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Read any book on small business or take any entrepreneurial course and it's almost guaranteed that sooner or later you'll be hit with; "If you don't have a business plan you're on the road to disaster". Sounds a lot like your mother when you were a kid doesn't it? "What do you mean you didn't change your underwear? What if you're in an accident? What will the Doctors think?" Well I'm not your mother and I'm not going to put a guilt trip on you for not having a business plan! I'm also not going to tell you that you don't need one. Quite the contrary, if done for the right reasons a business plan can be a valuable management tool to make your business more successful!
While all the hoopla about business plans does make some reasonable sense in a lot of situations ... the truth is that few of us ever create formal business plans. That is, unless we are headed off to our friendly banker trying to convince him or her to lend us a few thousand of their depositors’ dollars. So the big question ... “Is the lack of doing a business plan one of the main reasons that many businesses fail”? The answer ... Not in my book.
In fact, in some cases a business plan could actually stifle some great...