When you're starting a business, it's best to start with a written business plan. This way you can logically think through your vision for the business, set out your goals, along with a timeframe, and tell the reader how you'll achieve those goals.
In the book What They Don't Teach You in the Harvard Business School, Mark McCormack tells of a study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program. In that year, the students were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Just three percent of the students had written goals; 13% did have goals, but not written; and a massive eighty-four percent didn't have specific goals.
Ten years on and the students were interviewed once more.The findings, while a little predictable, were very much astonishing. The 13% who had goals were earning twice as much (on average) as the 84 who didn't have any. The learning point here though is the about the 3% who had clear and written goals. On average, they were earning TEN TIMES as much as the other 97 percent put together.
A business plan is a logical explanation of how you intend your business to achieve its goals. Do you think you should write one?
A plan enables you to think through the issues that face you, and how to overcome them. It also assists financiers (bankers or investors) in deciding whether your plan holds together, and helps them form a view as to whether your new business will succeed - and therefore whether they will back you!
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