Top 10 Business Planning Mistakes #1: It’s Planning, not Just a Plan

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the tenth and last of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, this one, the most important.) Planning is vital for your business. Start with a business plan and a regular review schedule, then track results and changing... Read More »

Top 10 Business Planning Mistakes #2: Cash vs. Profits

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the ninth of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, the most important.) Make no mistake: profits are an accounting story, and cash is real money. You spend cash. Your business dies without it. Profits, on the other... Read More »

Top 10 Business Planning Mistakes #3: Lost in the Clouds

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the eighth of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, the most important.) It’s not that I don’t respect talk about high-level strategy, business models, and business ideas; it’s that the high level strategy-in-the-clouds kind of planning is... Read More »

Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes #4: Lowball Pricing

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the seventh of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, the most important.) Are you thinking that it’s important to offer better service, or better products, at a lower price? Forget it. That hasn’t been true since the... Read More »

Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes #8: Making Financing the Goal

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the third of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, the most important.) It’s just too damn bad that so many entrepreneurs assume to start a business you do a plan, get financed, and then you start. As... Read More »

Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes #9: Pitching Without Planning

By Tim Berry

(Note: this is the second of a 10-part series listing my revised top 10 business planning mistakes. The list goes from 10, the least important, to 1, the most important.) I’m guessing that the idea of doing a pitch – meaning a slide deck driving a presentation, about 20 minutes’ worth maximum – instead of... Read More »

Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes, #10: It’s Not a Hurdle

By Tim Berry

I’ve decided I need a new top 10 list for business planning mistakes. This isn’t the first I’ve done and I hope not the last either, but it’s a good thing to give these lists a fresh look every so often. And this morning I do a workshop on this topic as part of the... Read More »