Читать книгу Business Plans For Dummies - Paul Tiffany - Страница 13

Obviously, you’ve already selected one of the best hands-on business-planning sources around (all right, the best, in our humble opinion). But admittedly, you can also find other useful business-planning tools out there — particularly ones that concentrate on specific areas, such as how to do digital marketing, the ins and outs of start-up financing, or others that focus on particular kinds of businesses, such as not-for-profits or selling on eBay. Hey, we even have a slew of these alternative sources available within the For Dummies series — check ’em out!

While you can’t always tell a book by its cover, you can find out a lot by reading through its table of contents. You should also try dipping into the first chapter. If you’re browsing on the web, booksellers like Amazon.com often include a detailed table of contents, along with the first chapter, directly on their website. Readers’ reviews and ratings that you can find online can also help steer you toward other particularly useful books. And don’t forget to ask colleagues, business advisers, family and friends, or investors to list their favorite business-planning go-to sources. The results may surprise you.

The basic principles of business planning may be timeless, but certain subjects — where and how to acquire funding, for example — change rapidly. An unrevised three-year-old site may already be ancient history. If you want to find timely information, such as details about tax considerations for a small business, be sure to check the source’s original posting or publication date.

For the timeliest info, turn to relevant blogs, podcasts, social media, chat rooms, magazines, newspapers, and journals. For a broader and deeper sweep of trends and events, read the books. They offer a terrific way to keep up on what’s happening in the world of business in general — and your industry in particular. The business press also provides an efficient way to routinely scan the business environment for trends or new developments that may affect your business plan. If you’re not sure what online or print sources focus on your particular industry or your geographic region, do a quick search on the Internet (see the next section for more details).