"I was so confused, I didn't know what I was doing at
first," says Marian Fletcher, 55, who has been running a
profitable party-planning and catering service in and around
Baltimore since early last year. "I had to go everywhere for
information. The library provided me with different books about
what information goes into a business plan. I wrote to my
congressman; he told me about a booklet, available through the
Department of Economics' Division of Business Development, that
provided useful demographic information."
While preparing her business plan, Fletcher happened to be
enrolled in Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore City (WEB), a local
entrepreneurial education program where she received invaluable
feedback on early business-plan drafts. "We composed the
business plan piece by piece. The instructors would take each
piece, mark it up, and explain why it was not yet quite what they
were looking for," she explains. "The wording had to be
just so. At the time I didn't think it was an easy process at
all, but I'm glad they did it that way. I certainly learned a
lot from it."
Fletcher says she referred to her plan extensively during the
first few months of business, and has since taken the time to
revise it. "I found I could get my products cheaper and more
easily," she says, "and I learned that it was going to
take me twice as long to train new employees than I initially
thought it would. I updated my business plan to reflect these
realities so it would remain a valuable document."
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