Business Plan

I'm almost done with my 1st year business plan. And I thought I'd pass along a few tips that were wind in my sails. This has been a HUGE endeavor and has taken so many more weeks than I though it would. Get a head start on this ASAP.
First Check out the business plan guide on my link (look to the right of your screen under links) . A business plan has two parts. Easy and Hard. The Easy part is the narrative. Telling a bank about your business, your location, yourself, etc. The Hard part is the financial statements. I'm no accountant--and had no idea where to start so I broke my financials into two parts: 1. individual cost of products/things and 2. fancy spreadsheets that clearly convey my expectations to a banker.
1.) Cost of things: If you've been reading OklahomaSolo you know how much my Yellow page ad will cost-- this is the type of legwork you will just have to do for yourself. One thing that can save you a lot of walking is to take a trip down to your local office supply store and get an order book. These books will walk you through every office item you need to open a law office and tell you how much you can expect to pay. So get out a pencil and write down a list of what you will be buying and how much it will cost.
2.) Unless you are an accountant your P&L (pro forma) projection will be baffling! You have to list everything that will be an expense to your business an compare them to your expected revenues. I suggest you go HERE to see one I like. Or you can search at the top of that page to see all the other forms Microsoft provides us for free.

So lets review: To get a business plan together Start w/a template, use order books for prices, and use templates for spreadsheets. These three tips will save you days of time. At least they did for me.