You’ve got a great business idea, so now all you need is a great pitch, right? No need to spend time on a business plan, just put together a few slides and a five to ten minute speech and investors will be throwing money at you. Think again. A great pitch is important, everyone agrees [...]
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Entrepreneurship continues to be a sexy topic for governments, with every country worth its salt trying to create its own tech hub, mimicking Silicon Valley. The appeal of promoting entrepreneurship is obvious. After all, entrepreneurs can do many good things, not least to create wealth and employment, pay taxes and help the balance of trade through [...]
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Every year, the team here at Palo Alto Software looks forward to judging business plans for several prestigious collegiate business plan competitions. We all read multiple entries and then gather and talk about what makes a great plan and choose a winner. We also get to see the mistakes that ultimately cost people prizes in [...]
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It’s so easy to get stuck, isn’t it? We go about our lives, doing our work, pretty much on auto-pilot, and before we know it we’re stuck. Nothing is growing or changing or progressing; we’ve just been doing the same things day in and day out for weeks, months, and even years hoping that miraculously [...]
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I don’t know what it is about Marketing, but everyone on earth seems to think they can do it. And yet I see so many people NOT doing it or wasting thousands of dollars and not getting results. I see business owners try the same things over and over, wasting more money, more time, and [...]
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Many of my clients are business owners and entrepreneurs, and we often discuss succession planning. If you don’t have a family member who is the obvious heir apparent, what do you do? I think the question of succession planning isn’t just for entrepreneurs, though. It’s certainly a topic of discussion in board rooms and at meetings. Yet I don’t often [...]
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Your business idea is brilliant. Nobody else is doing it. You’ve got no competition. It’s sure to be a gold mine, right? Maybe. One mistake many new businesses make is thinking that just because nobody else is doing exactly what they’re doing, their business is a sure thing. The smart thing to do is ask [...]
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Companies face many change-management issues: technology, people, customers, company focus, and benefits, to name just a few. Yet I don’t often hear people talk about thinking differently as a change-management issue. Yes, we discuss corporate culture changes, but what I’m referring to here is changing people’s thinking that planning isn’t possible. Even leadership starts with the construct that planning isn’t [...]
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When is a plan not a plan? When it’s a tool. Perhaps the most important factor in achieving your desired result and turning your plan into a management tool is regularly reviewing the plan. In the final two videos of Tim Berry’s video series on how to write a successful business plan, he talks about [...]
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Tim has taken us through what a business plan is, how to just jump in and get started, how to hone your strategy and focus… now it’s time for the reason why you started a business in the first place. Money! Knowing how much money you have and how much you need are two important [...]
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