Customer Reviews

Business Plans Kit for Dummies (With CD-ROM)

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Like a lot of people, I am a BIG fan of the first Business Plans for Dummies book. It got me started thinking about going out on my own a few years ago. Well, this new Kit book is a great addition. It's particularly useful as a real hands-on guide to putting together a business plan and then making it work. Every chapter has checklists and other forms that take you through the process step by step, as well as "case study" type examples that really bring the information alive. It's full of updated examples of businesses that have succeeded (and how they did it.) And it also contains terrific analyses of business plans that didn't quite make it (and why.) As a small business owner myself, I was surprised to learn as much as I did from the chapter devoted to small businesses. UNLIKE a lot of other business planning books, this one tackles the subject with real authority along with a great sense of humor. I think this is an essential book for anyone who is putting together a business plan for the first time. I even used the trial business planning software that comes on the CD-ROM to choose the program that would work best for our company. And that's made completing the business planning process even smoother.

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.

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.

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!!!!