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Course Description

This course guides you through creating a business plan, step by step, to help start or grow your business. Focus on key components to identify risks and evaluate your business from marketing, management, and financial perspectives, while developing a clear roadmap that supports your vision and secures funding.

 

Course Outline

Unit 1 
Getting Started—Refine your concept and begin your plan. 
•  Prepare your concept statement—What, Who, Why, When, and How.
•  Identify product/service features and benefits.
•  Identify limitation, liabilities, and regulations.  
•  Write your Business Description and evaluate it against a Business Description checklist. 

Unit 2 
Prepare the Marketing Plan
•  Conduct an industry and competitive analysis.
•  Perform a market analysis and identify target markets and a market penetration strategy.
•  Identify your pricing strategy.
•  Write your Marketing Plan and evaluate it against a Marketing Plan checklist.

Unit 3 
Prepare the Management and Financial Plans
•  Identify key people and positions, duties and responsibilities.
•  Determine funding needs and sources. 
•  Create sales and expense estimates.
•  Write your Management and Financial Plans and evaluate them against checklists.

Unit 4
Complete the Business Plan and Assess Business Feasibility
•  Polish the plan and add final elements—Cover Page, Executive Summary, Table of Contents.
•  Evaluate business plan against checklist and identify items in need of additional work.
•  Assess business against feasibility checklist.
•  Identify next steps.
About Your Instructor

Mary Beth Izard is an entrepreneur, author, consultant and professor emeritus of entrepreneurship and has over 25 years working with entrepreneurs to start businesses.  She specializes in entrepreneurship curriculum and has been a scholar-in-residence and consultant to the Kauffman Foundation, the largest foundation in the U. S., if not the world, devoted to entrepreneurship.  She was on the curriculum development team for Kauffman’s college course, Planning the Entrepreneurial Venture, and its nationally recognized FastTrac® programs.  She is the author of BoomerPreneurs:  How Baby Boomers Can Start Their Own Business, Make Money and Enjoy Life and the college textbook, Opportunity Analysis, Business Ideas:  Identification and Evaluation.  She has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
 

Learner Outcomes

At the end of this course, you will:
  • Possess a clear description of your proposed business.
  • Have the basic components of a business plan.
  • Possess a detailed checklist for next steps to research and launch your business.
  • Analyze the feasibility of your business.

Notes

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to:
  • Write a clear, succinct business concept statement.
  • Conduct research on your business and its relation to the industry, competition, and marketplace.
  • Project funding requirements, sales, and expenses for your business.
  • Research, develop, and write core elements of a business plan, which you can continue to expand and research after the conclusion of the course.
  • Evaluate your business for feasibility. 

Testimonials

"It was just what I needed to get the creative juices flowing and work towards a new future. Would recommend to others."
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Enroll Now - Select a section to enroll in
Section Title
The Business Plan
Type
Online: Self Paced
Dates
Jul 07, 2025 to Aug 01, 2025
Course Fee(s)
Tuition and Fees non-credit $195.00 Click here to get more information
CEUs
1.6 CEUs
Section Notes
For registration and further information regarding this course, please contact Darby at dlanpher@harpercollege.edu.
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