Business Plan Consultant for California

We all want to have a great idea or a better mousetrap. Terrific. It takes careful and often painful evaluation to really take an idea to market.

Thoughtfully and thoroughly consider your business. Be realistic! Get outside opinions. Look at your competition thoroughly. Be candid and factual in your appraisal. You will always benefit from honest, accurate evaluation. At first, you may not like what you hear or see or discover. But you will eventually become more effective, more competitive and more precise in your business practice. Often, people who ask for “opinions” really want to hear the words “Fantastic” or “Great idea.” Don’t settle for praise (haha). Your goal isn’t to get your ego stroked, it’s to make your plan and idea BETTER! Why? So that you can be successful and PROFITABLE. That’s the goal, right (?): to succeed and profit in your success.

Go to your banker, accountant, and best friend and ask what they “think” of your plan or idea. What they honestly, REALLY think of your business concept.  Listen to their questions, remarks or doubts. Take notes. Don’t interrupt them with “Oh yeah, I meant to say that..” or comments to that effect. Just listen! Find the answers to their questions. Perfect your answers to those questions. Rehearse your answers over and over in your mind. The inventor of the Palm Pilot, Jeff Hawkins,  had several failures while trying to solve the PDA problem. With the “Pilot” he walked around his company’s offices with a  wooden block that was small enough to fit in his shirt pocket. He LIVED with his design. He asked questions, he pretended to use the “block,”  as if it were a functioning device, so that he could discover what would work and what would not work. The Palm Pilot was not designed in its perfect form the very first time Mr. Hawkins sat down at a desk and conceived the product.  It took hundreds of questions, different approaches to input and storage and many, many failures and persistence.

Learn from your weaknesses. Learn from your competition. Competition makes us stronger-if we so choose.  Choose to succeed. You must have the “never give up attitude” if you are to succeed in your enterprise. There are very few NEW things under the sun. Oh, there may be some very nice unusual products or services that seem wonderful and  imaginative. BUT, they are not necessarily new. They are just better mousetraps. Choosing to succeed and never give up doesn’t necessarily mean to stick with your idea no matter what. It may mean adapting the idea, changing the strategy, or both.

When conceiving your business plan, be patient, but be persistent. Ask questions and LISTEN to the answers. Don’t be offended by criticism; be inspired by it.