Gathering information is often one of the most challenging aspects of preparing a business plan or a marketing plan. A good plan supports assumptions with facts. Who says, besides you, the market for your product is going to grow 200% annually for the next five years?

A recent post by Michael Stelsner over on Copyblogger was the spark that led to this post. In his post he talks about using LinkedIn‘s Answers feature to find credible sources for articles, blog posts, and white papers. It’s a good post and worth reading.

After reading the post, it occurred to me that services like LinkedIn’s Answers and Yahoo’s Answers could also be great resources gathering the information needed for a good business plan or marketing plan.

Your plan (and your business by association) will be better off if you can say that FirstName LastName, head of the IndustryName Association, said the market for your product is going to grow 200% annually for the next five years.

So give it give it a shot and let me know how it goes. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea.

– Cale Bruckner

[Photo credit: Flickr user Oldtasty]