How to Prepare a Business Plan

Planning is invaluable; no one has ever maximized their business success by just winging it. "How to Prepare a Business Plan" is a scholarly handbook, taking a look at how to create the best business plan possible for one's company. Focusing on managing income and expenses, expanding, taking out loans, and meticulously watching for early warning signs of failure, "How to Prepare a Business Plan" is an excellent choice for entrepreneurs and a top pick for community library business collections.

Given the obvious conflict of interest, I would rather not have given a rating, though I think the book is very clear and useful. Others have thought so too: it has been published in many languages and on many continents, and continues to sell year after year, as the publishers keep asking my father to work on new editions. The book is organized as a series of case studies (the names have been changed to protect the 'innocent') of people who started businesses, the problems they faced, their attempts (successful or otherwise) to cope with them, and their excitement as they realize they are actually succeeding. The focus of the book is on how to write a business plan in such a way as to persuade a bank to lend you money. This is often one of the first problems a budding entrepreneur faces, which is fortunate because writing the plan forces him/her to think about the problems likely to face him, and to plan for success.