Online Bingo

Cyber bingo has recently become ever more accepted in the English speaking countries. Ever since the current ban on smoking in pubs and other public places, an uncounted number of time-honored bingo meeting places were shut — this resulted in an uncounted number of operators providing virtual bingo as by way of an alternative. Movie stars’ encouragement as publicized by Sharon and Jordan Osbourne and others have contributed towards raising the profile of www bingo — encompassing close to three million enthusiasts presently going for a recurrent game or two.

You will now find a lot of virtual bingo online pages, all proposing to visitors really superb prizes and scads of other rewards, for example new cars, theater tickets, not to forget luxury holidays. Another particularly superb aspect of virtual bingo is that all people can try your hand at it 24 hours a day, if there’s a Net account. Games beginning several times per hour, you can arrange bingo to synch it with routine everyday life. In the beginning people assumed that the group side of bingo fun would suffer as caused by the shift away from time-honored bingo meeting places – however, British and other bingo supporters have proven any such projections wrong. Ever more have started to register at the chat rooms made accessible by an infinite number of virtual bingo operators.

Here at these places all people can make an uncounted number of new friends, get access to exclusive games and join up with a bingo community. Likewise, research projects have established that people are more likely to achieve £1M when playing web based bingo as compared to other styles of risking a bet for example the lotto and sports betting. If you happen to become a bit bored with bingo, a huge number of virtual bingo online pages will offer a number of alternate diversions. These can be anything from slot games, all the way through caption competitions and mock tests. With so many possibilities around, it can prove tricky to come to a a decision on which virtual bingo organisation is likely to be the best. It pays out to conduct a little research and learn who is currently putting forward the most pleasing bonuses and promos. A fair number of virtual bingo online pages will let anyone play a certain number of free bingo games or reciprocate any initial cash deposit 1:1.

If some of your closer buddies have registered with a given virtual bingo site, do consider following suit since networking adds significantly to the pleasurable entertainment.

What drives a company’s value? How does it translate into the price you should put on your business? Should you put a price on it at all?

Cash is King

Different businesses have different things to offer a buyer. A buyer may be interested in specific industries, certain lifestyle requirements (e.g., no weekend hours), or like or dislike franchises. But all buyers have one thing in common: they want to know how much money they will make if they buy your business. Different buyers may have different return criteria or lifestyle needs, but, at the end of the day, the cash your business generates, or might generate, is going to be at the top of their list of concerns.

Valuations

There are many approaches to business valuation. The traditional approaches involve a (financial) mathematical approach to assessing the value of the cash flow your business generates. Factors like historical trends, future expectations, risk and opportunity costs are taken into account to apply “discount” or “capitalization” factors to assess the value today of your company’s future cash flow. Other approaches are less sophisticated, though often quite reliable, and apply a “multiple” to your cash flow. These multiples are often simple rules of thumbs that have evolved over time as the result of deal making experience in various industries. A simple percentage of annual sales (or multiple of sales in very rare cases) is also a common rule of thumb.

Some Common Rules of Thumb

Liquor stores:
3 to 5 months sales plus inventory

Franchise Food:
45% to 50% of sales plus inventory

Distribution:
35% to 45% of revenue; this may or may not account for inventory

Manufacturing:
3 to 6 X EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization).

Pricing Strategies

You have two basic options when pricing your business: advertise an asking price or don’t put a price on it at all.

Published Price

For smaller businesses it is almost always appropriate to advertise an asking price. The buyers of small businesses are typically not sophisticated enough to cope with developing a proposal without the starting point of an asking price. But what should that price be? You can engage a business valuation expert or use one of the many excellent valuation services available on line. It is important to get an outside opinion to check your emotions and expectations. The most common error in the selling process is to overprice a business.

Un-Priced Strategy

For larger businesses, particularly those that are likely to have a competitor acquire them, an un-priced strategy may be appropriate. This is because your business will have very different value to an individual who buys it versus a competitor who buys it. The competitor may be able to consolidate locations and personnel, increasing the cash flow significantly over what an individual buyer would experience. More cash flow means more value. An un-priced strategy lets both types of buyers evaluate a price that works for them, and it may be a higher number than you expected! “Larger” can be as small as $500,000 – $1,000,000 in value. It depends on the business and industry and who are the likely buyers for your business.

Understanding the value of your business is the critical link in any sales process. An independent understanding of the value of your business will increase your ability to evaluate offers that are made. This makes you an informed decision maker and a better, more successful seller.

Donald L. Beezley is a professional business intermediary and COO of BizByOwner, LLC, The Complete Solution for Selling a Business. BizByOwner has developed a revolutionary online system that helps business owners sell their own companies without the expense of a broker. BizByOwner’s system includes a proprietary business valuation module designed to reflect the current market realities for your business and industry.
http://www.BizByOwner.com

Marital toys are superb; marital toys are one thing that won?t ever have a a moan spending afternoons with you until it gets you off. Toys have been all over for years, from the carrot in the olden times through to the tremendous and high technology sensual aids for sale online today.

If you yourself think that your sexual life is in need of some urgent attention then toys are brilliant to add that additional sex spice you are looking for. You might often use marital aids with your booty call or on your own and the sexy excitement is endless, just use your naughty imagination. Masturbators will sure get you off, buy them at Sex Bomb.

At times it will seem that sensual toys are only manufactured for females, well if you have ever been to a large sex website you would happen upon abounding x rated toys for men. Sex stores stock everything from penis sleeves to penis vacuums. Guys from time to time think embarrassed about getting vibrators for themselves, on the other hand with the www now readily everywhere to each of us you may save any embarrassment and buy online and get a penis vibrator dispatched in brown packaging. If you don?t know which sex aid toy to order first you can forever chat or email the customer service folk for their sexual guidance.

First it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site.

Here’s how it works:

Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”. Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else’s content on your web site. Now don’t worry, that’s not the same as stealing someone else’s content. There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that’s why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.

So what’s in it for all parties concerned?

Using RSS is a win-win for both the publisher of the content, who gets their name out to potentially millions of sites and you, the web site owner who is pulling the content onto your site.

Content, by the way, means anything that a publisher decides it means. Typical content includes news headlines, new product update notices, blog summaries and lots of other stuff. It’s the “content” portion of the equation that’s good news for you.

Show me the money

One of the best features of hosting RSS feeds is that it gives your site an endless source of freshly updated and relevant content. This content acts as natural search engine spider bait which they will fill their little tummies on and come back for more every day. Their appetite for fresh content keep your rankings up.

Sticky Loyalty isn’t a new Ben & Jerry’s flavor, but it should be the goal of any serious webmaster who wants to create a web site that visitors return to over and over again. The use of carefully selected RSS feeds can make that happen by offering unique content which can’t be found anywhere else.

Now please don’t make the mistake of thinking “But they can get that same content at the publisher’s site, why should they come to mine?”. Just build it and they will come! Sorry, I couldn’t resist saying that, but it’s true. In addition to the RSS content, which they surely can get somewhere else, you are going to add your own sticky loyalty stuff that’s all about whatever your site is all about to begin with. That combination of your own content and the RSS feed makes visiting you a purely unique experience that can’t be found anywhere else.

You don’t have to be a member of the Geek Squad to start showing RSS feeds on your site. Just visit any of the links below and get busy using RSS to make mo’ money.

Free RSS to HTML PHP Script
http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm

Carp – Free Rss script
http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

RSS Equalizer
http://milleniumb.rssalizer.hop.clickbank.net

Clickbank Profits RSS Feed Generator
http://www.insiderscripts.com/cb/

Sandra Stammberger is the owner of Insiderscripts. At Insiderscript’s programmers are working around the clock to develop affordable, powerful money making scripts that will help you drive traffic to your business. http://www.insiderscripts.com

Strangely the Samsung U900 Soul never sold as well as expected, which is a shame as it is actually a great mobile phone. Samsung have done a excellent job on the graphical user interface of the Samsung U900 Soul making this mobile phone easy to use. With this phone Samsung have built something which is functional, if a little basic for the price.

There are lots of incentivised deals on offer to current mobile phone users. For example, using a site that allows you to compare mobile phones you can get a mobile phone with 12 months free line rental or a free Home Cinema Gaming Projector.

The Samsung U900 Soul is supplied with a Standard battery, Li-Ion 800 mAh, battery. If the colour scheme of your phone is important to you, you should be aware that the U900 Soul is only available in Silver,. Compared to competing mobile handsets the Samsung U900 Soul is very compact. Moving on to the display the mobile phone is equipped with a 2.2 inch screen, which is an average display considering the alternatives for the money. The display is a TFT, 16M colors. The U900 Soul is compatible with 2G GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 and 3G HSDPA 2100 . A 5 MP, 2592х1944 pixels, autofocus, image stabiliser, video(QVGA), flash is integrated into this mobile phone camera. For mobile Internet users as WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds browser is included. The Samsung U900 Soul is has bluetooth, making the vast majority of accessories compatible. The ring-tones on the U900 Soul are Polyphonic, MP3 plus a vibration alert . This mobile phone has a number of extras such as:

Although this is amongst the newest phones currently on the market, it is still possible to get some great deals on the U900 Soul.

Tammy also happens to be a subscriber of mine, and she
recently sent me in this nice note:

“I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely love the
way you end your emails with, “now go sell something”! It
always gives me a chuckle, makes me feel like getting busy,
and also makes me feel like you are talking directly to
me!

How do you come up with endings to emails, or what qualities
can we instill in our minds to make our ezines more
personal?? I have such a hard time with this. I thought
maybe you could touch on this for us?

Thank you, I always look forward to your email…”

Thanks Tammy. I think your question is a good one and it’s
probably something that loads of other people wonder about
from time-to-time.

The truth is, the number one mindset you need to have
whenever you’re writing something to a “list” or to a group
of “subscribers”, is that the person reading your message,
doesn’t care about the rest of your list, and for the most
part, at that exact moment when they’re reading or
experiencing whatever it is you have to say… they aren’t
even “aware” that your correspondence is even part of any
kind of “broadcast,” or what-have-you.

See, all your reader is aware of, is your message… and
themself. And that’s why sales copy is so effective — it’s
one of the most intimate forms of communication you’ll ever
have with your prospects and customers.

After all, how else could you ever communicate with your
reader, one-on-one like this?

So the mindset you need to have, isn’t that you’re writing
to your “list”, it’s that you’re writing to each one of your
list members, individually.

Make sense?

I was on a consulting call yesterday, as a matter-of-fact,
and a client was asking me about this exact same issue.

One thing I suggested is that he have a picture of his prospect
sitting right there in front of him to make his mindset and
his writing just a little more “intimate”.

Hope this helps you out, and thanks again for your question.

Now go sell something,

Craig Garber
http://www.KingOfCopy.com

P.S. Check out all the prior archives you’ve been
missing, right here at:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/tiparchives.html

If you want to know how to consistently attract a steady stream of fresh new prospects, who are pre-qualified, eager, and excited about buying from you, then Craig Garber — recognized by his peers as America’s Top Direct-Response Copywriter — can show you exactly how to do this, step-by-step. Garber’s written winning promotions across a HUGE variety of industries and you can see them all for yourself on his website at http://www.kingofcopy.com

There are two major causes of crime in America today. One cause is professional lawmaking in government that passes new laws against previously legal behaviors, day after day, without ceasing. The second cause is lousy parenting, most especially in the first five years of a child’s life. The damage done is seldom reversed, often compounded. The abused and neglected child eventually learns to abuse and neglect others because s/he has learned from negative models; in the home, the school and the neighborhood. S/he sees life as a struggle for survival and power. Poorly equipped to use power constructively through observation, any power is most often applied destructively and eventually, unlawfully.

Society does not want to see that criminals, in most cases, begin as victims for whom law offers little to no protection. Society, in its foolishness, pays for the crimes committed by its victims. It pays for the investigation and apprehension of its new criminals. It pays for the prosecution of them, and then pays for years of housing them in cruel, degrading, inhumane and humiliating cages. Cages that increase the neglect and abuse that set people on a criminal path in the first place; cages that transform people into beasts and monsters, no matter what
the crime. In many cases a convict was supporting or contributing to the support of a family when arrested. The loss of family support then becomes an obligation to restore to the innocent that which imprisonment denies them. Society likes to think a prisoner is paying a debt to society. The prisoner is paying nothing to society for caging allows a prisoner to do
little or nothing of social value. It is society that at once pays all costs relating to the caging and is creating a debt to the prisoner that will never be repaid. The recovery of the prisoner’s lost production.

Society, in its infinite foolishness, prefers one size fits all punishment and cares nothing about punishment fitting crimes. Confinement fits the crime of kidnapping and murder. Confinement is murder. One day at a time. Fear, resentment, anger and rage provide the daily sustenance for prisoners. When they then behave as we should expect, new punishments are heaped upon them.
Next, society decides prisoners have been punished enough and they are released with the advice to get their act together. No grubstake, little hope for lawful employment and probably little family support.

They violate parole or re offends in some fashion because they have become institutionalized and socially dysfunctional, by the abuse and neglect of cruel and usual punishment. The cycle repeats. In Old Testament times, the punishments fit the crimes in cruel and merciless fashion. Jesus would later say this form of punishment was allowed due to the hardness of the social heart or consciousness. Then He said we must forget those old ways – that we should love our enemies and pray for those who trespass against us and forgive them their crimes. Prisons are the proof His words fall on deaf ears that want nothing to do with mercy or forgiveness. The hard hearts of the days of old make the rules of today and a so- called Christian nation mocks Christ. Merciless fools will soon be mocked by Christ and their
victims alike. There will be no mercy in the mocking.

Society, which prefers compounding problems to solving them,
constructs more prisons to warehouse the enemies it creates. It can’t afford the dollar costs or the social costs but society cares nothing about costs. It cares about punishment and pretends to care about deterrence. If we just continue locking people in cages as long as we can, everything will be OK. Then they shake in fear of the monsters they create and release upon their selves.

State governments are just beginning to figure out that caging non violent criminals is counter productive and costs more than
government can afford. They are looking at imposing fines on anti social behaviors as an alternative to caging. Fines improve the treasury and allow offenders to remain or become productive and otherwise contributing to society, actually paying a debt to society instead of enlarging it. It has only taken ages for social leadership to discover this truth. Imagine how progressive we will be in just another hundred years. Those who believe caging is a mild punishment ought to live in them for a few years as public service in lieu of government employment, or as a requirement for government employment.

When society takes on the responsibility for any life under lock and key, it takes on the responsibility to maintain that life in healthful, transforming circumstances. But this is exactly where the budgeting kicks in. We will maintain life at the absolute minimums to save costs; a diet that maintains life but not health. Medical care is substandard and withheld, interrupted or discontinued by administrative policy. If a healthy body makes for a healthy mind, there is no reason for a prisoner to enjoy either. Let us release them with diseased bodies and minds and keep a close eye on them. Let’s compare the health statistics of our caged beasts with that of society at large. I’m sure the
statistics will tell a story.

We belong to a cruel and dispassionate society, sadly lacking in
wisdom and imagination. We need a criminal rights movement such
as we had for civil rights and we need it yesterday. Like the Civil Rights movement, the leadership will not come from the official social leadership, but from passionate and compassionate individuals who are not looking for anyone’s vote. Sometimes and far too often, there are no votes in simply doing the right thing. No reward. No activity.

Saddam released his prisoners, who now prey on Americans and
Iraqis alike. America has over two million caged beasts and de
socialized monsters. More than half of them will be released. Would this help explain why armed citizens have no intention of giving up their guns? Criminals and victims are growing disproportionately to population. The city that houses our national government is the murder capitol of this nation. Is it a coincidence, symbolic of criminal government or a predictor of what is to come? Are the wisest of us impotent and beyond solving problems? Looks like it to me.

Ed Howes sought and found, knocked and entered. Now he sees things differently. To see more of what he sees, please visit http://www.justanotherview.com or do an author search here at Ezine Articles.

Direct Response Business writing is different to ordinary business writing and many of the automatic features in Word are an absolute nightmare!

I use Microsoft Word to write all my material; books, articles, letters, adverts, newsletters – you name it I use Word to write it.

And because I have done so for the last 15 years of my 30+ years in business life I am well aware of the irritating, hair-tearing frustration Word gives you when it won’t do what you want it to.

Here’s a series of mini-articles showing you how to ‘get a grip’ on the program and make it do what you want, not what it ‘thinks’ you want.

In this first article are 4 ‘preparatory tips’ that make it easier for you to work with the program.

(Valid for Word 97 and later)

1) Turn off the Automatic Formatting Features:

From the menu: Format, AutoFormat, Options
Check the options selected in AutoFormat, AutoFormat as You Type and (in Word XP) Smart Tags

NOTE: After Clicking OK you return to the original AutoFormat dialogue box.
Click Cancel to close the dialogue box, otherwise your current document will be processed.

2) Switch off Widow and Orphan Control.

When a paragraph reaches the end of a page Word automatically prevents a line being left on its own. A line at the end of a page is known as a ‘widow’; one at the top of the next page is an ‘orphan’.

If you are writing a Sales letter you are happy to have a single line at the end or beginning of a page because it encourages readers to turn the page.

From the menu: Format, Paragraph, Line and Page Breaks.
Remove the tick against Widow/Orphan Control

3) Add the ‘Skip Numbering’ option to a shortcut menu

You can use this to stop the automatic numbering/bullets whilst keeping the paragraph formatting the same as the previous paragraph.

From the menu: View, Toolbars, Customize, on the Toolbars tab, select Shortcut Menus
On the new toolbar that appears, Click on Text then Lists
In the Customize dialogue box Click the Commands tab, select All Commands
Click & Drag the SkipNumbering option from the right hand box to the Lists menu

4) Using the ‘Skip Numbering’ option on the shortcut menu

Suppress numbering for a paragraph, alternate (right) click on the new paragraph to display the quick menu and choose Skip Numbering

NB You can also use Shift & Enter instead of Enter to suppress the numbering in the next paragraph, but this is not suitable for justified paragraphs.

Restart paragraph numbering. If the numbering continues from a previous numbered section, alternate (right) click to display the quick menu and choose Restart Numbering

In the other articles in this mini-series I share another 21 tips:

* Formatting as you type – including a couple of neat tips that save time.

* Page formatting including Page borders; page numbering (starting at the number YOU want); and a brilliantly easy way to create underlines for forms (No, it is not the line drawing tool!) amongst others.

* Creating Contents lists; quick tips for spell checking and hyphenation

* More on Paragraph numbering and spacing (to stop your numbers and bullets disappearing when you want a line gap between paragraphs!)

©2005 Original Work by Carol Bentley

Learn more about Persuading People to Buy… Subscribe to your free reports, with no obligation, at http://www.CarolBentley.com.

Carol is the author of ‘I Want to Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet? (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!) by Carol A E Bentley (Rated 5-star on Amazon.co.uk) This book is available at a special offer at http://www.CarolBentley.com/offer.

Carol is one of the highest paid direct response copywriters available. If you would like to talk to Carol’s office about having her work on your current or next sales project you can use the contact form on her website http://www.CarolBentley.com/contact.asp.

The movement towards greater web accessibility is opening a far wider number of websites to adaptive technology, making the web a more inviting place for visually impaired surfers. Linux distributions for the blind include Oralux and Adriane Knoppix. Almost 12 percent of those deemed legally blind, by any measure, have no vision.

The rest have some vision, from light perception alone to relatively good acuity. There are also open source screen readers, such as the Linux Screen Reader for GNOME and NonVisual Desktop Access for Windows.

Later versions of Microsoft Windows include an Accessibility Wizard and Magnifier for those with partial vision, and Microsoft Narrator, a simple screen reader. While Apple Mac OS X includes VoiceOver, a more feature-rich screen reader. Web browsers, word processors, icons and windows and email programs are just some of the applications used successfully by screen reader users.

Further functionality remains limited compared to equivalent desktop applications, the major benefit is to increase the accessibility of said websites. Screen reader choice is contentious: differing priorities and strong preferences are common. Screen readers are a form of assistive technology potentially useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, or learning disabled, often in combination with other AT such as screen magnifiers. This interpretation is then represented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille output. The latter developed in part by Knopper who has a visual impairment. A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. Access technology such as screen readers and Screen magnifiers enable the blind to use mainstream computer applications. More and more, screen readers are being bundled with operating system distributions. Next month Anthony Loeff nonprofit worker is writing about digital tools for The console-based Oralux Linux distribution ships with three screen-reading environments: Emacspeak, Yasr and Speakup. The primary audience for such applications is those who have difficulty reading because of learning disabilities or language barriers. Most legally blind people 60 percent do not use computers. Nevertheless, using a screen reader is, according to some users, considerably more difficult than using a GUI and many applications have specific problems resulting from the nature of the application. Experimental approaches in sensory substitution are beginning to provide access to arbitrary live views from a camera.

Screen readers can be assumed to be able to access all display content that is not intrinsically inaccessible.

A persons choice of screen reader is dictated by many factors, including platform and the role of organizations like charities, schools, and employers.

Recent versions of Microsoft Windows come with the rather basic Narrator. The Macintosh OS also comes with a built-in screen reader, called VoiceOver. Only a small fraction of this population, when compared to the sighted community, have Internet access.

The open source GNOME desktop environment long included Gnopernicus and now includes Orca.

I get asked that question a lot. In fact, after “how do I start a business?” it’s probably the most asked question by new clients. I decided the best way to describe why you might decide to write a business plan is to tell you a few stories about a client of mine. The name and business are fictional. We’re going to call him David and he’s going to have a mechanic shop. The stories I’m going to tell you over the next few months are a combination of things that have happened to me and to some of my clients.

David’s smart. He’s got a memory like a steel trap. And he’s ambitious. He wants to start a small mechanic shop with the inheritance his dad left him, and he’s been very busy trying to get it started. But he’s also young and in a bit of a hurry. The way he sees it, he doesn’t need a business plan and anytime he’s asked about it he just taps his head and says, “I don’t need one. I’ve got it all up here.” Besides, he likes freedom. He’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy. He doesn’t want to be tied to what some piece of paper says.

His mother-in-law, Ellen just shakes her head. She’s owned a bookkeeping service for the last twenty years, which she started because she wanted to be able to stay home when her kids were small. But David thinks, of course she’d see it that way. She’s a bean counter and everyone knows how they are about details. Besides, he’s already let her talk him into incorporating his business. The way he saw it, he didn’t need to waste his money on it, but it was done. No way was he going to waste any more money on getting a business plan.

A few weeks later, David opened his shop for business. What a day that was. He’d been too excited to sleep the night before, and it ended up being an awfully long day because he didn’t have any customers. Not a single one. He’d spent the day cleaning the shop and organizing his tools and sometimes just staring at the phone, trying to will it to ring. Oh well, he thought, what can I expect? The shop’s brand new and nobody knows about it. Someone will call tomorrow. By the end of the week, with no calls except from friends and family (who he was beginning to suspect his mother-in-law had told to call), he was starting to worry. He was also starting to run out of cash.

He barely scraped together the cash for his lease at the end of the sixth month. He didn’t think owning a business would be this expensive. Besides, he’d figured he’d have lots of customers by now, but the truth of it was he didn’t have enough to keep him busy for even half a day. David decided he’d better go see his banker. It shouldn’t be too be much of a problem to get the money, he figured. He had a good credit rating.

When the usual “how are you, I’m fine” was over, David got right down to business. He didn’t need much money. He figured $10,000 should do it. “Sounds good,” Shaun said when he was done talking. “Let’s take a look at your business plan.” And when he said, “Oh I don’t have one. I’ve got it all up here,” she smiled and said, “We need to have one before we can proceed with a loan. Come back and see me when you do.”

As much as he hated to do it, he knew he had to borrow some money from someone. When none of his friends could help him beyond a few hundred dollars, he approached his mother-in-law. “Well,” she said, “I can do that for you, but I have one condition. I want to give me half an hour of your time to listen to why I think you need a business plan.” David agreed. He was getting desperate. Here’s what she said:

• Almost half of small business startups fail in the first year.

• The main reasons they fail is because they lack management, lack planning, have insufficient financing and lack marketing.

• You can address all those reasons with a business plan:
  • Business plans help with lack of management with financial analysis, guide your decision-making, and outlining specific goals.

  • Business plans help with lack of planning by outlining the means to meet specific goals.

  • Business plans help with insufficient financing because financial institutions and private investors won’t lend you any money without one.

  • Complete business plans include a marketing plan addressing lack of marketing.

• There are other reasons for writing a business plan:
  • Business plans help you monitor your progress.

  • Business plans give you something to compare your end of period results with.

  • Business plans help identify weak areas where you can improve.

  • Business plans help you avoid making the same mistake over and over again.

  • Business plans help keep you on track.

  • A good business plan includes a feasibility study, so you should know before you start whether your business can succeed.

  • Many self-help books proclaim goals are more easily met if they’re written so business plans help you identify and reach your goals.

  David was convinced. He accepted his mother-in-law’s offer to help him write his business plan. After it was done, he went back to the bank and got his loan.

  So, how is David’s business doing? I’m not going to tell you anything today beyond that he’s still in business, but I will tell you more, I promise. We’re going to use David’s business as a case study with more articles about him every month. Stay tuned for more stories about David’s business and find out how he’s doing.

  Eve Jackson owns and operates Details Small Business Solutions, a company dedicated to helping small business do big business with communication and image consulting. Details SBS designs corporate identity packages, press kits and websites. We write business plans and copy for press kits, websites and direct mail sales letters. You can view our website at http://www.DetailsSBS.com and contact us at info@DetailsSBS.com.