Information for Instructors
on Using

GOT A BUSINESS IDEA??

Being a Successful Business Manager-Entrepreneur - It Ain't Easy!

A Guide for Preliminary Decision Making for People Considering Starting a New Business or Making a Major Change in an Existing Business

This "Guide for Preliminary Decision Making for People Considering Starting a New Business or Making a Major Change in an Existing Business" can be used in numerous ways. It can be used directly by people considering starting a new business or making a major change in an existing business. It can be used by an instructor/advisor to work with such people on an individual basis. It can be used by an instructor to work with small groups.

A set of worksheets is included in the guide. Those same worksheets are included in this "Information for Instructors." Additional copies of worksheets can be made as needed.

When presenting this guide to individuals who wish to use it unassisted, or with individualized assistance, it may be useful to flip through the guide, discussing it with potential users before sending them off to do the work. Then, if you will be working with an individual as an instructor/ advisor, you may wish to send them home to fill out the first two worksheets, reminding them that each member of their family should fill out Worksheet 2. You can then discuss the completed worksheets with the individual, or for Worksheet 2 you may discuss completed worksheets with both the individual and his or her family. Then Worksheets 3, 4, 5 and 6 can be filled out by the individual and discussed with the instructor/advisor. For some individuals it may be useful to iterate filling out Worksheets 3, 4, 5 and 6 a few times (fill out worksheets as completely as possible, discuss with instructor/advisor, do additional work on worksheets), until the person filling out the worksheets is comfortable with results. Then the person filling out the worksheets and the instructor/advisor can move on to Worksheet 7. Completion of Worksheet 7 will almost certainly require several iterations with discussion, research and input from experts (wherever they may be found).

The set of PowerPoint slides included with the guide should be useful for presenting the guide to small groups before sending them off to do the work. The slides follow the text of the guide, so information from the guide can be used to discuss the slide presentation. When using the guide to work with small groups, much the same procedure can be used, as when working with individuals, except the instructor can be a facilitator for general discussion among group members. It is important fo\about which they wish to maintain confidentiality. It will probably be important for small group instructors to do individual counseling and advising of group members, much as is necessary when working with individuals.

Instructors should be especially careful to help people understand that:

• Ex ante (before the fact) analysis of a business idea is an inexact process that can almost always be improved by doing more research and repeating the analysis (over and over again).
  
• This guide is for preliminary analysis of business ideas. If an idea still appears to be feasible (or not infeasible) after this analysis is done, then the idea should be examined in much more depth and detail (develop a complete business plan). This is a lot of work and takes lots of time, but acting on a new business idea is a big deal, and a high proportion of new small businesses fail.