business plan guide in America. It was named one of the Top Ten business books for entrepreneurs by both Forbes and Inc. magazines. She is also the author of more than a dozen other books on entrepreneurship and has sold more than a million copies of her books. Rhonda’s other books are perennial best-sellers, with three of them having reached the nationally recognized “Top 50 Business Bestseller” list.
Rhonda not only writes about business—she lives it! As the founder of three successful companies, Rhonda has accumulated an extraordinary depth of experience and a real-life understanding of the challenges facing entrepreneurs. Rhonda first founded a management consulting practice working with clients ranging from one-person startups to Fortune 500 companies. Rhonda was an early Web pioneer, founding a website for small business that she later sold. In 1999, Rhonda started a publishing company—now called The Planning Shop—focusing exclusively on topics of business planning, entrepreneurship, and new business development. The Planning Shop is America’s leading academic publisher focusing exclusively on entrepreneurship.
A popular public speaker, Rhonda is regularly invited to address leading industry and trade associations, business schools, and corporate conventions and events. Educated at Harvard University and UCLA, where she was named Outstanding Senior, Rhonda now lives in Palo Alto, California.
Register to receive Rhonda’s free business newsletter at The Planning Shop’s website, www.PlanningShop.com.
Other books by Rhonda Abrams include:
■ Successful Marketing: Secrets & Strategies
■ The Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies
■ Six-Week Start-Up
■ Business Plan In A Day
■ 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
