Parker Business Planning’s motto is “strength in numbers,” and this is for a very good reason. This unique business planning business runs on the concept of “20 Groups.” 20 groups are get-togethers involving up to 20 non-competing company principals who compare financial information in a common format.

Why do they do this? It is simply beneficial to all, as the members share their experiences and best practices in the effort to help one another build their businesses together. The 20 group concept includes thrice annual meetings that go on for 2.5 days each. These meetings represent no small effort on the part of the groups involved, but the benefits to everyone’s financial picture is typically well worth the effort.

If you are trying to write a business plan for a great start-up idea, take advice from the Microsoft business planning experts, who offer the following tips:

1. Be sure to start with a great executive summary. This part of the document details your goals and objectives and introduces your overall business strategy.
2. Offer a brief account of how your company, or your idea began. It helps loan officers and venture capitalists, who may be interested in investing, to know a little bit of background and insight into the character of the business and its entrepreneurs.
3. Your company should have goals, so dedicate the next section to detailing those goals quite vividly.
4. The management team is the people who will make or break the business. These individuals will be responsible for following the business plan and making risky decisions when necessary. So be sure that your business plan includes brief biographies of each member. Loan officers and other investors must know that the company is in good hands.

The simplest way to create a laboratory business plan is to utilize a template specially tailored to your type of business. For laboratory businesses, turn to PlanMagic. This company offers a well written lab or clinic business plan template in several popular word processor formats.

The PlanMagic laboratory business plan includes a close-to-reality financial projection application as well as a presentation template and a complete business plan writing guide. It also offers an advanced edition, for the more ambitious laboratory business planners, that provides further state-of-the-art financial analysis tools.

When planning a laboratory-based business, you have a few unique considerations that other businesses may not have. You must take care to consider:

• Your perception of current and potential investors
• The current and future market size
• The industry trends
• Products and services to be offered

In addition to these typical business concerns, you must also specifically address your niche within the laboratory business market. Even when you are conducting research that is grant-funded or creating products for a medical market, you will have competition. Just like any business, you must concern yourself with those who may stand in the way of profit. After all, even laboratories who work to cure cancer and other terrible diseases are working for profit, and must consider where profits lie in their work, how soon profits can be expected to accrue, and what other labs may be competing to be first in the same research.

Even if you are an experienced entrepreneur, you can always benefit from getting an outside opinion on your business plan ideas. Having a mentor or other more experienced professional to turn to has saved many a startup-owner from risking his or her neck unnecessarily. There is a time to take risks and another time to play the game more conservatively. Getting a second or even third opinion is  a way of ensuring that you are planning properly.

Especially if you are the only person opening your business-–you have no partners, investors, or employees—it is particularly crucial that you look to an outside advisor. The SBA or SCORE are excellent sources of advice, as are established business executives that you may know personally, so be sure that you aren’t “being a cowboy” with your business plan. Get a second opinion from another professional before making the investment.

Business planning can be troublesome, so be sure to take on each aspect of the business plan as a unique challenge and overcome it without thinking of how much more you have to do. Each aspect of a business plan is essential to the overall financial picture, but nobody said this picture was going to be easy to put together. So when you get involved in business planning, be sure to:

• Write a vision statement
• Develop a clear picture of the economy, competition, and market conditions before writing your budget
• Continue to investigate the true needs of your customer base
• Take competition seriously and plan around it
• Take necessary risks

So many aspects of business planning present unique hurdles for entrepreneurs to jump over, yet it has been accomplished again and again. So just know that in your effort to put together a truly great business plan, you follow in the footsteps of some of the world’s most profitable companies.

When you set about planning your business, be sure you aren’t thinking about the short term. Also, don’t be “safe.” After all, what’s the point of trying to build the business of your dreams if you are going to reduce those dreams to a modified, abbreviated, and uninspiring version? If you want your business planning to be successful, you have got to have a vision.

What is a vision? It is a bold plan. It is an idea for success that hasn’t been done before. It is a risk and a walk out on a limb. If your vision is tame, safe, and easily accomplished, then it isn’t a vision, it is simply a set of goals or plans. Goals and plans are also important to have, so keep those, but when you write a vision for your business, you need to paint a picture of what you truly want and what will give you a sense of having accomplished something no one has dared to do before.

Starting a global business, or going global with your existing business, is a truly ambitious project that requires adequate planning. But while you are busy planning your business, don’t neglect to plan other aspects of working within a global community. Those aspects include learning how to follow the social norms of various different cultures. There is no sense in taking your company to the global level if you and your executives are not prepared to interact with an extremely diverse group of business men and women.

Every culture is different, so all of the following directives may be altered depending on the country where you do business, but overall, they are important factors to keep in mind when engaging in global business:

• Build relationships. It isn’t just about getting down to business. Bring gifts and ask about clients’ families. Such conversation builds the trust that is necessary for doing business.
• Dress conservatively. Some businesses these days enjoy a more casual dress code than they did in days past. Don’t let this be the case when it comes to you international dealings. Most countries consider conservative dress to be a form of respect.
• Research hierarchy. When you interact with another culture, be sure you understand the hierarchy. For instance, Japanese will make decisions in a very different manner than Mexicans. Find out these social subtleties as much as possible by doing research before you go to prevent yourself or your company from committing any gaffes.

When you go into business, it is important to utilize all the tools at your disposal to help you with analysis, evaluation, and other business operations that can help you make crucial pricing decisions. With this in mind, consider accessing some online business calculators specially designed for certain business tasks.

• The cash flow calculator: this device is designed to demonstrate the way in which business-to-business sales, inventory, and rapid growth can cost a business. Using this calculator properly will help your business save on unnecessary expenditures.
• The investment offering calculator: This calculator enables business owners to view both sides of any investment table. You’ll see what the investor gets along with what the company gives up, all in a simple, easy-to-read tool.
• The starting costs calculator: This simple tool will enable you to take a realistic view of your new business before you take out that loan and get started. Evaluating the necessary start-up capital is essential for any new business.

Entrepreneurs considering starting a farm of any kind would do well to check with Bplans.com online business planning service before getting started. The site offers numerous free farm and food production business plans for your perusal. In fact, there are over 500 sample agriculture-related businesses plans to get you started. Some include:

• A butcher shop business plan
• A sales manufacturer business plan
• A peach and apricot farm business plan
• A coffee export business plan

As you can see, there are as many different types of farming and agricultural businesses as there are business owners who want to start them, so be sure to look at some of the sample business plans on Bplans before starting your company. Your organizational and financial structures will benefit highly from this research

Organizational economists are the economists to go to if your business needs a complete financial make-over. These professionals evaluate companies and their internal structures in order to offer suggestions as to how to increase their competitive edge. Organizational economists also work for governments, looking closely at the critical decisions that must be made to respond to esternal market forces.

If you have the ability and skill to measure strengths and weaknesses and identify ways to bolster companies when faced with attack or possible decay from within, then the field of organizational economics may be for you.

List of Private Equity Firms

List of 1,000 Private Equity Firms with Contact Details

I am often asked for a list of private equity firms and the management’s contact details.  I usually can provide a couple firms that are related to the query but to find the contact details for over 1,000 private equity firms takes hundreds of hours.

Fortunately, our team has invested our time developing and updating a deep, constantly-improved directory of private equity firms and their contact details in Excel format. Through our three directory packages you can gain access to buyout firms, venture capitalists and angel investors.  To learn more about this private equity directory follow this link,

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Tags: list of private equity firms, buyout firms directory, directory of private equity firms, private equity directory, buyout firm directory, database of private equity firms, private equity database, private equity firms database

Private Equity Compensation Trends

Question: How is Compensation After the Recession?

I recently received an e-mail from an investment professional asking about the state of private equity and compensation trends at buyout firms: 


Theo,

PE info can be difficult to find publicly.  I read on your blog that PE compensation was increasing amid the financial crisis.  Your post was dated late 2008.  Have you seen any updated data on PE com?

The most recent compensation data is available through Glocap (pretty expensive though) here is a link to purchase that report.

I created a video for the Certified Private Equity Professional program this week on compensation trends.  I can share a short summary with you:

• Buyout compensation has declined or at least stayed the same, but is still highly competitive to other industries.  Given the economic and financial troubles in 2007-2009, no major decline is OK.
• Venture capital compensation did not fall last year as much as for buyout firms.  (Not reliant on transaction charges so decline in dealflow is not felt as much.) 
• Associate compensation is competitive with other financial industries.
  The largest reduction in compensation was at the associate level (first on the chopping block).
  Last year, average associate compensation fell by 10% to $275,000.  In 2008, associate compensation at big buyout firms rose 6% and went up 22% in 2007 (year of the mega- buyouts). 
• One concern is the carried interest tax proposal working its way through Congress this year.  Currently, carried interest is taxed at a rate of 15% but proponents of reforming the tax laws have argued for taxing carried interest as ordinary income which could be as high as 35%.  The latest draft of the Senate bill has been diluted somewhat to tax only 65% of the carried interest as ordinary tax and the rest at the normal 15%.  Private equity firms will have to make cuts to make up for the lost revenue from carried interest taxation.  This will likely effect private equity compensation.  

According to the latest reports I have read overall compensation has stalled.  I expect that compensation will remain stalled and even decline until dealflow returns and this combined with a carried interest tax could negatively effect compensation.  I hope this gives you a good idea of compensation. 

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Tags:  Private Equity Compensation Trends, Private Equity Trends, Compensation, buyout compensation, private equity firm compensation, associate compensation

Hedge Funds 2010 Challenges

Survey: Hedge Funds Having´Trying´ Year in 2010

According to a recent survey, the majority of hedge fund managers agreed that 2010 is a ´trying´ year for the hedge fund industry. Managers see difficulty raising capital for funds and greater regulation (which means compliance costs) as the primary reasons that 2010 will still be a tough year. Despite this, the number of start-ups has increased this year.

Seven out of 10 said they expect a “trying” year as the industry faces regulatory oversight and competition picks up with more funds likely chasing investment dollars, according to a survey by accounting and audit firm Rothstein Kass.

“It is no surprise that the outlook for 2010 echoes the concerns of 2009 rather than the unbridled optimism of years past and reflects a more conservative approach to the future,” Rothstein Kass consultants wrote.

Hedge funds rebounded last year from 2008′s deep losses with an average 19 percent return. But this year’s market gyrations highlight the pitfalls that are still present two years after the financial crisis. Many prominent managers were caught off guard by May’s sharp sell-off and nursed heavy losses that left the funds, on average, roughly flat for the first five months of the year, data from Hedge Fund Research show. June’s performance numbers are expected next week.  Source

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Drake Business Planning is a great service for anyone who needs a little help getting that startup off and running. The advisors there will help you look at your business plan from an investor’s point of view. In particular, they promote the idea of integrated thinking. Drake Planning services help you view the competitive landscape and how it impacts your market strategy. It will also impact your pricing, and that is something else to consider. This type of integrated thinking is what banks and loan officers look for because it represents a thorough knowledge of the business and subject matter.

Another point to consider is how the competitive landscape impacts sales and distribution tactics. Changes in these elements will definitely affect financial performance. Keep in mind that Drake will help you work out your business plan, but don’t expect to have a business plan that works out every single detail of every single problem or challenge that could arise in the future. Not only is that impossible to do, it isn’t really the function of a business plan. The plan is an iterative process of fact gathering, strategizing, and tactical planning that serves as a roadmap to your business. It may only cover the major events of the next year or year and a half, but it is enough to get going, get started, and get you into business.

When you plan your business, you need to take advantage of every opportunity you have or that you can imagine developing in the future. You have to think creatively about your strengths and resources and how you can leverage them for competitive advantage. That said, there are several items you must keep in mind when putting together your first business plan. These include:

• Research about the direction of your business
• The time commitment you are able to make to both running the business and doing all the background work necessary
• Strategies for overcoming some of the biggest hurdles you see ahead of you

When you are prepared with these ideas, you can do the really hard work: you must challenge many of the deeply-held beliefs about the current market in order to excel within it. The reason is because everyone already in the market is playing by the status quo, and unless potential customers are simply crying out for another business in this field, you are putting yourself in the position of having to either create a new market or re-envision the old one. If you feel prepared for, and even excited about doing this, then your business plan will be a success.

Those of you starting small businesses can take everything from the minimalist “60-minute business plan” approach to a longer, more formal document, but those hoping to start corporate entities have a much longer road ahead of them. Corporate planning requires a team and a methodical approach to research and analysis.

Corporate planning looks further down the road than a small startup might, and sets goals for how to achieve each and every ambitious goal. Despite how involved and lengthy the business plan might be, it should also be flexible enough to be able to be updated when financial trends change or when the management team is altered. The formal approach to corporate business planning is a lot more tedious than the minimalist approach that someone developing a home-based business or an online business might have, but the advantage is the extensive funding it makes available. Whichever business structure you choose, and whichever type of business plan you write, be sure it is the right size and type for your business.

Those of you who have approached a center for business planning with your business proposal already know that the advisors there will always bring you back to the key issues in business planning. Once you have written mission and vision statements, done a SWOT analysis, and set forth your five and ten year goals, they will ask you to:

• Isolate key decisions and issues that need immediate or near-term resolution.
• Isolate issues needing long-term resolution
• State the consequences of postponing decisions

These are key issues that must be addressed in any business plan. You’ll want to do a little homework on this before bringing the problem to your business counselor, but when you get stuck, he or she is there to help you bring your concepts to complete fruition.

Planning your business can be fun. That’s right, it really can. The fun comes in when you feel safe and confident about the decisions you are making. When you see a lot of risk on the horizon, that means stress for most people, so why not use a good, thorough analysis of risk to ensure that your choices are safe ones.

Your analysis should:

• Summarize the risks of a proposed project
• Address those risks in another summary
• Estimate the payoff expected, especially if funding is an issue

When you have looked carefully at the risks you feel are worth taking, you will be able to feel confident about them because you’ll know, if you’ve done your research right, exactly how bad it can get if you fail. You don’t expect to fail, but good analysis tells you that if you fail things can get this bad but not worse. There is always insurance and there are other ways to put the breaks on losses, so once those are in place, you will be able to risk with confidence and actually find it a little bit fun.

When planning a business project, whether it is large or small, you must assess the resources available to you. One good way to do that is with a SWOT analysis. This method of analyzing your “strengths, weaknesses, obstacles, and threats.” Is always handy when starting something new.

Once you have listed all factors you can think of that fall into the above categories, be sure that you have included all technology and related technological issues. For instance, if you are good with computers, that is a strength, but if you don’t have the technical skills to deal with any technological glitches that occur, that is a weakness. Other issues that should be discussed are personnel requirements. Your business can accommodate for various individual strengths and weakness by hiring the right personnel. With a proper and honest evaluation of weaknesses and threats, your human resources department can hire to overcome those problems. Business project planning can be very complex and exhausting, so do the best that you can by ensuring your SWOT analysis is honest and thorough.

If you are planning a business one of the best aids you can make for yourself is a homemade workbook. Your workbook will include pages where you can draft

• Your mission statement
• Your vision statement
• Your market summary
• Your SWOT analysis
• Your SMART goals
• Your business concept
• Your long term goals

The idea of a workbook takes the pressure off of anyone who is a perfectionist and feels it necessary to get things right “the first time.” The various parts of your business plan are going to require draft after draft, so a workbook is a great place to work out your ideas, jot down information and research, and give yourself a to-do list.

Cross-outs and re-do’s are par for the course in a workbook, so that is just the idea behind creating this working space for yourself. This book is not a final draft, nor is it ever going to be one, so take your time and jot down everything that comes into your head about these various topics. Eventually, you will craft some excellent statements that will produce a truly polished business plan.

When you are putting together your business plan, be sure that your plans, actions, and strategies are based upon solid objectives and goals. You should have five and ten year goals as well as more immediate goals for accomplishing current directives.

These goals should include the following:

• Statements about specific, measurable objectives
• Statements about market share objectives
• Statements about revenue and profitability objectives

With all of these elements in place, your goals will be complete, as long as they are based upon a well-written vision statement. Many a business has floundered because it had solid goals, but no vision to base them upon. Having a vision means you believe in your company and its objectives. It means that you won’t waver from your chosen path just because someone disagrees with you or the road is a little rocky. Business planning is difficult, hard work, but sticking to a poorly conceived business plan, as time goes by, is even tougher. Set up your business plan so that it works for you the first time.

Some entrepreneurs feel more comfortable consulting a specialist when it comes to business planning. Those who don’t feel comfortable working with research and doing bookkeeping usually fall into this category. Not all entrepreneurs are math people, so that is where business planning specialists come in handy.

One of the issues your business planning specialist will want to discuss with you is your business concept. Can you summarize the key concept or strategy that your business is based on? If not, prepare for this before meeting with the specialist. Once you have done that, your specialist is going to want to discuss issues around competition, including putting together a summary of the competition and outlining your company’s competitive advantages. These are the types of things you will want to research and be prepared to discuss when you consult a specialist. Remember that if you don’t come prepared, you will be wasting a great deal of your own time and money, so use your specialist wisely.

When you have to work with partners and other associates, be sure to run your business planning sessions in an organized and methodical manner. “Too many cooks spoil the broth” as they say, and any meeting always has the potential to become a rambling conversation. So when doing business planning, be sure to center your meetings around these topics:

• Mission statement
• Identifying the team
• Market summary
• Problems and opportunities
• Business concept

Beginning with the mission statement, you must ensure that the team creates a clear statement of the company’s long-term mission. Discussion of the team should list key CEO and management by name, and offer an abbreviated resume of each. The market summary should review changes in market share, leadership, costs, and competition that may provide opportunities for newfound success. Any discussion of problems and opportunities should state consumer problems as well as defining the nature of a product or service that could turn a problem into an opportunity. As you can see, there is plenty to discuss at a business planning meeting, so keep the conversation focused.

If you are considering using PowerPoint to present your business plan to potential investors, it is a good idea to first take a look at some sample business planning PowerPoint presentations. For this, look to Scribd. This website is a wonder. It offers innumerable free books and other downloads that can help you immeasurably with your business planning process. In this case, on www.scribd.com, do a search for “sample business plan ppt” and you’ll find a template for one from Corporate Solutions of Central Florida.

This impressive plan is fully comprehensive and shows you how a PowerPoint presentation can reveal some of the salient points of your plan in an enticing and eye-catching manner. This presentation opens with a slide featuring the mission statement, and goes on to list the key members of your executive team, along with their qualifications. From there it moves right into a market summary, and so forth. Of course, a PowerPoint presentation is never going to take the place of a detailed business plan, where so many tedious but necessary details are worked out as needed, but with PowerPoint, you can present your idea in order to gain a potential investor’s attention, and that is the first and most important step in your journey toward getting your startup up and running.