The Successful Entrepreneur's Guidebook: Where you are Now, Where you Want to be and How to Get There [Paperback]

The Entrepreneur's Guidebook will help any entrepreneur who wants to grow and develop both their business and themselves. Based on research at Cranfield School of Management, where the accounts of some 15,000 firms have been analysed, the authors have distilled the very essence of how to achieve profitable growth. They've also charted all the problems owner-managed firms are likely to encounter, and suggest ways to anticipate and resolve them. Packed with assignments and useful case studies, it will help any entrepreneur answer these key questions:

Where is the business now - what are its strengths and weaknesses?

Where can the business go from here - what strategies can be pursued?

How do I create the complete business plan and achieve my growth objectives?

The Entrepreneur's Guidebook has helped hundreds of participants on the Business Growth and Development

Programme realize their ambitions. Many of their businesses have grown spectacularly while others have raised millions in new capital to fund expansion. Now everyone can achieve those goals.

Colin Barrow was until recently head of The Enterprise Group at Cranfield School of Management, where he founded and directed the Business Growth and Development Progamme, the UK's most successful programme for entrepreneurs. A strategy consultant, he also teaches throughout the world and is on the board of four small businesses. He is the author of Financial Management for the Small Business and a co-author of The Business Plan Workbook (both published by Kogan Page).

Robert Brown directed the Graduate Enterprise Programme at Cranfield and leads the course on Entrepreneurship, part of its MBA programme. He is a co-author of The Business Plan Workbook.

Liz Clarke is a visiting lecturer at Cranfield who teaches on the Business Growth Programme. The non-executive director of a high-technology business consultancy, she advises growing businesses both large and small.

Part 1: Where are we now?

Phases of organisational growth

1 Your mission

Mission statements; Prime objectives; Assignment 1

2 Opportunities and threats

Your marketing environment; Assignment 2; Assignment 3; Assignment 4

3 Strengths and weaknesses

Products and services; Assignment 5; Pricing and distribution; Assignment 6; Advertising and promotion; Assignment 7; Sales

and sales management; Assignment 8

4 The financial position

Business objectives; Ratios - the tools of analysis; Measures of growth; Measures of profitability; Credit control; Sources of financial information; Assignment 9

5 How to diagnose your organisation

Organisation 'fit' with the environment; Your organisational phase

of growth; Benchmarking against best practice; Characteristics

of effective organisations; Assignment 1

6 Assessing people, structure and systems

Assessing people capability; Assessing structure capability; Assessing systems capability; Assignment 11; Assignment 12

Part 2: Where are we going?

7 Marketing options

Critical success factors (CSFs); Assignment 13

8 Marketing strategy: focus and priorities

Improved productivity; Increasing margins; Increasing volume; Assignment 14

9 Choosing between alternatives

Analysis of strategic options; Assignment 15

10 Financing growth

Internal sources of funds; Debt and equity; Other ways to fund growth 2; Assignment 16

11 Acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures and divestments

Acquisitions; Mergers; Joint ventures; Divestments; Going on the acquisition trail; Licensing; Assignment 17

12 Visionary leadership

Developing a vision; Assignment 18

Part 3: How will we get there?

Revise the company mission statement; Set specific objectives and goals

13 The marketing plan

Marketing strategies for growth; 'The five Ps'; Key company competences; Sales forecast and control; Assignment 19

14 The people plan

Where people fit into the business plan; Your people objectives; Key elements of the people plan; Assignment 2

15 Managing change

Change hurts; The predictable process of change; Identifying

and managing resistance; Diagnosing readiness for change; Assignment 21

16 The financial plan

Planning assumptions; The cash-flow forecast; The

profit-and-loss account; The balance sheet; Sensitivity

analysis; Summary of performance ratios; Financing

requirements; Assignment 22

17 Writing and presenting your business plan

Packaging; Layout and content; Writing and editing;

Who to send the business plan to; The oral presentation;

What financiers look for in a business plan; Assignment 23

18 Exit routes

Types of sale; Who can help; Confidentiality; Due

diligence; Valuing the business; Afterwards; Professional advice