Secrets to Writing a Successful Business Plan: A Pro Shares a Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Plan that Gets Results by Hal Shelton will open your eyes to insider tips, hints, and techniques for creating a winning business plan and attaining funding. This second edition maintains the original laser focus on writing the plan. It also adds much material on the vibrant crowdfunding platforms as well as providing a new section on issues faced by early stage companies. Nearly 50 percent of new businesses fail within five years. A well-thought-out business plan can dramatically turn the odds in your favor. With this easy-to-follow guide, you will (1) Discover why you need a business plan and the best style for you, (2) Receive step-by-step guidance for creating each section of your plan, (3) Get proven strategies for obtaining bank loans and attracting investors, (4) Spend less time writing your plan and more time setting up your business, and (5) Learn how to create a business plan for a nonprofit This book is for entrepreneurs who are thinking of starting a small business or nonprofit, and for small business owners who want to grow an existing business or solve an operating problem. This book will also help if you are looking for assurance that you are headed in the right direction, seeking help with a section of your business plan that you do not understand, feeling that a section of your business plan is not robust enough and want pointers, or wanting to learn where and how to apply for funding. Entrepreneurs should always surround themselves with mentors and advisors, so you will also find ideas on where to find these valuable resources. The Secrets to Writing a Successful Business Plan is packed with actionable advice and real-life examples from Shelton's experience as a senior executive, SCORE small business mentor, and angel investor.

Forbes calls The Successful Business Plan one of the best books for small businesses. This new edition offers advice on developing business plans that will succeed in today's business climate. Includes up-to-date information on what's being funded now.

This comprehensive step-by-step guide takes you through the critical business planning issues of company strategy: What's your Identity? Marketing issues: Who are the buyers? Product/Service issues: What are you selling? Sales and promotion issues: How do you sell? and financial issues: How are you doing?

This business-section staple shows how to write a winning business plan. This book's unique approach not only explains the how-to aspects of writing a business plan, but also includes eleven complete plans from a variety of businesses that you can use as examples when writing your plan.

Judging by all the hoopla surrounding business plans, you'd think the only things standing between would-be entrepreneurs and spectacular success are glossy five-color charts, bundles of meticulous-looking spreadsheets, and decades of month-by-month financial projections. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, often the more elaborately crafted a business plan, the more likely the venture is to flop. Why? Most plans waste too much ink on numbers and devote too little to information that really matters to investors. The result? Investors discount them. In How to Write a Great Business Plan, William A. Sahlman shows how to avoid this all-too-common mistake by ensuring that your plan assesses the factors critical to every new venture: The people—the individuals launching and leading the venture and outside parties providing key services or important resources The opportunity—what the business will sell and to whom, and whether the venture can grow and how fast The context—the regulatory environment, interest rates, demographic trends, and other forces shaping the venture's fate Risk and reward—what can go wrong and right, and how the entrepreneurial team will respond Timely in this age of innovation, How to Write a Great Business Plan helps you give your new venture the best possible chances for success.

How to make realistic financial projections, develop effective marketing strategies and refine your overall business goals.

Covering all the issues in producing a business plan, this text also includes a full glossary, case histories, and a detailed section on the key issue of using internal business plans.