I enjoyed the Women in Business Conference greatly this past Saturday. I was able to set up next to the tables for the SC Women’s Business Center, the Small Business Development Center, FastTrac, and SCORE, all of which are groups that we here at the library hope to continue to work with closely. It was a wonderful opportunity to chat with the public as well as my colleagues in the nonprofit organizations around town.
When we weren’t talking with participants about our services, we spent a lot of time talking with each other about topics related to the day. One of the most interesting things that we discussed is the value of writing your own business plan. At first glance, you might think that it could be worth it to pay a professional to write a business plan for you. After all, a lot of people who hold the purse strings for start-up loans and investment are going to judge you by your business plan, so you might be tempted to think that it’s worth it to pay someone up to several thousand dollars to write one for you. Guess what? It’s not! It could actually hurt your chances of getting that loan or angel investor on board.
The business planning process is the first way you can demonstrate your commitment to your business idea. Actually putting together the plan will teach you more about what you’re trying to achieve with your business than just about anything else. People aren’t going to just cut you a check after reading your plan–they will want to talk with you about what’s in it. If you wrote the plan yourself, you will know it inside and out, and your ability to discuss your dreams and the larger realities of doing business in your area in depth will impress the people you want to have on your side.
If you’re worried about going it on your own–don’t be. Templates for business plan formats can be downloaded for free online or found in books such as Nolo Press’ How to Write a Business Plan by Mike P. McKeever. If you need advice about what put in the blanks, organizations such as SCORE and other nonprofit groups can give you expert advice and assistance for free. When it comes to researching the demographics or putting together some of the other facts and figures you’ll need in your plan, the library’s Business Center collection is another excellent free source of information to turn to. Why pay someone else to become the expert that you need to be? Take advantage of the free services out there and become your own business plan writer!
I’ll be sharing many of the other things that I learned at the Conference in upcoming posts….
