Beginning with the Business Plan

1.

People thinking of starting a business commonly jump in without a written business plan. Oh, they've thought a lot about their business, how they are going to start it, and even how they plan to run it from 9-5 Monday through Friday. Sure, running your own business will be easy. After all, you are your own boss. No one can tell you what to do, how to do it, or when to do it. Why, you can sleep in on Mondays if you want. Yeah, it will be the easy life.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee. Running your own business will be the hardest job you've ever had with the longest hours you've ever worked, and has the promise to be the most fun you've ever had in your life. The risks are big and real, but the rewards can be more than you've ever dreamed. And those rewards won't necessarily be all in dollars. Business owners who love what they are doing don't feel as though they are working at all; in fact, when you love what you're doing, following your dream, the work is fun and fulfilling. It's almost as if you are at play all day as you engage your mind, body, heart and soul in your life's dream.

O.K., enough of the glamor. There's a saying, "If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?" So true in the case of your own business without a written business plan. It's all fine to think about what you want to accomplish, and you may even have thought through some of the more dire "what-if" scenarios that popped into your mind. Those scenarios can easily de-rail a new start-up enterprise if there is nothing to prop it up on the right track. Enter the Business Plan--a written Business Plan, that is, wearing a blue super hero cape emblazoned with a big red BP in capital letters. The business plan is what can keep you on track, guide you over some rough spots, and keep you, quite literally, from losing your shirt. That does make it sound heroic, doesn't it?

No time

Have not had time to add to the blog lately, but will attempt to get it up and running soon.

Fast Forward about a Year

After all this time, this blog will become my business bulletin board that will carry all manner of business ideas - the good, the bad, and the ugly. This will be my sounding board, and if you decide that what I've written is no good, I would appreciate your input to point that out.

What's it all about?

Here is the first post on this blog. Been trying to decide between talking on books I'm reading (yes, that is plural) or listening to on CD or from Audible.com. Or also been thinking about gathering info on consulting work, project management, entrepreneurism, growing fruit and vegetables, self-sufficiency or a myriad of other topics. Or can just post on whatever comes to mind or my desk at the time I think of adding posts. I'll work on it and have to get back to you!