Guides your business in the right direction no matter who you are or how your job description reads, whether you're part of a large corporation or a one-person show.

Business Plans For Dummies can guide your business in the right direction no matter who you are or how your job description reads, whether you're part of a large corporation or a one-person show. If you've struggled through the planning process before -- or if you're brand new to plotting out goals and objectives -- this down-to-earth guide steps you through every milestone in business planning.

...covers many of the areas that prove to be stumbling blocks for would be entrepreneurs (Independent on Sunday, 19 September, 2004) ...The structured jargon-free advice...could help you make a leap from employee to entrepreneur in 2005... (Lincolnshire Echo, 4th January 2005) ...straightforward and jargon-free guide to business planning. Ideal for businesses of every type and size... (This is Wiltshire, 1st November 2005)

• Introduction. Part I: Determining Where You Want to Go. Chapter 1: Starting Your Business Plan. Chapter 2: Charting the Proper Course. Chapter 3: Setting Off in the Right Direction. Part II: Sizing Up Your Marketplace. Chapter 4: Checking Out the Business Environment. Chapter 5: Taking a Closer Look at Customers. Chapter 6: Dividing Customers into Groups. Chapter 7: Scoping Out Your Competition. Part III: Weighing Your Company's Prospects. Chapter 8: Establishing Your Starting Position. Chapter 9: Focusing On What You Do Best. Chapter 10: Figuring Out Financials. Chapter 11: Forecasting and Budgeting. Part IV: Looking to the Future. Chapter 12: Preparing for Change. Chapter 13: Thinking Strategically. Chapter 14: Managing More Than One Product. Part V: A Planner's Toolkit. Chapter 15: Making Your Business Plan Work. Chapter 16: Learning from Others: A Sample Business Plan. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 17: Ten Questions to Ask About Your Plan. Chapter 18: Top Ten Business-Planning Never-Evers. Chapter 19: Ten of the Best-Planned Organisations Around. Appendix: Glossary of Business and Accounting Terms. Index.