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>> Well folks we are in the final stretch of our small business management course this
semester and it's time to discuss the assembly process for your business plans. So what I
want to make sure we're clear on is that the first thing we want to do is eliminate section
introductions. I had you introducing each section because I read assignments every time
they are submitted and I need an orientation to your section, however, when we complete
our plan, we really only need one introduction so one of the first things you'll want to
do when you're assembling your plan is find the best introduction you've written and put
it at the beginning and eliminate all of the other introductions that are before each section
currently. As you're assembling this plan, you'll want to make sure that you're reading
in detail the assignment instructions. Now your actual due date will vary based on which
section you're in but I have provided very detailed assignment instructions online in
Blackboard and what you'll want to do is pull that out and make sure that you are clear
on what is to be delivered. Notice as you look at this detailed outline that I've provided,
the order in which the sections are to be presented in the final plan is different than
the order that you wrote them and that's purposeful. It's very difficult to write a company mission
when you're still trying to figure out exactly what the business is so we write that last
but it belongs first in your business plan and it belongs after the introduction which
is written several times, hopefully you have a nice strong one there and here is something
new you'll be writing as an executive summary so I suggest to you that you focus on three
to five really important elements of your plan and put those in the executive summary.
The executive summary is not an intention to summarize the remainder of your plan, it's
an intention to grab the reader and make them want to keep reading because you've got some
kind of unique selling proposition, because you've got a huge target market, because you're
bringing some really special expertise to the table, whatever that grab might be it
belongs in the executive summary. So the strategy section is what you submitted just
a few weeks ago, marketing the only new item here is a brief introduction for those of
you in slightly more esoteric industries so that the reader understands a little bit about
the market you're talking about. It only has to be a few sentences to orient us to
what you're writing about here. Then we have the operation section and you've already provided
some of these details but I want to make it real clear that these day to day tasks which
are different for different firms are documented. You will only have one of these things so
you'll either be describing your physical product that you're selling, you'll describe
your service or describe how you're selling at the detailed level. And then the final major
section will be accounting section. Same material that you've previously submitted, and that's it.
I have repeated some of the expectations that I put in my original handout about plagiarism,
so that you're clear that we need to have a double space document, cover sheet -- that makes
it look significantly more professional -- pages are numbered, you have a table of contents,
dollar figures are properly formatted, etc. And there's some more information here about
sources that can assist you if you're having trouble with the reference citations.
Now to help you with this assembly process I've put a couple of items in the "How To" Videos
area so you want to be sure to visit there. What we've started with here is how to insert
footnotes. So I provided some links to existing online sources with instructions on how to
do that in the various versions of Microsoft Word. I've also created a video myself for
you to use to help you with that. I've got a little video on how to right-align numbers,
which is relevant in your accounting section especially, the difference between
how this looks and an unformatted number list.
There's a huge difference if how people perceive your plan
and how professional they perceive your plan to be.
And then finally if you have not been
reviewing the comments that I placed on your assignments, please do that as you're
assembling the plan. That was the whole intention here was that you submitted a section, I give
you some feedback and you can incorporate that feedback into the final plan submission.
This is a little video on reminding you how to read those comments.
This is a significant assignment. It's (worth) a lot of points. I recommend that you start early,
that you've assemble everything, (and) that you allow plenty of time for proof reading what you submit.
And I look forward to reading your plan!