Writing Business Plans That Get Results shows you how to create a business plan that works. Packed with straightforward question-and-answer exercises for writing each section of your plan, this easy-to-use guide tells you:

• Exactly what to include in each section of your plan
• The most efficient ways to evaluate and present your company's products and services, marketing strategies, organizational structure, plans to achieve goals, competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and more
• How to expertly determine cash needs, appropriate financing sources, payback terms, and potential returns for investors
• Simple ways to make realistic projections for cash flow, profit and loss, and the balance sheet

Since a business plan is used for many purposes--as a development tool, a management and planning guide, a mission statement, a sales document--and is read by several different audiences, author Michael O'Donnell teaches you how to:

• Tailor each part of your plan to the various needs of bankers, venture capitalists, partners, suppliers, accountants, lawyers, customers, and other readers
• Structure and arrange the components of your plan for greatest impact
• Anticipate all questions that plan reviewers will ask
• Critique and package your plan for winning results

Practical, comprehensive, and clearly written, Writing Business Plans That Get Results is required reading for any entrepreneur who wants his or her company to prosper. Michael O'Donnell, a business consultant with the Promersberger Company in Fargo, North Dakota, specializes in developing marketing plans for the firm's clients. As a staff member of the Center for Innovation and Business Development at the University of North Dakota, he worked with inventors and entrepreneurs on a daily basis. The founder and president of ASK-ME Systems, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of public-access videotex systems, O'Donnell has started six businesses of his own and has consulted on more than sixty start-up projects. He also serves on the faculty of the Commercialization Planning Workshop for the National Energy-Related Inventions Program and in this capacity provides business plan and marketing plan assistance to some of the country's top inventors.