Business-plan

I found the worksheets alone in this book worth the price. When you follow the step-by-step instructions, the worksheets cull out only the data you need. With all the extraneous data out of the way, it's easy to pinpoint critical problems that you might miss otherwise. And it makes developing key indicators and reports easier as well. I think any CEO who wants to keep the company's accounting and human resource managers on top of things at all times should give them this book tomorrow...if not sooner.

This book is packed with practical information and worksheets so you really get your money's worth. All points are illustrated with actual company stories and real-world experiences. The format makes it particularly easy to read and use.

I recommend this book to my coaching clients because it gives them a real system to develop strategy and then measure performance. Everyone wants a simple way to stay on track with their goals, and this book offers organizational planning advice, suggestions on how to effectively communicate the plan with employees, and then reports to make sure there is accountability for results.

Business Plans that Work is an intelligent, common sense approach to business that has a simple thesis; level headed philosophy, and a well structured organization. Written by a business consultant (and former art teacher--perhaps this helps the lack of turgid written prose), this book focuses on the theme that YOUR business brainstorm can only be envisioned and planned by you, simply because you are the one who has come up with the vision, enthusiasm, and interest to begin a particular business in the first place. Gilmann eschews the idea that consultants know best when it comes to developing a business plan. Sort of the philosophy that you are probably the best person to trust in investing your own money--since it's YOUR money, after all. The book is clearly written but not condescending to people new to business and tries to encourage the reader that business is not a mysterious enterprise, but rather a pursuit thatrequires foresight and planning, with, of course,initial inspiration. Her explanations of line by line items of business plans are quite clear, and she presents sample business plans that are good models (although iterating that all business plans are unique). She pays ample but not obsessive space to the importance of Internet issues, and encourages the reader who does write a plan to be blend he right amoung of rationale and enthusiasm in the text of one's plan. She also draws quite nicely on personal experience from childhood to adulthood, which creates a comfortable trusting relationship between reader & writer. I stood in my local large bookstore branch, flipping through about 10 books on the subject, and this one just seemed to have the right user-friendly balance that made me feel comfortable reading it

With this book as a reference, several years ago my MBA team was able to take our B-plan to 2nd place in a national scholastic B-plan contest. I have referred to it annually since then to guide my on-going planning. I also use it as a playbook for developing new business plans. It helps focus your planning efforts on the key questions that investors want answered in a plan.

Each chapter addresses an aspect of the planning process and gives anecdotal examples of plans that were presented to the MIT forum. The summaries at the end of each chapter help expedite the annual review.

I cut my teeth on Mancuso's various B-plan guides almost two decades ago and this book, by far, gets you where you want to go in the most direct manner. If you only want one book on B-planning, this is it.

David Gumpert is a genius. His advice is sound, timely and simple to follow. I love his articles and books. This one is a classic.

This book was recommended to me by an executive with 30 years of experience and 8-digit net worth as the "bible" for starting a business. I have used this book twice during the past 6 years to assemble successful business plans. The lessons in the book are not industry specific or date specific, but rather the wisdom that applies to any business. Some of the insights in the book were later worth a lot of money to my companies. My compliments to the author for not just putting together templates or example plans, but rather teaching the entreprenuer how to think.