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Table of Contents

1. Editor's Musings
2. Article: Seven Critical Mistakes You Don't Want to Make In Your Business Plan by Dee Power
3. Recommended
4. Internet Sites Reviewed
5. Freebies and Other Good Deals
6. Joke of the Week

1. Editor's Musings

First, an apology to Roundup subscribers. This week, I inadvertently sent you a marketing email. This was in error, and intended for another mailing list that I maintain. I apologize for the intrusion.

Next, I want to let you know about a brand new book on the subject of business leadership. A few months ago, I interviewed Rebecca Barnett for an article I was writing. I was enormously impressed with Rebecca's grasp of leadership issues and demographics influencing today's marketplace. At that time, Rebecca was still putting the finishing touches on her book.

Now, Rebecca tells me that after three years of research, writing, setbacks and delays, her book, Winning Without Losing Your Way: Character-centered Leadership has been released.

Winning weaves in statistical research on organizational integrity with inspirational stories and quotes from interviews with over 100 business leaders and Olympians.

This original and authoritative research offers fresh leadership insights and answers to the integrity problems plaguing our corporations. Winning shares the wisdom and experience of everyday leaders and the story of one athlete's journey from competitor to coach.

Order an autographed copy online at winningyourway.com

2.Article: Seven Critical Mistakes You Don't Want to Make In Your Business Plan by Dee Power

If you're looking for investors, you need a business plan and not just any business plan. You need one that is well crafted, concise and exciting. But how do you know what venture capitalists want to see in a business plan and how can you avoid what they feel are the top seven critical mistakes? We asked venture capital companies across the United States how they evaluated the business plans presented to them. The VCs were asked: What is the worst mistake an entrepreneur can make when completing their company's business plan?

1. Lack of Clarity
VCs believe that entrepreneurs are not clear in explaining the opportunity. Why the business made sense, why the business model would be successful. Entrepreneurs can avoid this mistake by simply asking several people who aren't familiar with their company to read the business plan. If they don't "get it", it's unlikely an investor will.

2. Unrealistic Projections
In second place is a mistake that is difficult for entrepreneurs to avoid: unrealistic projections. While it's true that the company must produce enough revenue to be able to generate the 30% to 40% yearly returns that VCs expect, those projections have to be reasonable and achievable. Apply common sense. You can get an idea of whether your projections are in the ballpark by looking at the annual reports of public companies in your industry.

3. Simplistic Assumptions
Simplistic assumptions are closely related to unrealistic projections. Avoid the 'all the tea in china' syndrome. You know the logic of 'there are 80 billion Chinese people, if we sell just one tea bag to only 10% of them we'll make a lot of money'. Justify your assumptions, base them on as much research as you can.

4. Competition Analysis
The analysis of competition and the failure to describe a sustainable competitive advantage are killer mistakes in business and business plans. Many entrepreneurs do not make the effort, or find it too difficult, to research their competitors. Entrepreneurs often say there is no competition, or underestimate the strength of competitors. Their business plans do not describe a competitive advantage for the company, or how to achieve a competitive advantage.

5. Mistakes and errors
These appear frequently in business plans, according to the VCs. Rely on more than just the spell checker in your word processing software. If you aren't very good at spotting grammatical errors or incorrect spelling, hire someone to act as a copy editor.

6. Lack of Management Strengths
Management strengths were overstated in the plan, with one VC even saying that entrepreneurs "lie" about their credentials. Venture capitalists always complete thorough background checks. If your management team is weak, try to assemble an advisory board that has the strengths in the areas your team lacks.

7. Incompleteness
This includes leaving sections out of the plan, or not including sufficient support data. One interesting response was that the entrepreneur failed to provide the name of anyone in the company to contact. He or she must have been in quite a hurry to get the plan in the mail!

3. Recommended Product: *** Site Build It ***

As I told you before, at New Years I took Ken Evoy up on his special offer and purchased two SBI (Site Build It) products for the price of one. I promised to keep you updated on how things are going.

My first site is launched, although still incomplete. Google spidered it on Feb 10 for the first time, but as of this writing, it is not yet listed in the search engine's records. I'm anxiously waiting to see how traffic develops. I'll not give you the URL at this time because I don't want to inflate the traffic through promotion (yet).

My impressions so far:

First, I find SBI's interface agonizingly slow to work with. This is because I can hand-code HTML as fast as I can type. People who don't know how to code will find this product a godsend. Me, I complain.

However, my complaints will be short lived because Ken and pals are working on a new feature that will allow people to build the site using their own HTML editors if they prefer. I'll be going that route but non-coders will still be able to use the non-techy interface.

The part that I love, ABSOLUTELY LOVE, is the feature that allows me to find out almost effortlessly the search terms that people are using and how many sites contain these search terms.

As an example -- scrapbooking is a site concept that I researched, then abandoned due to shortage of good affiliate programs.

Some of you might know that there are a gazillion scrapbooking sites out there already. SBI, however, showed me specific search terms, rated by profitability, that would have put my site near the top of the unpaid rankings.

Here's a freebie for all you entrepreneurs out there: Thousands of people are looking for poetry for scrapbooks and there is very little available. Write an ebook of scrapbook poetry (or pay someone to write it for you), buy yourself an SBI site and go to town.

If I could write poetry, I assure you that I wouldn't be letting you know this! I'd be doing it myself.

Maybe you can even win a copy of SBI: SBI SweepStakes

OR, Help yourself to SiteSell free downloads and ebooks.

4. Internet Sites -- reviewed by June Campbell

*** Clumsy Crooks
A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop -- and more stories like this one.

*** Ecard for Bizarre Holidays
No socks day? Blame someone else day? And lots more ecards to amuse you.

*** Hackers Against Terrorism
This group of hackers has committed to bring down terrorist web sites.

*** Ad-aware
There's a new version of this nifty freeware that locates and removes spyware from your computer.

*** Q & A about the Columbia Space Shuttle
Common questions about America's space program.

4. Freebies and Good Deals

A.Don't be Taken to the Cleaners Online!
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b. Where Writers, Publishers & Online Entrepreneurs Connect
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c. Breaking News! Important New Report -- Just Released!. "The Total Broke Person's Guide To IMMEDIATE Online Success" by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. If you're broke but still want to profit online now, just send email here with your name, address, and phone number to get the report.

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6. Joke: Assertiveness

Tired of being bossed around by his wife, a man purchased a book on assertiveness training.

Emboldened by the book, the man stormed into his house, walked up to his wife and declared, "From now on, I want you to know that I am the man of this house, and my word is law! I want a gourmet meal tonight, and when I'm finished I expect a sumptuous dessert. Then, after dinner, you're going to draw me my bath so I can relax. And then, when I'm finished, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?"

"The funeral director," said his wife.

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"How to Booklets"-- topics include business proposal writing, business plan writing, brochure writing,an independant contractor's agreement, a sample joint venture agreement and more. Click www.nightcats.com