Why a Well Thought Out Business Plan Will Increase Your Enterprise’s Probability of Success

Robert Calvin, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business — Robert Calvin, Previously Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business

It is easy to write a Business Plan but difficult to write a good one that will help you raise debt or equity financing for your enterprise, act as a guide for everyday management of your business, create a roadmap for strategy and set standards against which to measure future performance. A good business plan acts as a filter to assist the entrepreneur in making future decisions which will alter the course of the enterprise. As an entrepreneur you do not just write a business plan once and put it in a drawer. Business is a dynamic process and the future is a moving target. Customers, competitors, products and technology constantly changes and so your business plan needs constant revision.

A successful business plan must be customized based on its purpose and based on the industry. The topics and emphasis of a business plan used to borrow money for an established green spice shop will be different from the topics and emphasis for a business plan used to raise equity from family and friends for a social media start up. It is important to remember that all business plans are dependant on good execution.

A good business plan will help you more realistically assess critical risks and evaluate the assumptions your revenue and cash flow forecast are based on. Business plans help the entrepreneur identify weaknesses, the action and time table for dealing with them, and also your enterprise’s strengths/core capabilities and the action necessary to take advantage of them. A well written business plan makes you think strategically and tactically about not only how to create operational excellence but an efficient and effective marketing and sales program. A business plan forces you to test your ideas with pro forma cash flows to see whether the risks are worth the rewards.

Over the last 30 years I have started six new economy ventures, bought six old economy businesses, managed them all, built them up and sold them to other firms. During this period I also taught Entrepreneurial management at the Graduate School of Business (Booth School) at the University Of Chicago and wrote “Entrepreneurial Management, The McGraw-Hill Executive MBA Series”. What I do in this Novoed “Writing A Successful Business Plan” course is to combine my practical experience as a business person with my theoretical knowledge from the classroom.

In this course you will learn a discipline and approach that will increase your probability of success as an entrepreneur. You will learn and have fun.