I worked as the head of corporate development for a firm that had about 5000 people and was responsible for business planning. I am a big believer in putting your thoughts and ideas down on paper. Now that I am out on my own actually with one other employee I have put some of my thoughts down on a powerpoint slide but I do not believe there is a need for a formal business plan and I was wondering how many of you actually have a plan longer than a few pages?

We do not we have a fairly simple business model and we know where we are heading I think a business plan is important as you do for larger companies.

__________________
Why embarress your best friend at the most important day of their life?

Visit www.maidofhonor.org or www.bestmansite.com to learn what you need to do to help make the day a memorable one

I work with a lot of small businesses and very few of them have a plan in place - I would be surprised if my client base is that much different than the norm.

We do not have a formal business plan either but we we have not strayed that far from our original vision. I think if we had or our model was not working than we would of sat down and really challenged the business strategy.

Most of our clients either have a one or two page what I would call a vision statement/objectives or powerpoint slides.

There was an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal today about business planning. Research has proven that there is no corelation between the length of the business plan and results. This study was focused on specifically entrepreneurs who were not looking for funding. They said a better use of your time would be focusing on the business and keeping your plan to the back of the envelope high level concepts.

__________________
www.smallbusinessforum.com

Is not it good to have a rough idea for a few years ahead? To mark the major investments you are going to make and the expected resuls? Then you can always check where you are and whether the business is going well in long terms.

__________________
MBM | Review your host | Know Vista?

I read the article as well, I do not think it was suggesting that you do not spend anytime planning. It just mentioned that extensive planning and developing comprehensive financial models was not the best use of your time.

__________________
Why embarress your best friend at the most important day of their life?

Visit www.maidofhonor.org or www.bestmansite.com to learn what you need to do to help make the day a memorable one