Chapter 5 - Business Planning

There is a very nice, very informed man by the name if Mark Taylor who works at the Renaissance Business Center located at 555 Beale St.  The RBC (Renaissance Business Center) is a “one-stop-shop” that provides entrepreneurs and small businesses in Memphis with training, one-on-one counseling, and a host of other resources to assist in their success (I know you are asking what this has to do with chapter 5 – Business Planning… Be patient, I’m getting there).  I first met Mark about 2 years ago at the Main Library during an open-to-the-public business seminar.  One thing I vividly remember is Mr. Taylor telling the crowd of would-be and wanna-be entrepreneurs is that should we decided to come to the RBC seeking help, the first thing we’ll be asked for is our business plan.

Fast-forward about one year, and my team and I decide it’s time to pay Mr. Taylor a visit –without a business plan.  There were just too many questions and he just didn’t see the benefit in starting a business plan with so little knowledge about business in general.  After all, as Mr. Eric Mathews of Launch Memphis (http://www.launchmemphis.com/) expressed in a recent visit to the University of Memphis, we are all developers that tend to build first and ask questions later (not his exact quote but something along those lines).  Needless to say, it was a very candid and rather brutal 5 minutes that I do not regret.  It was an eye-opener that was very much needed.  Thank you Mr. Taylor!

Chapter 5’s topic of Business Planning brought back memories as I read it.  It gave very detailed and, until now, elusive descriptions on the various sections that comprise a business plan.  It basically gives the reader a blueprint on tackling the daunting task of writing a good business plan, emphasis on good.  The chapter should prove a good metric by which we can gauge the business plans that we’ll eventually write for our class (Ventur Bldg Sust Succ Enterp - MGMT 7270).   If writing a business plan is like telling the story of your business as the author says, I guess starting a business with a business plan means you have no story to tell and that makes for very dull conversation.