Maureen Burke and Andrea Cockerton are two women who know a
lot about developing a professional business plan. As I come to the end of my Business Plan
Development course, I have decided to do further research on these two women
and try to discover any other helpful advice that I can apply to the plan.
Maureen Burke believes that the executive summary is the
most important portion of the business plan, and I agree. The executive summary is the section that
briefly describes the who, what, when, where, and why of a company. This section is also the first element that a
potential investor will read. This sets
the tone for the rest of your business plan. After researching Maureen, I realized that my
executive summary needed a lot of work, especially the market analysis. I
developed the market analysis portion about six months ago. It is time to conduct a new analysis and
update this information.
In November of 2012, Andrea Cockerton participated as a
speaker at the Swiss Mobicamp event.
This event is dedicated to helping the attendees understand, navigate
and prosper in the entrepreneurial world.
Cockerton’s workshop was entitled “Life’s A Pitch”. During this presentation she discussed how
important it is to understand what investors want and how to deliver that in
your pitch. Many pitches are badly
planned, the message is buried, or the thinking is flawed. She goes on to explain that tone should not
describe, it should persuade.
Even though Andrea is speaking about pitching and not so much
the business plan, her advice is important for business plan development as
well. I believe the tone of a business
play should be persuasive. As I am
putting the final touches on my business plan, I will incorporate this
persuasive tone.
I am very excited to be close to having the entire plan
complete, however, I still have a long way to go. My research on Burke and Cockerton has
definitely left me with a few helpful tips that I must incorporate into my
business plan to make it better.
