5. GET MORE HELP

Unless you happen to make your living churning out business plans, you're gonna need some help. Fortunately, resources are plentiful. There are lots of books, software programs, and Websites that'll walk you gently through each of the dozens of steps involved.

Books
Software
Websites
Consultancies

Books

Go to your local megabookstore and look under "Entrepreneurship" in the business section. There you're likely to find a dozen or so old-fashioned, paper-and-glue volumes detailing the mighty business plan, providing answers to your more intimate questions about the arcania of financial statements and operations plans. If you can't get no satisfaction from bricks and mortar, you can find books such as The Complete Business Plan online.

Software

Business planning software takes a lot of the grunt work out of organizing your plan. The one title that pops up everywhere and gets consistently good reviews is Business Plan Pro. The fill-in-the-blanks boilerplate makes composition a snap for even the most verbally challenged, and there's built-in spreadsheet capability for easy integration of financial statements. Other apps worth looking at include:

Websites

  • The Business Plan Center at Quicken.com provides advice, sample business plans, and a business plan template (free with registration).

  • Bplans.com has a great selection of sample business plans. Nothing is more helpful in writing your own plan than studying the plans of other real businesses.

  • BizPlanIt offers a free Virtual Business Plan, free newsletter, and an advice column called Ask Mr. BizPlanIt.

  • The U.S. Small Business Administration, paid for with your tax dollars, gives back a little in the form of sample business plans, tutorials, and information about government loans.

Consultancies

The ultimate form of help with your business plan is to get someone else to write it for you. Kinda nice if you can afford it. A usable plan will set you back in the neighborhood of $2000-$20,000. If you have more money than time, this may be the solution you're looking for.

That's that! We got you started; now it's up to you to make those entrepreneurial dreams come true. Think kindly of us when the years of struggle are a distant memory and Jeeves is bringing your third Harvey Wallbanger to the rooftop Jacuzzi in the Malibu beach house.