities and resources with the critical success f...FIGURE 9-3: The SWOT grid balances your company’s internal strengths and weakne...
5 Chapter 10FIGURE 10-1: A company’s value chain has two types of links: primary activities...FIGURE 10-2: The value-chain framework.
6 Chapter 11FIGURE 11-1: An income statement subtracts the costs of your various business a...FIGURE 11-2: The balance sheet captures what the company owns, what it owes, an...FIGURE 11-3: A cash-flow statement monitors changes in a company’s cash positio...
7 Chapter 12FIGURE 12-1: The DuPont chart turns the DuPont formula into a pyramid, with ret...FIGURE 12-2: The master budget resembles a projected cash-flow statement.
8 Chapter 13FIGURE 13-1: You can break a business environment scan into four major groups o...FIGURE 13-2: The technology diffusion curve points out that when a new technolo...FIGURE 13-3: Product adoption occurs at different times for different personali...FIGURE 13-4: The Probability and Impact Grid divides events into categories bas...
9 Chapter 14FIGURE 14-1: Generic strategies involve deciding whether to become the low-cost...FIGURE 14-2: The experience curve traces the declining unit costs of putting to...
10 Chapter 15FIGURE 15-1: The product life cycle represents what’s likely to happen to sales...FIGURE 15-2: The Ansoff Matrix describes different ways in which your company c...FIGURE 15-3: The Growth-Share Grid divides your company’s products or services ...
11 Chapter 16FIGURE 16-1: Dynamic capabilities.
Guide
1 Cover