Are business plans important - poll results
21st Jun 2009
Company Partners members are astute and enterprising entrepreneurs, but it turns out not all that up to speed on why business planning is important.
In recent Company Partners polls, although 81% of respondents thought it important to have a business plan, the number of entrepreneurs with complete business plans was only 19%, with a further 34% having partial business plans.
A large number of entrepreneurs simply had their plans in their heads, often with odd pages of facts and figures relating to their business scattered about.
If you are seeking funding, or contacting potential Business Angels then having a well thought out and documented business plan is just what you have to do. Yet even then, many people simply have a few paragraphs written out in Word proclaiming the wonders of their idea, without the structure and backup facts that a real plan would give.
However often the best reason for writing a business plan is that you have to marshal your thoughts and get them in order. Entrepreneurs are often creative people, with a lot of strands to their thoughts. Having to go through the discipline and get those thoughts on paper with the evidence to back them up is hard work, but invaluable.
It doesn’t need to be an overwhelming chore, starting with a decent plan outline, just setting aside the time to start filling in the various sections will quickly flesh the business plan out and it will be surprising the number of gaps and questions that the process will highlight which you may never have thought of.
Lawrence Gilbert
www.CompanyParteners.com
