Business Plans For Dummies, 3rd Edition
£13.70£17.10 (-20%)
Your one-stop guide to creating a winning business plan from scratch
Whether you’re starting a new business or growing an established one, you’ll need a solid business plan to get you where you want to go. Revised for today’s rocky economic climate, this edition of the UK’s bestselling business plan guide gives you what you need to map out your business strategy and stay on course – including a complete sample plan that you can easily adapt for your business!
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Chart your course – assess the current state of your business and where you’d like to take it, and establish clear, achievable objectives
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Get to know your customers – learn the latest techniques for getting a better idea of who your customers are and what they want
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Scope out the competition – find out who your competitors are and what it’ll take to get your share of the market pie (and theirs)
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Sort out your finances – construct a value chain, examine your cash flow and calculate a sensible budget
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Enter the Dragons’ Den – convince bankers, investors, venture capitalists and other funding sources your business is a good investment
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Read the tea leaves – learn to decipher changing cultural, political and technological trends and to alter your strategies as needed
Open the book and find:
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Tips on developing a sure-fire business strategy
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How to set realistic objectives
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Forecasting and budgeting strategies
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Keys to writing a motivational mission statement
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How to decipher the latest consumer trends
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Advice on building your brand and brand loyalty
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Tips for seeing and seizing opportunities before the competition
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Ways to adapt your plan to economic change
Learn to:
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Prepare a watertight business strategy
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Assess the marketplace
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Devise a sensible forecast and budget
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | 3rd edition (1 Jun. 2012), For Dummies |
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| Language | English |
| Paperback | 400 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1119941180 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1119941187 |
| Dimensions | 18.54 x 2.54 x 23.37 cm |
by Mr L M HYDER
great
by J. Bonner
This is an extremely comprehensive, detailed look at what goes into a business plan. All aspects are covered in depth, but they are written in a user-friendly manner and business jargon is explained. There are a variety of links to third party online resources which are, of course, useful online as long as those sites don’t disappear or change their page structure.
If you are in a business that is looking to expand production, find more customers or better understand your financial situation and how it can be improved, this is definitely a great book to refer to. If you’re someone who’s looking to start a little cottage industry or one-man-band operation, I think it might be a bit too in-depth (though you can always skip those bits or keep them handy in case sales go through the roof!). There are quite a number of times when it’s suggested the reader involve their senior management team, marketing department, sales force etc, with “or yourself” in brackets, implying that the book was written more with existing medium to large-sized businesses in mind, rather than start-ups.
Each chapter goes into a lot of detail about each subject, to the point where I was getting a bit lost as to how each particular section of the business plan should actually be written, so I was glad of the sample plan at the end of the book.
In short, if you’re thinking of setting up your own little business but don’t yet have teams of employees in place, you might find this book has much more information than you need to get going, but it’d be useful in the longer term because it contains so much that I’ve never come across before (and I’ve read a lot on the subject). Use the book alongside one of the free business plan software packages and sites such as Business Link and your business plan will be brilliant.
by Tinn-Ho L.
Being new to business, this book helped a lot with the planning and helped me think about things I hadn’t thought of. There are lots of assistance online but this book puts it in terms I could understand easily. Well worth the money and received quickly.
by Supergirl60
Great guide if trying to write a business plan.
by Infinity & Beyond Inc.
This book claims to be a step by step guide to writing a business plan but it’s not. It contains a lot of abstract information that can be taken and applied to writing the business plan. Which is good but it’s not very clear on how to write the different sections. So if that’s what you’re looking for look elsewhere. However I would recommend the book for general reference.
by Zipster Zeus
Over the years I’ve found the ‘xyz for dummies’ series a bit patchy but this particular one is really good- now in it’s third edition- and worth the investment if you are going to set up or already are in business.
Pretty much all bases are covered from inception through to the mechanics of financial management to helping your business grow once its bedded in. I found the chapter on Preparing for Change particularly good and refreshing; it’s an area rarely covered adequately in a lot of business guides to my mind and although it’s a topic only covered relatively briefly, it nonetheless gives some valuable pointers. The book is also very accessible and can actually be read coherently cover to cover, rather than just for ‘dip-in’ reference purposes.
All in all this is definately one of the better Business start-up and the running guides out there and well worth having on your shelf. Use in conjunction with some appropriate software and you can’t go too wrong.
by sonia mason
Very useful
by Random Amazon Customer
This is a very useful book if you need help with writing your own business plan and the best thing of all is that it’s a UK edition of the book and not a US edition, so it has all the relevant information for the UK.
I have had this book for several weeks now and I still haven’t finished reading it and working my way through everything I need to do in order to get my business plan written but it’s been a great help to me. There is a lot of information and tips in there that I hadn’t even thought about so I would recommend it to anyone starting a small business.
I will update this review when I have finished the book, should anything need changing. This review is based on my experience with the book so far 4/5