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The Owner’s Manual for Small Business

      ■ Successful Business Research

      ■ What Business Should I Start?

      ■ Winning Presentation In A Day

      ■ Trade Show In A Day

      ■ Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom

      ■ Finding an Angel Investor In A Day (Editor)

      ALICE LAPLANTE

      Alice LaPlante is a business writer based in Palo Alto, California. She has worked with The Planning Shop on numerous books, including Starting an eBay Business. Alice also teaches creative writing at Stanford University and San Francisco State University. She received the prestigious Wallace Stegner fellowship from Stanford University. Among her seven books is The Making of a Story, published by Norton.

       How to Use This Book

      Entrepreneurs tend to dream big. They see opportunities in challenges and profits in their passions. But it’s not enough to have a great idea, an awe-inspiring talent, or even a boatload of business smarts. Passion to Profits: Business for New Entrepreneurs shows first-time entrepreneurs how to combine all of the above—plus lots more—into a business that can sustain them for years to come.

      By focusing first on the passion—your unique set of skills, talents, and training and how those can inform a unique business concept—and then on the profits—how you can pull all of these together to run a viable business—this volume provides a blueprint for entrepreneurial success.

      If you’re long on ideas but short on real-world business experience, not to worry: Passion to Profits shows you how to leverage those ideas to meet a market need and then how to get your business up, running, and profitable. And if you’re an expert at managing people, a whiz with numbers, but sick of punching someone else’s time clock, you’ve come to the right place as well: Passion to Profits will get you thinking like an entrepreneur, helping you to identify opportunities and design a business around them.

       Organization

      Divided into four main sections plus a special section on independent consultants and solo practitioners, Passion to Profits: Business Success for New Entrepreneurs leads you step-by-step through the process of transforming your entrepreneurial dreams into a viable business:

      ■ Part One: Choosing a Business

      ■ Part Two: Starting a Business

      ■ Part Three: Marketing, Pricing, and Sales

      ■ Part Four: Running a Business,

      ■ Special Section: Independent Consultants/Solo Practitioners,

       Choosing a Business

      Sure, you have an idea, a talent, a passion—but what’s the best way to turn those into a money-making enterprise? Part One: Choosing a Business shows you how to turn your avocation (your hobby, interests, talents, training) into a vocation. It helps you find the ways to make your dreams (of autonomy, flexibility, riches) into reality. In this section, you’ll learn how to think like an entrepreneur and how to translate your personal vision into a business vision. You’ll then get help identifying just the right kind of business for you. In this section, you’ll also learn how to identify opportunities, figure out exactly who the best customers are for your product or service, get a better grip on your competition, and get your bearings on how to do business in a socially responsible way.

       Starting a Business

      Once you know what you’re going to do, who your best customers are, and what’s up with the competition, it’s time to get down to the details of getting your business underway. Part Two: Starting a Business takes you through all the steps of doing just that. It starts with creating an identity, figuring out the best way to get your product or service to market, and finding the ideal location. Then, it takes you through the not-so-fun parts, too: legal aspects, taxes, licenses, and insurance. Then comes money: financing and financial projections. Finally, you’ll get to creating your business plan—always a crucial step. Along the way, you’ll find a wealth of tables and worksheets to help get your creative juices flowing and to compare your options.

       Marketing, Pricing, and Sales

      The key to business success, of course, is having customers and charging them enough to make a profit. Part Three: Marketing, Pricing, and Sales illuminates the range of marketing options available to you—from the tried-and-true traditional methods (such as advertising) to the most affordable (such as networking and word-of-mouth) and the most up-to-date online marketing tools. You’ll also brainstorm creative options to help devise your first marketing plan. This section helps you tackle the thorny issues of setting prices and getting customers to buy from you, offering practical, real-world advice. It will even help you create a knock-’em-dead sales pitch.

       Running a Business

      You’ve hung out your shingle, opened your doors, and let the world know you’re in business. And—surprise, surprise—customers are flocking in. Now, you just have to figure out how to keep it all going—and going efficiently and profitably. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you got into the game—at least in part—because you wanted to run things yourself. And that means managing—operations, people, and finances. Part 4: Running a Business shows you how. As you work your way through the chapters in this section, you’ll learn how to provide the infrastructure, equipment, processes, and procedures that enable you to deliver your product or service in a profitable way; what you need to do to hire and retain the best employees; and the steps you need to take to ensure that your cash continues flowing and flowing.

       Independent Consultants/Solo Practitioners

      You may be in business by yourself, but that doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. Recognizing that one-person shops represent by far the largest business category today, Passion to Profits: Business Success for New Entrepreneurs includes a special section devoted exclusively to solo entrepreneurs. Whether you’re a business consultant, doctor, artist, chef, writer, lawyer, jewelry-maker or are in any of the thousands of industries and professions dominated by self-employed individuals, this section covers the issues unique to striking out on your own—including setting up a home office, legal and tax issues, working with an agent, building a virtual team of your own, and much more!

       Special Features

      Passion to Profits: Business Success for New Entrepreneurs is packed with worksheets to help you turn your ideas into action. Like all books from The Planning Shop, this volume contains a range of tools to help you quickly grasp the information you need and help you get going fast, including:

      ■ Business Buzz Words. No one can intimidate you by tossing around a bunch of business jargon! Passion to Profits: Business Success for New Entrepreneurs makes you an instant insider in the world of business by giving you clear, real-world definitions of the business words you’re most likely to encounter. After all, it’s much easier to get by—and thrive—if you speak the language.

      ■ Case Studies. While every business is unique in its offerings, operations, and culture, many share common challenges. Seeing how other entrepreneurs have thrived or tackled thorny issues will both inspire and educate you. With this in mind, we’ve sprinkled a few case studies of real businesses throughout this volume, so that you can learn from others’ successes.

       Contents

       Part

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