If you are a prospective business owner, starting your own business may seem like the easiest thing to do. At least, that’s what it says online in many small business development articles. This misconception is easy to take away even from some resources posted on government- and community-sponsored websites promoting economic development.

After all, it is a business organization’s job to attract you to the lifestyle of the entrepreneur. When you look online for startup business guides, you read about tax advantages for locating your business somewhere or about small biz loan programs that suit your needs. Don’t be so quick to assume you’ve got an easy road ahead.

What you shouldn’t do is gloss over two of the most important steps in the business startup guide or planning article-choosing a business idea and writing a business plan. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears factor into these steps of creating a business. They are the core of business planning. You have to look around at the market and really understand why there is a need for your business idea.

If you can’t find a need, you have to think of a scheme for creating the market. How can you make customers want what you’ve got? All of the marketing in the world will not save a poor business plan.

Just look at the newest Tom cruise film. It was Wednesday, June 23, 2010. A great opening was expected for the new action film, Knight and Day. And, Tom Cruise is paired up with Cameron Diaz, one of America’s sweethearts. His movie opens a few days after Toy Story 3, and this $100 million bucks + film (AKA big budget) is heavily overshadowed by the animated film.

So now the backers of Knight and Day are thinking that the heavy marketing expenditures for this film may not be enough to give it a good run in the theatres. Newspaper article writers suggest maybe the problem is the bankability of Tom Cruise.

The backers of this film have missed a step somewhere in their business planning. Did they really understand the potential of their big budget film? This is the mistake you cannot make with your business planning.

You’ve got to comb through the small business startup guide and the how-to articles and find concrete ways to tweak your plan until it is perfect! That means performing more market research. Think about the readiness of the market for your brilliant business concept. Your tweaking also includes improving every area of the business plan. If you miss developing an important part of the business plan, you can endanger your startup business success.

When you aren’t sure about the business plan even after laboring over it for months, you can take it to an expert and get more advice. You can do this step more than once, if needed. A retired executive from SCORE, for example, asks you questions that will help you analyze your business plan from different angles.

You can also enroll yourself in training sessions for entrepreneurs and established small business owners. These course are offered for free or at a low cost) by regional and local small business development centers. Training in business planning is what you need to choose the right structure for your business. And, in the end, you need to take this training and use it to rewrite your business plan again. Being in a hurry to launch a business that is not planned correctly is a formula for startup business disaster!

Author Bio: Bruno is a web entrepreneur and social media marketing consultant working for the Norwegian dog community website Hundefeber.no. He also owns a lovely Pomeranian and a Mops dog.

Category: Business
Keywords: Business,Finance,Business Management