In the previous lesson, you learned about many resources that are available to you as you build, maintain, manage, and grow your business. You were asked to build a resource plan for your future entrepreneurial venture.
This lesson introduces you to the concept of business planning for your new or existing business venture. A business plan has many sections that you will explore throughout this lesson. As you have completed the lessons in this course, you've been introduced to many of the parts of the business plan; therefore, many of the business planning concepts will be familiar to you.
In this activity, you will explore the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Web site in an effort to discover how much you already know about business planning for your entrepreneurial venture or your small business.
Recommendation: Capture your responses to the "Check Prior Knowledge" activities and other various exercises presented in this course in a journal or notebook. Since many of these activities and exercises will not be turned in to your instructor, you should capture the information in one place. By writing this information down and reviewing it, you will begin to see themes emerge that will help you as you complete the course.
Official Course Competencies
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
Key Terms
As you read your assignment for this lesson, pay close attention to the key terms and phrases that are listed throughout the lesson. These terms and concepts are important to your understanding of the information provided in the lesson.
By now, you may be a little overwhelmed with starting, managing, and/or growing your business. You have a tremendous amount of information to gather, interpret, and learn. All of this information must be housed in one location, and that location is in your business plan. A business plan is like a blueprint for your business. Without the blueprint, your business has little chance of meeting its goals. In addition, without a business plan, almost all investors and banks will refuse to finance your business. Through your business plan, investors and bankers want to see that you have thought through the dynamics of your business. In addition, the more complete and well written the business plan, the higher the likelihood that you can attract the right people to your business.
A common question about business plans is – How long should a business plan be? The final document will depend on the complexity of your business and whether you are seeking outside funding. A business plan for a home-based business might be 8-10 pages long whereas an average business plan for a small business could be 20-30 pages in length, including appendix information. A complex business plan could be 50-75 pages in length. The length is important; however, even more important is that you type the document and include a table of contents. You may want to hire an editor to ensure that you used correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Before presenting your business plan, you will want to have it professionally bound. Presentation is everything in the business planning process. Next, you'll look at the sections of the business plan.
As you can see, completing a business plan can be a daunting task. In some cases, entrepreneurs hire a business plan consultant, financial experts, accountants, and editors to assist them with their business plan writing. Consider your business plan as a legal document for your business.
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If you would like to invest another 30 minutes in your learning about business plan writing, the U.S. Small Business Administration has a mini course available on how to write a business plan. |
This lesson introduced you to the components of a business plan and expressed the importance of business planning for your entrepreneurial venture. In this lesson's assignment, you will have an opportunity to discuss which parts of the business plan that you believe will be the most difficult to write.
Having a well-designed business plan tells others that you are serious about your business or your potential business. This important document becomes the face of your business. Although writing a business plan might seem daunting, make a commitment to do it well.
In this lesson, you learned the information and details to include in your business plan. You also learned the importance of writing a quality business plan and engaging the right people to help you. Remember, your business plan is a direct reflection of you and your business, so be sure to give yourself enough time to produce a business plan of which you can be proud.
The next lesson, which is the last lesson in this course, contains your final project for this class. You will design a feasibility study. Feasibility studies help you to identify whether an idea is viable to pursue, before you invest in the business or opportunity. The feasibility study will allow you to see if the business venture you identified early on in the course is feasible to pursue.
Non-Graded Activities
The following activities will help you practice the concepts from this lesson. They will help you prepare for your exams/final projects lesson. You are not required to submit them to your instructor.
Graded Assignments
The following is a required assignment for this lesson.
This work is created by the National Information Security and Geospatial Technologies Consortium (NISGTC), and except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Authoring Organization: Rio Salado College
Written by: Lori Wieters
Copyright © National Information Security, Geospatial Technologies Consortium (NISGTC)
Development was funded by the Department of Labor (DOL) Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grant No. TC-22525-11-60-A-48; The National Information Security, Geospatial Technologies Consortium (NISGTC) is an entity of Collin College of Texas, Bellevue College of Washington, Bunker Hill Community College of Massachusetts, Del Mar College of Texas, Moraine Valley Community College of Illinois, Rio Salado College of Arizona, and Salt Lake Community College of Utah.
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