In last month’s column we introduced the Kitsap Business Assistance Center and our community’s business need for it. There has been a steadily increasing flow of calls and counseling sessions in our downtown Bremerton office since its opening in January, a true testimony of that need. Why does this need exist?

Opening and running your own business can be an exhilarating – and often terrifying – prospect. The key is finding the right formula of business “smarts” and product success to ensure a successful business.

Small business is BIG business in this country. Over 99.7 percent of all firms are defined as small businesses by the Small Business Administration (500 or fewer employees). They employ more than half of all private sector employees and pay 44.5 percent of the total U.S. private payroll.

You may ask, “With such impressive numbers, why is it that the majority of small businesses fail within the first five years?” The answer should not surprise you: Lack of a plan, lack of sufficient or appropriate financing, and lack of business management skills. If any of these is not working a business is at risk. Recovery can be difficult, though not impossible.

The logical place to begin is with “the plan.” The business plan is often the first thing a new entrepreneur puts permanently on the back burner and the excuses rarely change: don’t have time; don’t have an MBA to write it; the plan exists perfectly in their head; don’t need outside financing; don’t plan to have employees. Unfortunately, none of these excuses hold up to even the most casual of questioning and fact finding.

Building a business is much like building a home. It would never occur to you to build your home without the guidance of a blueprint. In that blueprint are the foundation, identification of permits and licenses, confirmation that your “dream” will actually work within the given parameters, and a plan for future needs as the business grows.

For the entrepreneur, the business plan serves more as a roadmap though it is also a valuable and essential tool when seeking loans and other operating capital from financial institutions. By going through the process of defining the product or service, researching the competition, analyzing the target market, projecting the income and expenses, and planning the ins and outs of operating the business, a prospective business owner can create a realistic simulation of their business on paper and therefore generate the tools and resources necessary to make a decision about whether the business can succeed or fail – removed from the entrepreneurial enthusiasm and passion that first started them on this path.

Now that the importance of a business plan has been established, next month we can explore how the plan is put together - — what needs to be there, what doesn’t, and why the plan does not need to, nor should it, be a 100- page leather bound tome.

(Editor’s Note: Wendy Miles, Director of Customized Training and Special Programs at Olympic College, oversees the operation of the Kitsap Business Assistance Center (KBAC). For partnership opportunities, contact her at 360-475-7786. Business Development Specialist at the KBAC, Sharon Zerr, contributed to this article and provides individual counseling for businesses. For business counseling needs she can be reached at 360-307-4220.).