Before you start a business we encourage you to prepare a business plan. Without it your business has a 92% chance of failing within the first 12 months. Sometimes your business plan tells you that you should not go into business at all!

Sometimes we encourage you to think seriously before you decide to go ahead with a risky business. But we always encourage the preparation of a business plan.

If you use a professional to assist, the fee can be between $3,000 and $10,000. Or you can purchase off-the-shelf plans that give you the form and you do the research for information to fill in the 'blanks'. Either way, it will take at least three weeks for you to come up with the completed plan and normally much longer.

So the chief reason is that you probably don't have $3,000 to $10,000 for the professional. If your business is struggling it's probably got very little money to pay existing creditors without incurring further expense with no immediate return.

Another problem is that you will definitely not have the time to prepare one. You need something done now, not in three weeks or more time.

What is your biggest hassle? Is it creditors ringing? Do you hate to answer the phone? Could you get on with some productive work if only they would leave you alone? After all, they know you are a good person and would pay if you could. Don't they?

Then let's focus on this. There are strategies to take all that pain away and your professional CPA knows them.

At one seminar a participant said that her accountant knew all the right answers but she did not know the right questions. By the time she found at what she should have done it was too late and did not matter anymore.

That's not good enough.

Consider the thousands of small firms that fail each year and note that 99% of them were being advised by professional accountants. It's obvious that the accounting profession generally has failed small business.

Find one who can and will help you. One that will stand in the background ready to advise when you face those business problems. An accountant should really make a difference in your business life.

Do you need more sales? Would things be easier then? Let your CPA show you some simple low-cost marketing tactics to work on that problem.

Your problem may not be lack of sales. Extra sales may even put you into a worse situation. I was called in to rescue a printer which was kept so busy with sales they couldn