A recent article titled “The Busy Trap” by New York Times columnist Tim Kreider got me thinking about the busyness in my own life and the current state of what I call “new age marketing.” This is a powerful article and it sadly describes my own busyness. Yet, I was not always this busy. I…
Business plans are great but many potential investors don’t read the whole plan. Many choose to read the executive summary and scan the rest of the plan. If that is the case, then your executive summary needs to tell whole story. As simple as it sounds, the executive summary is a summary of the business…
“Every leader should routinely keep a substantial portion of his or her time—I would say as much as 50 percent—unscheduled. … Only when you have substantial unscheduled time will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end…
Just be yourself—-I imagine that you have heard that advice all your life from friends, family, and co-workers. And it is true. This weekend I watched 12 student teams from my New Venture Creation class at CSUF present their business plan concepts to an executive panel made up angel investors, bankers, and entrepreneurs. The small…
These clever words are attributed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I think I understand what she means. It often takes a crisis to get people to take action. People hate to change, but will willingly do so if they have to (but not a day before). You know what I mean. The heart attack…
The executive summary is a summary of the business plan (including operations, sales and marketing, and finance), but it is also a selling document. This means that you must answer your readers’ questions if you want to sell your business concept. Here is a short list of questions you must answer in your executive summary:…
There are times when a full business plan is not needed. Time may not allow for the creation of a full length plan or the reader might just want a shorter version. In this case, a dehydrated business plan is often chosen. This type of plan is a very brief version of the traditional business…
To get money from an Angel investor or from a banker will often require entrepreneurs to demonstrate a proof of concept. This begs the question, “what exactly is a proof of concept?” While the term is kind of fuzzy, a proof concept is evidence that the company, product, or service is financially viable—the business model…
When a small business or start up approaches a bank for a loan, you need to be able to answer the following eight questions: 1. How much money do you want? 2. Why do you want the money? 3. How will the money be used? 4. How will you repay the loan? 5. What is…
I normally avoid including myself or my personal travails in my blog, since my blog is not about me. Rather, my blog content is about what matters to you. But, I had a concussion a few weeks ago and it really shook things up—literally. OK. Here is the story. I was in the local mountains…