Week1 - Getting Started

Rapid Business Planning Steps

Completing a realistic and easy to understand business plan is an iterative process. Instead of becoming bogged down in detail right away, start by taking a quick first pass to identify what you know already, and what you are assuming. From there, identify what you need to research and find out.

Your plan is a tool to communicate in as few words as possible the information people need from you when you ask for loans, rental space, insurance, a company website design and other business related items. The clearer your plan is up front, the less time you'll have to waste explaining your business over and over again to different people.

The Rapid Business Planning approach was developed to help busy entrepreneurs and small business owners get plans compiled in as little time as possible.
It is still a major bill of work, but when in doubt on what to include or not include, keep asking yourself:

 "What Does The Reader Of My Plan Want And Need To Know?"

Of course, the first reader to consider is YOU! If you only value your time at $10/hr, every year you work on a poorly planned and unprofitable business. It is at least 2,000 work hours wasted annually. That adds up to $20,000 dollars in lost wages plus the business debt accumulated!

So a good test of a business plan, is that YOU understand what is in it.

The Rapid Business Planning method breaks the process into four repetitive steps for each planning section:

  1. Understand and decide what readers of your plan want to know
  2. Quickly add the information you already know with your best-guess assumptions
  3. Adjust other plan sections impacted by added information
  4. Do research to confirm your assumptions and find information

Keep repeating until a finished and polished plan emerges that you and a reader can understand.

 

Now lets get started! Click here to begin!