Business Plans For Dummies

Paul Tiffany, PhD, is a professor at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, where he teaches courses on public policy and management. He is an expert in business strategy and management. Prior to beginning his career in academia, Tiffany worked as a business consultant and continues to lead his own consulting agency. Steven D. Peterson, PhD, is the senior partner and founder of the management tool development company Strategic Play Technologies.

Introduction 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 Icons Used in This Book 4 Beyond the Book 4 Where to Go From Here 4 Part 1: Getting Started with Business Plans 5 Chapter 1: Preparing to Do a Business Plan 7 Identifying Your Planning Resources 8 Checking out the variety of sources out there 9 Surfing the Internet 9 Purchasing business-planning software 12 Seeking professional help 12 Finding friendly advice 13 Assembling Your Planning Team 14 Setting the ground rules 15 Delegating responsibility 15 Putting Your Plan on Paper or in Cyberspace 16 Executive summary 17 Company overview 18 Business environment 19 Company description 19 Company strategy 20 Financial review 20 Action plan 21 Chapter 2: Understanding the Importance of a Business Plan 23 Bringing Your Ideas into Focus 24 Looking forward 25 Looking back 26 Looking around 27 Taking the first step 27 Understanding the Planning behind the Plan 28 Is planning an art or science? 28 Why planning matters 29 Satisfying Your Audience 30 Venture capital 31 Bankers, backers, and bootstrappers 33 Chapter 3: Setting Off in the Right Direction 39 Understanding Why Values Matter 40 Facing tough choices 40 Weighing utilitarianism and other philosophies 41 Applying ethics and the law 42 Getting caught lost and unprepared, if not naked and afraid 43 Understanding the value of having values 44 Clarifying Your Company Values 46 Putting together your values statement 46 Following through with your values 48 Creating Your Company's Vision Statement 48 Chapter 4: Charting the Proper Course 51 Creating Your Company's Mission Statement 52 Getting started 52 Capturing your business (in 50 words or less) 55 Introducing Goals and Objectives 57 Why bother? 57 Goals versus objectives 58 Efficiency versus effectiveness 60 Minding Your Own Business: Setting Goals and Objectives 61 Creating your business goals 61 Laying out your objectives 62 Matching goals and objectives with your mission 62 Timing is everything 63 Part 2: Describing Your Marketplace 67 Chapter 5: Examining the Business Environment 69 Understanding Your Business 70 Analyzing Your Industry 71 Configuring the structure 73 Measuring the markets 75 Remembering the relationships 78 Figuring out the finances 80 Coming up with supporting data 82 Recognizing Critical Success Factors 85 Adopting new technologies, procedures, and policies 86 Getting a handle on what counts most 86 Determining what drives your business 86 Looking for a great location 87 Dealing with distribution 87 Marketing mind games 87 Getting along with government regulation 88 SWOT: Preparing for Opportunities and Threats 89 Finding warm and soothing waters 89 Scanning for clouds on the horizon, ice on the water, or worse 92 Chapter 6: Slicing and Dicing Markets 95 Separating Customers into Groups 96 Identifying Market Segments 98 Who buys 99 What customers buy 103 Why customers buy 107 Finding Useful Market Segments 110 Is the segment the right size? 110 Can you identify the customers? 111 Can you reach the market? 111 Becoming Market Driven 113 Chapter 7: Getting Up Close and Personal with Customers 117 Keeping Track of the Big Picture 118 Categorizing Your Customers 119 Comparing generations 120 Defining your good customers 121 Handling your not-so-best customers 122 Scoping out the other guy's customers 123 Discovering the Ways Customers Behave 124 Understanding customer needs 125 Determining customer motives 127 Figuring Out How Customers Make Choices 128 Realizing perceptions are reality 128 Setting in motion the five steps to adoption 129 Understand