We’ve told you what you should put in your business plan and what you shouldn’t put in your business plan. However, we haven’t mentioned one very important thing yet – why you might not want to write a business plan.
Rob Warlow of Business Loan Services discusses three reasons that business owners give him not to write their own business plans in this video. He also offers some motivation, if any of these reasons sound familiar to you.
- “I don’t have the time”: Simply put, you do have the time, says Warlow. You’re just putting it off. Once you understand the benefits of having a business plan, you’ll want to do write it up and, thus, want to set aside time to write it. (Or you can let someone else write it… like, say, Sierra Investment Group, Inc)
- “I don’t know what to include in it”: Maybe you don’t know what to put in your business plan now. However, says Warlow, there’s plenty of books and free Internet resources that you can turn to. We recommend the Small Business Administration’s business writing resource as a good starting point. Warlow adds that you don’t have to put that much into a business plan: “Business plans do not have to be complicated. They don’t have to be the size of War and Peace. A good business plan, and a workable business plan for you, can sometimes only run to 10, 15, 20 pages at maximum. It does not have to be a complicated process.”
- “It will uncover risks I’d rather not think about”: This is more of a psychological hurdle, according to Warlow. After all, if you put your ideas down on paper – the ideas that you’ve dreamed about and obsessed over – you’re going to have to face some glaring shortcomings in them. That can bruise your ego. However, revealing these shortcomings is one of reasons why you should write a business plan. You want to identify risks, vulnerabilities and weaknesses before it’s too late, says Warlow. That way, you can do something about them. Press through and confront the flaws in your ideas, says Warlow. Your business will be stronger for it.
Sierra Investment Group Inc. Carson City Nevada is a small business plan writing service and small business funding resource. They can be reached toll-free at (800) 323-6298 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, or at info@sierraig.com
Sierra Investment Group, Inc. 