Response from: zowoco (Check me out!)

Yes, a business plan is indispensible, but how many businesses really take time over this or implement it? Most business strategy seems to be to keep the wolf from the door! Which ends up with everything going round in circles. Take time to plan your marketing, your capital investment, your accounting, your ethical values, your start-up to buy-out procedure, your profit & loss forecasts, your logos, your image, your employment ethics, your location, your managerial stance...there is no end to planning and vision. The more you see in advance, the healthier, stronger and more profitable your company will become. Many new businesses fail in the first five years because they had no long term vision when they began! Where do you want your company to be in twenty years? Bought out? Buying up other companies? PLC? Expand to each county in UK? International locations? Decide before you begin! A long vision will provide impetus during the sticky times. Remember, "without vision, the people perish" and so will your new business! The way I see it, a business is like an oak tree. It competes at first with the other sapling oaks, then it aims to the sky and as the years go by it matures, fills out, gives rise to new oak saplings. Let this be your business plan! Aim for the sky, grow into maturity, start new sapling businesses elsewhere.