To get your discount come over to our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/BusinessPlanWriting (please ‘like’ us when you are there) and pick up the promotional code – then use this code when you reach the Checkout Page…

• Ability to add up to twelve years to your business plan
• Ability to remove years in your business plan
• Sales, cashflow, profit & loss and balance sheet reports still calculated and displayed for each year in your business plan
• Ability to give names/titles to each year
• Ability to change the running order of months within years
• Ability to manage ‘Primary Threshold’ figure for HMRC National Insurance rules
• Redesigned ‘Personnel’ screen that makes adding and managing staff much easier
• Redesigned ‘Loans’ screen that makes managing loans (now up to 14 of them) easier
• Numerious small improvements to the user interface to make using Business Plan Writer even easier to understand and use

Up to the end of November we are offering a 20% discount on the usual price of £39.99 – to get the discount enter PLANNING CRAZY into the relevant box when you get to the Checkout page.

Offer ends 30th November – and on 1st December Business Plan Writer’s price goes up to £45.00 so buy now and save money!

I need people to try out beta versions of the software as and when they are released, check if they work OK and give me some minimal feedback via email or over the phone.

What beta testers get out of the arrangement is a free copy of Business Plan Writer (in addition to the beta version they test) as well as my gratitude and the knoweldge that they have helped make a new business planning tool better. What I get is feedback on the product so I can improve it…

When I’m about to release a beta version I email all the testers (there aren’t many) asking each of them to download and install the beta version from the website…

The ideal set up is that you would have two machines, using one for fully tested and publicly launched versions of Business Plan Writer – and another machine on which you would install beta versions of the software (and on which it wouldn’t matter if any content you created got ‘messed with’).

PLEASE REMEMBER – you will be using beta versions of the software  so if you are going to do real business plan work on Business Plan Writer the ideal situation is to have a separate machine with the latest ‘proper’ version of Business Plan Writer on it (which you will have access to) and keep the beta version for testing. However if you will be using the beta version for ‘real’ work do keep backing up regularly (there is a backup function in the ‘File’ menu) and remember that there is a risk something will go wrong! I suggest you do not try to install the latest current version as well as any beta versions on the same machine as there is always a danger of data getting mixed up between the ‘real’ and beta versions … safest to stick to one copy of Business Plan Writer per machine.

If you are still interested despite the dire warnings above then please get in touch via the Contact Us page on the website or leave a comment on this posting and we can discuss how to get you started as a tester…

Your next step might be to send it to your ‘targets’ – your targets are the people you want to learn about your business and decide something in your favour (loan, line of credit, whether to go into business with you etc).

But what happens if (and this is not uncommon) your targets don’t want to read your business plan?

Preparation

Well first of all try not to get into that position by paying attention to the experience your targets will go through when they receive your business plan.

1. If you are making a presentation, make sure it is really good, do not just lift text and graphics from the plan – make it a super condensed version of your plan and make it SING!
2. If you are posting or emailing your business plan write a BRIEF covering letter or note explaining what they could get out of your business plan – and also spend time on this covering note and make it really strong.
3. Use persuasive wordings, test these phrases out on other people, ideally people who know your targets.
4. Make sure your business plan doesn’t look as if it will take them hours to read, if necessary put some of the evidence/detail in the appendices at the back.
5. Check out the front cover of your business plan, it should look enticing, professional and definately not gaudy (again try to find out what your targets’ tastes are).
6. Spend quite a lot of time on your Executive Summary as some business plan readers sample this section of your business plan first before deciding whether to read the rest. However not all readers do this and many will read the whole thing, but your Exec. Summary is your chance to make an initial impression so don’t waste it!

And finally, make it clear to your target that you would like their feedback – ANY feedback, positive as well as negative. This is important so that the target feels he/she can tell you why it didn’t work for them, what you could do to change things and whether you could give it another try.

Dealing with a non-reader

If a target to whom you have sent a business plan never seems to get round to reading it then you should find out what has gone wrong. Remember the real result you want is a “Yes” from the target and it may be that getting to this “Yes” means you will need to supply more than your business plan – and if you can’t get a “Yes” you want to at least find out why:

1. Try using phrases like “what would have to change for you to read my business plan?”
2. Be charming, do not nag, try to find out what the problem is!
3. Try to find out from others surrounding the target (secretary etc) what the problem is.
4. Try to enlist help from these others in getting your target to read your business plan.
5. If the person is just saying “No” then you must accept this but try to do a deal with the target that you will accept and respect their answer if they could just explain why…

If they say “No” and have explained why – then congratulate yourself on learning something and make sure you use the experience to make your next target more likely to say “Yes”.

If you don’t have the business in your business plan registered for Sales Tax (VAT) – which is the default setting – then its probably not worth updating to this copy of Business Plan Writer – but if you do have Sales Tax (VAT) set then it is worth updating.

This posting shows how customers can get their free updates of Business Plan Writer.

Whilst you have Busniess Plan Writer open you can control whether the business in your business plan is registered for Sales Tax (VAT) or not by choosing the ‘User Settings’ option in the ‘Tools’ menu. This opens the ‘User Settings’ dialog box which displays the Sales Tax (VAT) controls. You can set the threshold, amend the rate, and of course toggle whether you want to have the business registered for Sales Tax (VAT) or not.

This edition of the software has been designed especially for Co-operatives and contains all the usual Business Plan Writer goodness (see the Features page) plus:

• Five sample business plans to explore based on ‘real-to-life’ social enterprises
• ‘Starting’ business plan structure includes special co-operative sections
  • Board of Management
  • Co-op Members
  • The Co-operative Difference
  • Co-operative Principles
  • Key Social & Co-operative Performance Indicators
  • Member Economic Involvement
  • Member Democratic Participation
  • Employee and Member Training & Education
  • Staff Injury and Absentee Rates
  • Staff Profile – Gender and Ethnicity
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Ethical Procurement and Investment
  • Investment in Community and Co-operative Initiatives
  • Carbon Dioxide Emissions Arising from Operations
  • Waste Recycling and Reuse

Find out more by visiting the Business Plan Writer: Co-operative Edition page and get in touch if you have any queries.

However in this release I’ve put in various small tweaks and improvements but I’ve been concentrating on error handling and squashing all the bugs I could find to make the experience of using our software as smooth as possible – by having it working quietly away in the background so you can concentrate on writing your business plan.

As usual, this update to the software is available free of charge to existing customers who only need to log in at the website and go to their ‘Files’ page – for more on how to do this please visit the How do existing customers get their free updates? page.

For details on what is new with this release of Business Plan Writer please visit the What’s New page.

Please check out the articles on the website or get in touch in the usual way if you experience any difficulties – or tweet me at @BusPlanWriter to discuss anything!

Dave

They told us that the number 1 most annoying thing they come across in business plans is - “Lack of research”.

The second most annoying thing (related to the first) is – “Lack of evidence”.

The next three things sharing 3rd place are – “Bad spelling”,  then it’s “Muddled thinking” and lastly “Flowery language”.

After them the next most annoying things are – “Unclear format”, and “Logical errors”.

The final two most annoying things mentioned are – “Missing key sections (usually risk and contingency)” and “Over optimistic projections. Poor presentation – especially mixed up fonts. Jargon. Figures that don’t stack up.”

Now be honest – could any of the above apply to your business plan? Early drafts of your business plan are guaranteed to be peppered with things that need to be tidied up or weeded out – that’s fine, it’s a work in progress – the important thing is that the final draft is OK.

If you are trying to win over the reader(s) of your business plan then you need to minimise or if possible eradicate any mistakes – why not read through your own business plan to check none of the above apply?

So, thinking how people READ business plans will lead you to WRITE a better business plan of your own.

Findings in brief:

• Most people start with the executive summary, and will abandon or read the rest of the business plan depending on what they think of it – so make sure your executive summary is perfect: not good enough, try and make it shine!
• By far the most annoying thing to find in a business plan is: lack of research – so, do your research! don’t write stuff you can’t back up!
• The most pleasing things to find in a business plan are: clear objectives – clarity in the business plan was something that readers mentioned again and again – make sure your plan hangs together really well.

Question 1: In what capacity do you usually read business plans?

Is this a fairly representative selection of people who read business plans? My feeling is that, in the UK, it is.

Question 2: As a rough estimate, how many business plans do you come across per year?

Because of answers to Question 1, it seems logical that a fairly low number of business plans per year would be read by most people.

Question 3: Do you read every bit of every business plan you get – or do you tend to try out sections before deciding whether to read the whole business plan in its entirety?

Frankly, I am surprised there are so many people who would continue reading a business plan no matter how poor the beginning!

Question 4: How do you usually start to read a business plan?

Again slightly surprised at this as I know people who start business plans at the financial section or even the CVs…

Question 5: What are the things that annoy you in a business plan?

These results show that it is hard work, attention to detail and checking things out in the real world that makes the difference.

Question 6:What are the things that please you most in a business plan?

These answers show that clear thinking, doing your ‘homework’ and clear presentation is what counts.

Question 7: What advice would you give to authors of business plans?

Once again what comes through is that hard work, lots of preparation, and above all clarity are what is needed to produce a good business plan.

Details of the Survey

Between December 2010 and January 2011 Dave Kilroy of Business Plan Writer (http://businessplanwriter.co.uk) conducted an online survey which was completed by 18 respondents.

• All questions were answered by all 18 respondents with the exception of Questions 4, 5 and 6 – where 1 person skipped these Questions and Question 7 where 4 people did not leave an answer.
• Over half of the people doing the survey read between 1 and 5 business plans a year.
• There was a broad range of stated reasons for reading business plans, the most common category, at 1/4 of respondents, being business advisors, although one person read between 50 and 99 business plans in a year.
• Bearing in mind this profile it is therefore possible to say that this group of business plan readers is a not unreasonable sample of business plan readers – and as such, what comes out of the survey can be given some weight.

Please get in touch with Dave Kilroy at Business Plan Writer directly for more details.

On-going research

I am thinking of creating a new version of the survey – do you have any thoughts on changes for a new version?

Your comments

Do the above answers chime in with what you think? Have we missed anything out or made any mistakes? Please let us know by leaving a comment.

This is how you change the VAT rate in Business Plan Writer.

First select ‘User Settings’ in the Tools menu.

Then in the dialog box that appears change the number in ‘Sales Tax Rate’ box from “17.5″ to “20.0″

And then click the ‘OK’ button to save your changes.

That’s it! – remember to make this change for each of your business plan project files affected by the change in VAT.