Building a Successful Business

In its first year, about half of all businesses fail. Five years down the line, depending upon which study you look at, only 1 in 10 to 1 in 3 businesses are left standing. The main reasons businesses fail are no business plan and poor management. That is why this book covers both topics. However, this book goes beyond other books on these topics. The book not only provides a road map for writing a business plan, but also provides a strategy for writing a business plan. A business plan is both a strategic document and a sales document. It also provides the reader with a look into the skills, knowledge and personality of the business owner. Therefore, a good business plan is written to satisfy all of these uses. In addition, this book provides information on how to research and organize the information needed for a business plan, and has worksheets the entrepreneur can use to help make the process easier. Likewise, management topics such as strategic planning (SWOT analysis plus), advertising, branding, project management, customer service management, cash flow management, sales skills, business writing and more are explained, and a method is provided for each management skill that can be implemented and used in the business. There are worksheets for many of the management topics as well.While many business book writers know and cover business writing, it's amazing how few actually apply that knowledge to their business books. I do. The information in this book is presented in bullet points, assuring the reader that he or she does not have to wade through four paragraphs of writing to get a couple of key points. Even the size of the book is practical for the end user. An over-sized book might attract attention in the book store, but would make it difficult to copy and use the worksheets in the book. An under-sized book might demonstrate value by the sheer volume of pages (same amount of information, but more pages), but would mean compressing the worksheets into smaller sizes rendering them less useful.In addition to entrepreneurs, this book was written so that venues teaching entrepreneurship can use it as a text book. In fact, I have been teaching entrepreneurship courses since 1997. This book was written to be a stand alone book, to support my business plan mentoring service (I review the worksheets for clients), and to be a text book for my course, How to Start, Grow and Manage a Business.