I have a customer who wants to write a business plan. Where do I start?

Writing a business plan isn't as scary as it may seem at first. There are four areas where people need information for their business plan are:

• Industry Trends
• Competition
• Demographics
• Marketing

Business periodicals or article databases such as Proquest or EbscoHost are a good place to start for some broad information. Individuals writing a business plan can find articles covering industry trends and marketing using these souces. They may also want to considering searching for articles on the following topics:

• How-to tips/personal experiences
• Broad financial information (for example, industry sales grew from x to y in these years)
• How companies are responding to industry changes, demographic or marketing trends
• Statistics or other numbers for the industry
  
• Marketing information (for example, what other companies large and small may have done, what other companies have responded to)
• Industry information and trends
  

For demographic information, the United States Statistic Abstract can be very helpful, as can the U.S. Census Web site. The Economic Census can also provide a lot of useful information on industries on national, state, and local level.

There are also a lot of organizations that can help individuals with writing their business plan and small business start-up.

• Small Business Administration (SBA)
  
• Maryland Small Business Development Center
• SCORE: Counselors to America's Small Business
  
• Enoch Pratt Free Library's Small Business Corner