Bruce Mayberry is what’s known as a serial entrepreneur. He’s been self-employed for over 20 years, and his business ventures have run the gamut from selling high-speed data circuits to owning an art gallery, and a lot of other businesses in between. He’s used both Business Plan Pro and Marketing Plan Pro to write plans for his own businesses, and has even written them for clients as a tax consultant. His first business, he says, “was all smoke and mirrors. I started a trucking firm with $20 and a big smile.”

Now he’s writing the business plan for his newest venture and he feels confident that he’ll secure the $4 million in funding he’s seeking. “As to the receipt of the funds, I’m not worried. With a good plan and good management, money is always around.”

Bruce’s new startup is a modern-day barter organization called BarterPX. It’s a website that allows users to easily post their goods and services and exchange them amongst a large member community. According to the website, bartering produces new business and allows users to expand their markets. At the same time, it conserves cash — instead of spending money to purchase needed goods and services, users can trade their own goods and services, keeping cash in their businesses for other purposes.

Bruce has been working on the BarterPX concept for a few years, and has been going at it full time now for about six months. A quick glance at the website reveals a vibrant trade community, using modern technology to barter goods the way it was done centuries ago.

In the past, Bruce has written business plans for businesses that were already up and running. “Sometimes you just need to re-focus to grind some more profit out. Those programs really help you get a new perspective,” he comments. For this current business, though, he has a different goal for the plan he’s writing. For a startup, he says, “The properly written business plan tells you how much capital you’ll need, and everything else is inaccurate, unsubstantiated guessing.”

Business Plan Pro is to credit for some of his successes, according to Bruce. “Every single time I have ideas and brainstorms, they pay off big when I use the software. The process of answering all [of the software's] inquiries really opens you up to some opportunity you’ll miss otherwise.”

Crafting a business plan isn’t easy. For Bruce, as for a lot of “idea people,” it’s the financials that pose the biggest hurdle. “For me the hardest part is the balance sheet. I’m an entrepreneur, not an accountant. I can do a balance sheet, but it takes days of detailed work that I rarely do. What a relief to enter the numbers and it happens,” he says, describing how Business Plan Pro handles the calculations in the balance sheet based on numbers the user inputs elsewhere.

When asked what he thought the most exciting part of being an entrepreneur was, Bruce’s answer was telling. “Exciting, are you kidding? Doesn’t everyone like 90 hours of work a week, biting their fingernails over payroll for a year, worrying about sales forecast, competitors, advertising cost, staffing…?”

“Well I love all that, but this is not for the thin-skinned. It gets in your blood like speed for a NASCAR driver. I’ve never sold a business and not had a huge emotional response — a sense of sadness and joy. It’s about more than the money, but it is always about the money.”

His obvious enjoyment of the process aside, Bruce is quick to point out that there are challenges, especially when dealing with investors. “You better be ready when you’re talking to venture capitalists. Business Plan Pro really helps — a lot!”

While not everyone may have the entrepreneurial spirit that Bruce Mayberry clearly has, he has some good advice for anyone starting down the entrepreneurship path. “More is lost by indecision than the wrong decision. The human mind is a powerful thing; so is hunger. Get out there and make it happen!!!”

Tags: news, success story, testimonial, testimonials
Posted on November 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

Diana Peloquin found out recently that she had secured the property she was hoping for: a much sought-after piece of commercial real estate in Surrey, British Columbia. She intends to turn it into Cafe Pelorina, a high-end cafe featuring not just coffee, but art, books, and a community involvement component.

When she first began exploring locations for her cafe, she says, “I was told by my commercial realtor that the developers would not even look at an offer unless I had a business plan. Being of the strong mind that you don’t re-invent the wheel, I went on the Internet to search programs that offered business plans.”

Peloquin needed to get the business plan together quickly, as there were several other businesses interested in the property she had her eye on. She had never written a business plan before. “Instead of taking time, which I didn’t have, trying to figure out what a business plan is even supposed to look like, I Googled business plan software.” And that’s when she found Business Plan Pro, and discovered how helpful it was.

She says the planning process provided a lot of insight into her business. “As I was going through I realized how much detailed information I really had to get to be better prepared. I also realized that it was going to actually cost twice as much as I had thought!”

Her cafe hasn’t even opened yet, but Peloquin is already going back and fine-tuning her business plan. “I have already had to go back a couple of times to adjust numbers when I would look at the final outcome and see where there could be a problem in prices I had set. I was going to be paying too much for some supplies, which led me to get new suppliers and allowed me to achieve the margins I needed to make to be successful.”

Now a big fan of business plans, Diana would hate to think of what would have happened if she hadn’t written one. “If the developer hadn’t required that I have one I wouldn’t have made one, and I now realize this could have led to a huge disaster.”

Peloquin believes there’s no substitute for having a concrete plan when you’re starting your business. “Until you have everything in writing in front of you, you don’t know everything you should know.” She adds that Business Plan Pro made the entire process painless for her to accomplish. “I was amazingly impressed by how easy it was to do and how very professional the finished business plan was,” she says.

“I feel that doing a business plan gives you a great idea of how your business is going to work. You will be amazed by everything you learn about your industry.”

Tags: news, small business tools, success story, testimonial, testimonials
Posted on November 5th, 2009 | No Comments »

Congratulations to Sarah Lanphier, of Nuts About Granola. We recently featured her success story here on our blog. Yesterday, her granola was featured on the Rachel Ray show as the Snack of the Day (complete with a link to the Nuts About Granola website  from the show’s website).

Rachel and her guest Katie Couric being seen on national television with their products can only mean good things for Nuts About Granola. So congrats again, Sarah and company!

Tags: follow up, success story
Posted on September 29th, 2009 | No Comments »

Sarah Lanphier was a sophomore at Elizabethtown College competing on the triathlon team. When the squad needed to raise money to attend a national meet, she thought outside the (cookie) box.  “Instead of selling cookies or something like that, I had this recipe for granola. So I packaged it and sold it. And it was very successful.”

Since then there’s been no stopping her. By the time she graduated from Elizabethtown in 2009, she and her mother, Gayle, had turned a one-time fundraising scheme into Nuts About Granola LLC, selling hand-made granola at farmers’ markets throughout South Central Pennsylvania and online, at www.nutsaboutgranola.com.

Getting Organized

Sarah was still in college when she decided to get serious about granola as a business. In December, 2007, she realized she needed a business plan. “The purpose of my plan was not to take to a bank. It was more to gather my thoughts and try to lay them out — to organize my thoughts and put them on paper.” It was a somewhat daunting

prospect, she remembers. As a business major, she was aware of a course called New Venture Creation, which took students through the process of writing a business plan.

“I thought… I have to write this 30-page document [for my business], I might as well get credit for it. Plus, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to write a business plan. I didn’t even know what-all was in a business plan!”

So she signed up for the class, and discovered Business Plan Pro. “We used the program as a step-by-step tool to guide us through the entire process. It made it easy; you’re not just pulling things out of thin air.”

Sarah says the examples found throughout the software were particularly helpful. “You could see the general descriptions that the software gave you. But it was sometimes difficult to… translate that into your business. Then you read a couple of examples of other businesses and how they interpreted the guidelines and it was really easy to then write it for your business.”

Fresh, local, and real

Sarah and Gayle Lanphier

Part of Nuts About Granola’s mission is to support local businesses and farmers. In addition to selling their products at farmer’s markets and online, they do sell their products wholesale. But the company requires vendors to be independently-owned businesses — no big corporate chains for Nuts About Granola, says Sarah. “It’s very locally focused.” As supporters of the Buy Fresh, Buy Local movement, Nuts About Granola products contain only all natural, local ingredients and have earned the “PA Preferred” seal from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Sarah creates all the granola recipes herself, and one of her favorite parts of the business is interacting with her customers at the farmers’ markets. “It’s fun for me to develop those recipes and test them out. I really enjoy that aspect of it.” With flavors including “College Staple,” “Lover’s Combo,” and “Orange Creamsicle,” her goal is to create unique flavor combinations that are delicious served with milk or on top of yogurt or ice cream, or eaten right out of the bag.

Nuts About Granola seeks to create support for local businesses and bring healthy, natural products to consumers who might be used to something more processed and artificial. “We’re trying to bring back the local bakeries and the local stores by offering fresh product. We serve real food. We don’t use preservatives and artificial ingredients. It’s just food. We want to bring back real food!”

Tags: business success, customer experience, customer spotlight, news, success story, testimonial
Posted on September 17th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

There’s more than enough bad news in the world.

That’s basically how Paul Gerstenberger used to feel. Murders, fires, wars… Gerstenberger started feeling like the purpose of the daily news was just to make him feel bad on a regular basis. “I decided then to start trying to change that, and at least give people the option of also seeing some good going on in our world,” he remembers.

In 1996, Paul and his wife Celerina started GoodNewsDaily.com, a website dedicated to sharing only good news. “Since that time we have worked every day, for free, to find and post the good news of the day — not religious or politically leaning, but simply good news.” The site now receives stories from readers across the globe, and covers topics ranging from U.S. and international news, to sports, entertainment, even good weather news.
“We have grown to almost half a million readers….without any money or any advertising,” Paul notes, adding a television pilot for a 24-hour Good News channel is currently in the works.

Paul began using Business Plan Pro in 1996, and has written business plans for a number of businesses he has launched. Calling himself a serial entrepreneur, he says, “I have used Business Plan Pro for many years and within many different ventures. I have raised millions of dollars using the plan [software]… It is great and really gives the professional investor an insight into your company and your ability. It helps so much, I would be lost without it.”

The business plan for Good News Daily was an interesting one, Paul says, because it was the first one he’s written in which making money was not the objective. The process was, as always, a valuable one. “It helps me to clarify my thinking and to think of things that I did not consider,” he says. “The business plan process through Business Plan Pro is without any doubt the best available to help get your business on track.”

Paul’s ventures run the gamut from car rentals to self-defense classes, non-profit children’s health research to diamonds. He says he’s written plans for about 16 businesses, and hasn’t always used Business Plan Pro. The stories he could tell about those plans written without Business Plan Pro definitely would not be appropriate for his GoodNewsDaily.com website. “Frankly,” he says, “trying to write a plan without Business Plan Pro is a major mistake.”

Tags: business success, customer experience, customer spotlight, news, success story, testimonial
Posted on September 10th, 2009 | No Comments »

It sounds like a movie about the American dream. A native of Kenya moves to Massachusetts. He dreams of opening his own business, and begins writing his business plan on his commute to work at his first job in the U.S.

But then the economy falters and our hero gets laid off. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he sees it as an indication that it is time to get serious about his dream.

It’s not a movie premise. It’s Njoroge Kabugu’s life. “I decided that this was a great opportunity. I had to be able to dedicate the majority of my time to completing my business plan and working on my website.”

After his layoff, Kabugu got to work on the plan for Kijiji Republic, a website selling handmade African crafts, baskets, sandals, jewelry, personal accessories and home decor. The company, started in 2008, builds long-term relationships with the artisans whose work they sell. Kijiji Republic not only markets and retails the crafts, but also maintains a non-profit branch which reinvests money back into the communities where they acquire their products. The goal is to help the artisans meet their basic needs, such as providing clean drinking water, building and supporting schools for children, and providing health facilities. Kijiji Republic also helps its artisans establish their businesses in their local communities, providing them with additional revenue possibilities.

Kabugu feels so strongly about the connection to the villages where the artisans work that the name of his company actually means ‘village’ in Swahili. “The creation of Kijiji Republic LLC was based on the concept that a village would be elevated… by empowering the people.” Selling products in the previously untapped U.S. market was his goal, and in writing his business plan and doing the market research, Kabugu realized he was on to something. “I came to realize I was the only Kenyan selling the products online directly from the U.S.,” which helped give him the security to move forward with his plan.

Kabugu says that one of the greatest values of using Business Plan Pro was what it helped him learn about his business. He particularly appreciated being “forced to think systematically throughout the process.” He strongly encourages anyone starting out to do as he did. “It is important not to shy away from an idea. Put the idea on paper by writing a business plan. It helps you to be able to see those areas which you may otherwise not realize when you carry it in your head.”

With a story that sounds like it’s straight out of Hollywood, it might not come as a surprise that Njoroge Kabugu is a big proponent of following through on your dreams.

And of having a plan.

To read more stories about how Business Plan Pro has helped businesses success, click here to check out our Customer Gallery.

Tags: customer experience, customer spotlight, success story, testimonial
Posted on September 4th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Patty Shutt, of McHenry, Illinois, had worked in chiropractic offices for over 17 years when her boss decided he wanted to start a traveling clinic. So they set up a home office for Patty, creating a virtual connection between the chiropractor, his assistant, and his patients.

When business slowed down due to the economy, Patty found herself with a tough choice. “I considered going back out and finding another billing job. However, I really enjoyed being around the house for my daughter.” So instead of looking for a job working for somebody else, she embarked on a different path. “I decided to take a medical billing course online and take the plunge by opening my own billing business.”

She started Alternative Billing Solutions in early 2009, offering chiropractic physicians a virtual billing service. She positions herself as an additional team member, working in conjunction with the chiropractic office’s staff to enhance the clinic’s billing. “My main focus is to ultimately perform the entire suite of billing duties; however I will also customize a package to fill in the gaps for a clinic’s billing department as well.” She sees the service she offers not as a way for clinics to outsource jobs, but as a way to make them more efficient. “By allowing me to handle the billing, which is really time-consuming, the clinic’s staff can use the extra time to focus on the growth of the practice, which is then a win-win for everyone!”

Patty says she really enjoyed the process of planning her business. “It certainly was a challenge! I had a lot of really good ideas; however, I needed these ideas organized,” she says. So when a friend recommended Business Plan Pro, she checked it out. After working through her plan in the software, she decided to take advantage of another service Palo Alto Software offers, and signed up for Business Plan Pro Coaching. Her expert coach helped guide her in the right direction and keep her on task. “I was able to gather specific ideas and put them together so I could focus on where I wanted my business to go, focusing on which services I really wanted to offer and which services to keep away from.”

Regularly revisiting her plan is a scheduled event for Patty. She says she tries to review it monthly, though as her business takes off that isn’t always easy. Getting back into the plan and making adjustments as situations change helps her maintain the hard-won focus she found during the planning process.

“I have a new level of confidence because my business success depends on my dedication and hard work. It is definitely worth it,” says Patty, who adds that you have to believe in yourself in order to achieve your goals. It’s what she did, and she adds, “It is really the most fulfilling experience I have ever had.”

Tags: customer spotlight, news, success story, testimonial
Posted on August 27th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

J. Peter Hendrikx is a native of The Netherlands who immigrated to New Zealand seeking a more laid-back lifestyle. After years working for large, international corporations, he went to work for the Business Migration Branch of the New Zealand Immigration Service. It wasn’t long before he decided to launch his own company, combining his knowledge of the governmental process with his interest in helping others succeed in business and his firsthand experience as an immigrant.

In October, 2002 Peter started Terra Nova Consultancy Ltd, a business migration consulting agency specializing in assisting people and businesses from all over the world in migrating to New Zealand. Terra Nova provides professional assistance to their clients in obtaining temporary or permanent residence by taking them through the daunting paperwork process and making sure they meet all the criteria required by the government.

You have to have a plan
As part of their application process, businesses must submit a business plan. “I must have written about 200 business plans using Business Plan Pro, covering a wide array of business types with a variety of investment levels,” he says, including the business plan for Terra Nova Consultancy itself in his estimate.

With that kind of plan-writing experience, it’s safe to say that Peter has an appreciation for the planning process. “The older you get, the more you realize that you do not have the answers to an increasing number of issues, compared to when you were young and you thought you knew everything,” he says. Writing your business plan forces you to “assess situations and look for possible solutions” in advance.

A living document
“I have always advised my clients to use their business plan as a guide for their company, and to be flexible enough to react to changes in the market,” Peter notes. “You need to know the market you are going into, your financial situation under at least two scenarios (a positive and a negative situation) and what you have to do to remain successful.”

To that end, Peter recommends his clients continue to use Business Plan Pro to adjust their plan regularly. He suggests revisiting the plan every six months, creating  a “pathfinder” plan that looks ahead five years, as well as a more detailed three-year plan, and a six-month action plan.
“This obviously means that the business plan is a living document,” says Peter.

Peter doesn’t write business plans for his clients just because the New Zealand government requires it of them. He feels a plan is a valuable tool for all businesses, whether they’re migrating to a new country or not. “Business planning is a must for all who go into business. Without it you bring yourself into a situation that may be a real challenge to get out of!”

Tags: news, success story, testimonial
Posted on August 20th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Most new businesses start out narrowly focused on the bottom line. With so much financial uncertainty in the market today, building philanthropy into a business plan can be a scary proposition. But that didn’t deter Christine Crowley Peters, President and CEO of Peters Path. Her philosophy is, “Don’t let fear hold you back.”

Christine Peters, President and CEO of Peters Path

Writing a business plan is like getting an MBA

Peters put that personal credo into action in 2008 when she left a career in cosmetology and started Peters Path Corporation, located in Atlanta, Georgia. The Peters Path website launched in March 2009, selling fashionable and hip clothing and providing customers with an opportunity to experience socially responsible shopping.

Peters Path is Christine’s first venture into entrepreneurship, and she says she found just planning the business to be quite a learning experience. When she started using Business Plan Pro to write her business plan, it broadened her ideas about her company. “Our business plan was developed as the primary tool for planning and managing our business. The process forced a rigor into both the breadth and depth of our thinking about the business. In many ways it led us into areas we might have preferred to defer, as they were difficult, time-consuming, and stressful. The education we got as a result feels like it would be an MBA.”

All that time spent was worth it. She says she and her partner, Vice President/CFO Ronda Balfe, work diligently to maintain the ‘for-profit/philanthropy’ business model they’ve adopted and have built into their business plan. “It was my focus and I made it fit. We do regular pro formas based on the data built in to our business plan. Further, the plan is a dynamic document which we flex with new information as it evolves.” In fact, says Peters, she has gone back to the software to update her plan so many times that the CD with her saved plan file “has scratch marks through all parts of it!”

Charities benefit from every sale

Peters Path donates a portion of the proceeds of every sale to non-profit organizations that promote equality and empowerment, fight poverty, aid those less fortunate, and foster community service. Customers choose from a select list of charities when they purchase online, letting the shopper select where they want their money to go. “Peters Path was started as a way for me to combine my love of fashion with philanthropic endeavors, which have played an important role in my personal life, and my children’s lives,” Peters says. The company’s products include comfortable, stylish clothing and unique, hip jewelry, from brands including Alternative Apparel, Johnny Was, Angel Court, Young Fabulous and Broke, DL1961 denim, and Acholi Beads, which are made from recycled materials in Uganda by women who fled the civil war. They also carry bamboo clothing, and Peters Path’s own label of organic T-shirts.

In addition to the money donated from each purchase, the company also holds online fundraisers, where 100 percent of the profits from the sales of their t-shirts are donated to a specific cause. A recent sale raised funds for Helping Children Worldwide and the Child Rescue Centre. In additional to aiding these charities financially, the company seeks to help raise awareness of their causes. “I know that everyone has the power to make a difference. Whether it is by purchasing a product, becoming active in your own community, volunteering your time… there are so many ways to help. We want to help others ignite their own flame and let their passion make the world a brighter place.”

Teamwork is a key to success

To be able to donate as much money as they do, Peters Path has to keep a watchful eye on spending. “We are operating on one corporate debit card, and only one credit card account with a $2,500 limit that has to be paid in full monthly. It is very difficult to operate with limited funds like that. I could never do that part of our business,” Peters say, praising Balfe for the skills she brings to the table. Peters is emphatic about the value of a good partnership that involves people with different skill sets working together. “She [Balfe] complements me perfectly, as we are very different, and she brings a perspective to the table that is vital and crucial to our existence — that of managing our finances and understanding our budget. She is the left brain and I am the right brain.”

Peters advocates doing “stress tests” on your business plan — she acknowledges that the term may have a negative association these days, but adds, “the concept is very important to every business. The factors to use to stress-test different business plans will obviously differ, but should be developed.” She suggests creating worst-case scenarios that are actually far worse than you would expect, reducing your best-case scenario numbers by 20%, even dropping income forecasts a significant amount to see just how much your business will handle. When you do this, you provide yourself with an idea of what your business would look like in a whole range of situations. And by planning for that range, you’ll be in a better situation should any one of those scenarios come to pass.

Learning from mistakes

Being an entrepreneur is a new experience for Peters and, as she says, “I’m loving it.” She says she actually enjoys the roller coaster ride that running a business can be — knowing that for every good day, there’s bound to be a bad one. “While hopefully there are many more victories than defeats, both are sure to transpire. The challenge, of course, is to be resilient after the knockdowns and keep increasing the ratio of victories.”

Peters has found great value in learning from her experiences, and from the people she brings in to help run her business. “When you fail in an area, which you will — I do regularly — learn from it and really consider how you will do it differently next time. It’s from my mistakes in my life that I have learned the most.”

Peters is a big believer in figuring out what you want to do and making it happen. She says there are all kinds of resources out there for people starting up businesses. “I have attended many classes given by SCORE, and their advice and informational resources are incredible. I would recommend starting there to anyone considering starting a business. If you spend some time researching small businesses, you will be amazed at what is out there and available to you.”

A final bit of advice from Peters is that it really doesn’t matter what you’ve done before or what you think you don’t know. “What matters is today and your desire to learn new things. You just have to learn how to combine [your fears] with perseverance, determination, and passion, and then let those emotions overpower fear and be your driving force.”

Tags: news, philanthropy, start up, success story, testimonial
Posted on August 13th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

It happens to a lot of businesses that start out self-funded: since nobody is requiring a business plan from them, they don’t think they need one. It’s not long before they realize what they’re missing.

That’s what happened to Monique Riviere, of Springdale, Maryland, when she bought her V2K Window Décor & More franchise two and a half years ago. V2K is an independently owned franchise providing custom window coverings and installation services to residential and commercial clients.

“There didn’t seem to be a need for a formal business plan — I didn’t have a lender that I needed to present my case to. Midway into my first year, I realized I was being pulled in many different directions. I needed to get my goals down on paper so that I didn’t respond to every whim, which could waste both time and money,” Monique remembers.

Like many small-business owners, Monique wasn’t sure she could write a business plan herself, but found the cost of having a professional do it prohibitive. “I felt very intimidated by the process and didn’t know where to start. I got estimates from a few companies starting in the low $1,000s, which was out of my range.”

Before she knew it, she was in her second year of business and still didn’t have a plan. Small business counselors with whom she consulted wanted to see one but, she says, “I had nothing to show.” It was time to get serious about writing a business plan, so she set out to find a computer program to help. Her requirements for the software: user-friendly, low-cost, and updatable.

She discovered that Business Plan Pro met those criteria. “I was immediately comfortable with the step-by-step interview process and impressed by both the interface and the content. My most intimidating areas – financials and market research – were even made simple.”

Being at ease with her business plan allowed Monique to enjoy the aspect of owning a business that excites her most: the freedom. “Charting my own path and determining how successful I want to be. The rewarding feeling at the end of a long, hard project makes it all worth it.”

Besides recommending having a business plan, Monique has some advice to entrepreneurs starting down the same road she did: “If you can partner with someone you know, like, and trust, do it! If not, make sure you have the consistent support of family, friends, and colleagues. You’ll need it to get through the bad days.”

The take away from Monique’s experience? Don’t kid yourself — you do need a business plan.

Jay Snider
Palo Alto Software

Tags: business plan pro, success story, testimonial
Posted on June 3rd, 2009 | 3 Comments »