Business Plans Kit for Dummies (With CD-ROM) 
asked by pits on November 3, 2006 4:09 PM
While Business Plans For Dummies covers the strategy of putting a business plan together, Business Plans Kit For Dummies covers how to put a business plan to work! This kit covers business plans for every stage (and every type) of business: e-business, sole proprietorships, small businesses, service companies, high-tech companies, non-profits -- even business plans for middle managers and restructuring a company. It emphasizes methods for obtaining funding and sources to tap for capital, and explains how to formulate business plans according to the planned business model -- bricks-and-mortar vs. e-business. It also includes updated terminology and jargon from the business planning and venture capital industries, and shows you how to gear specific plans for businesses in different phases of development (i.e., startup, expansion, etc.).
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If you are writing a business plan and have absolutely no idea how to do it, Business Plans for Dummies is the only way to go. This is my first experience with the "Dummies" series and I have to say I am very impressed. I am a commercial artist with very limited business experience. This book guided and helped me, especially making a lot of analitical sense to a very right brained person. I just dont think in terms of graphs and charts, yet they simplified it to a level that was intriguing, entertaining, and extremely useful. An excellent, excellent book!!!!
reviewed by bugger on November 25, 2006 1:27 PM
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This book and cd combination is likely to be a good buy for quite a range of people. The great advantage that I see is that it is encyclopedic in scope. And by scope I am referring not to the great range of business and management knowledge that is available but to the processes that someone attempting to prepare a business plan is likely to face.
For example the book begins with Part I: Doing Your Planning Homework. This section assumes that you may not yet have a firm business idea. Yet the material on creating or identifying a business idea may very well be quite useful even to those people who have their basic idea in place.
In Part I Chapter two deals quite well with understanding the why of the business plan. This point, why you must be a business plan believer, is often taken for granted or dealt with by a few platitudes by some authors but here the topic gets full treatment. This could be particularly important to people who are attempting a business and a business plan for the first time.
Is the book encyclopedic? Well if you really want to understand market segmentation in depth you will have to go to a text or a couple of seminars. Nevertheless, the concept is here along with many others, but tailored to the beginner and to the new, small enterprise.
Perhaps comprehensive, rather than encyclopedic, would be a better word. However, if it is a topic likely to affect your startup or small business it is here at least in elementary terms. In fact, with an MBA and nearly 40 years experience, I would say that the technical treatment, for the given audience, is really quite good.
The forms or questionnaires, I believe, selectively could be useful to business people at almost any level. The forms take you through an exhaustive chain of concepts and detailed questions. Sometimes it seems that the questions are repetitive. Some of them may be redundant for your business but don't jump too quickly. Take your time and mull over the questions. If you do take the time, you may come up with an eye opening new thought here and there.
The CD allows you to print the forms, including your input, if you choose. The CD also introduces some trial versions of software that might be worth your consideration.
Since I do business plans as a part-time business, I expect that I will be referring to these convenient forms again and again in the future as my projects shift from one type of business situation to another.
Take a good look at this choice if you are serious about a business and a business plan.
For example the book begins with Part I: Doing Your Planning Homework. This section assumes that you may not yet have a firm business idea. Yet the material on creating or identifying a business idea may very well be quite useful even to those people who have their basic idea in place.
In Part I Chapter two deals quite well with understanding the why of the business plan. This point, why you must be a business plan believer, is often taken for granted or dealt with by a few platitudes by some authors but here the topic gets full treatment. This could be particularly important to people who are attempting a business and a business plan for the first time.
Is the book encyclopedic? Well if you really want to understand market segmentation in depth you will have to go to a text or a couple of seminars. Nevertheless, the concept is here along with many others, but tailored to the beginner and to the new, small enterprise.
Perhaps comprehensive, rather than encyclopedic, would be a better word. However, if it is a topic likely to affect your startup or small business it is here at least in elementary terms. In fact, with an MBA and nearly 40 years experience, I would say that the technical treatment, for the given audience, is really quite good.
The forms or questionnaires, I believe, selectively could be useful to business people at almost any level. The forms take you through an exhaustive chain of concepts and detailed questions. Sometimes it seems that the questions are repetitive. Some of them may be redundant for your business but don't jump too quickly. Take your time and mull over the questions. If you do take the time, you may come up with an eye opening new thought here and there.
The CD allows you to print the forms, including your input, if you choose. The CD also introduces some trial versions of software that might be worth your consideration.
Since I do business plans as a part-time business, I expect that I will be referring to these convenient forms again and again in the future as my projects shift from one type of business situation to another.
Take a good look at this choice if you are serious about a business and a business plan.
reviewed by jan1975 on November 27, 2006 10:15 PM
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The book itself is a very basic rundown of starting a business running and keeping it going. The info presented is quite basic, and not very detailed. BUT, the enclosed CD is FULL, FULL, FULL of forms, government documents, sample by-laws, etc., etc., etc. Having all these forms at your disposal is invaluable. It's a terrific book and CD.
reviewed by bones on November 28, 2006 5:06 AM