Tim Berry's Advice
Tim
Berry runs a website dictated to the art and science of writing business
plans. His site address is TimBerry.com. Tim has an MBA from Stanford, an MA in journalism from the
University of Oregon, and a BA in Literature from the University of Notre
Dame. Conducting a search for his
writings on business
plans at Amazon turns up several books including texts on sales and
marketing forecasting. Not only is
he an author on business plans he is also an entrepreneur having founded, Palo
Alto Software and Borland International.
He stays active in the education community and is a judge of business
plan competitions at the Rice University and the university of Texas. Tim also worked as a consultant to
Apple for more than a decade.
Teachers can access Tim Berry’s online teaching curriculum for free online.
In
his article in Entrepreneur Tim talks about a business plan really needs. The key idea to keep in mind while
writing a business plan is what management tasks and skills will make the
business better. The important
points for investors and loan officers are the products, strategy, review
schedule, assumptions, assignments, milestones, sales projections, cost of
sales, expenses, and profit and loss. It is important to have, “… excellent executive summary,
descriptions of the company, product, history, market analysis, management
team” (Berry, 2011).
Rhonda Abram's Advice
Rhonda
Abrams is an author of books on business plan writing, and she is a syndicated
columnist. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of
California, Los Angeles. In one of
her articles for USA Today Money , Rhonda talks
about money and investors. The
advice is to think of the investor as a partner who has legal rights and owns a
part of the business (Abrams, 2012).
Find out why they want to invest in the business and what they want out
of it. Know how much control the
investor wants of your business and what kind of a time frame they are looking
at for a return on their investment. People who are trying to start a business will
be six times more likely to launch a business if they have a business plan (Abrams,
2010). If you show that have a
high-growth business then your business plan can attract angel investors and
venture capitalists (Abrams, 2009).
Rhonda’s video on this topic is on the USA
Today Small Business website.
Sources
Abrams, R. (2012, August 5). Think
hard before using other people's money, entrepreneurs. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2010-08-05-entrepreneurs-other-peoples-money_N.htm
Abrams, R. (2010, May 13). Strategies:
Why bother with a small business plan?. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2010-05-13-business-plan_N.htm
Abrams, R. (2009, October 2). Small
business strategies: how to keep the revenue coming. Retrieved from
http://citationmachine.net/index2.php?reqstyleid=2&mode=form&reqsrcid=APAWebPage
Berry, T. (2011, February 2011). What
does a business plan really
need to include?. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/a nswer/222256
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