Professor Cornwall on Business Planning

3/25/2007

I was asked recently by an entrepreneur whether he should hire someone to write a business plan. I remembered that Professor Cornwall at The Entrepreneurial Mind had written about the answer to this question. I also know what a treasure trove of information is available by searching a blog full of useful posts like the Entrepreneurial Mind. So after conducting a search on business plans on Professor Cornwall's blog, I came up with the following advice, quoting the three posts cited below:

"Unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan before opening a new business...

Business plans are a way to document sound analysis and good planning of your new venture. Whether you actually write this document is to a large degree irrelevant. What does matter is that you go through the process of evaluating the market for the venture, analyzing the potential profit margin it can produce, and reflect honestly on your personal readiness to make it happen. So it is the process of planning, not the actual plan, that really matters...

Young people who cook at home eat better

Affiliate Business Basics

As I mentioned in my introduction article, this is the hour of affiliate business. Companies are currently paying commissions of up to 50-78% of the full price of their products to those who are willing to refer them customers. Their job thereby cuts down to production, shipping. In some scenarios they'll also have to pay their affiliate resellers, but mostly this is done automatically by companies who have specialized on this task - collecting money from customers via credit card etc. and automatically paying affiliate resellers.

Your job as an affiliate reseller will be to find customers and send them to the companies' websites. As we're in the 21st century, you'll not convince those potential customers to buy certain products by talking to them in person or similar, instead you'll acquire them all using nothing but the Internet.

First of all, of course, you'll have to evaluate whether certain products are worth being advertised for and resold. Are they already popular? Are people searching the Internet for them? You'll have to ask yourself such questions among others, we'll come later towards that. Before we'll continue and reach the practical part, I want to give you a motivational guideline for getting things done. Even the most wise person with the highest intellect is unlikely to get things done without proper motivation and time management.

So, here's a bit of advice: