The United States Small Business Administration offers business plan assistance and resources to start-up and existing businesses. In addition to their informative and educational website, the Small Business Administration offers free seminars and workshops on business plan development, as well as free counseling and referrals. Several organizations work with the SBA to provide non- profits and for-profit businesses with the ability to produce an effective and comprehensive business plan for their new or existing business idea in need of funding.

A great business plan is essential in presenting your idea to the business world and a necessity to any company seeking outside funding. Contrary to most notions, a business plan will never be a completed work, but rather a continual work in progress that requires constant renewal depending on industry trends, market research, and your company’s goals, objectives, and growth. The United States Small Business Administration has a website that provides valuable guidance in developing a business plan and covers the Business Plan Basics as well as writing and using the plan. The SBA’s Business Plan Basics outlines the highlights of your business and helps identify company goals and objectives. The SBA illustrates that a business plan must indicate what sets your company and it’s services apart from others, how your company plans to repay loans/grants, handle unforeseen circumstances, reach it’s potential customers, and market it’s products and services.

The Small Business Administration provides a comprehensive outline for writing a business plan and details it’s contents. A well-written business plan will first contain the basic cover sheet with contact information, followed by a Table of Contents and an Executive Summary. According to the Small Business Administration, your business plan must then contain a detailed description of the business, including it’s financial setup and owners, the status and stage of the business (new, existing, purchase, etc.), the type of business, a description of it’s products and services, and it’s long and short-term goals. Management must then be introduced and its principal employees identified, including any consultants utilized by the business. This should be followed by a Marketing overview including an explanation of your market analysis and strategy, the competition, and company location. Perhaps the most difficult of sections is the financial section of the business plan which, according the Small Business Administration, includes a summary of the financial needs, a Profit and Loss Statement, and a Balance Sheet. Finally, the supporting documents must be attached including personal resumes, owner’s financial statements, credit reports, letters of reference, copies of lease agreements and mortgages, contracts, and taxes.

The task preparing a business plan from scratch can seem daunting at first sight, but the Small Business Administration provides enough resources to remove much of the anxiety behind the job. In addition to it’s own resources for business plan writing, the Small Business Administration offers links to additional offices that offer writing assistance, counseling, and free workshops and seminars. These include SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Engineers), SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research), links to it’s own regional and district offices.

Most general education courses are classroom intensive programs designed to get its students qualified and certified quickly. It’s a long way from the traditional apprentice programs run through businesses or labor organizations that can take years. College-Pages.com contains many examples of the new educational front led by distance learning programs and vocational schools that have stripped the academic function down to essentials.

You’ll find it an interesting process to look through the general classes and general education programs offered by our partner schools. You may see a career opportunity that has never occurred to you prior to earning a general education diploma. Our online schools in particular are designed for people who are working and have other responsibilities. You can take whatever college credits you may have accumulated and apply them to an entirely new course of endeavor. You can also get that certification or general education degree that will move you out of a dead end and into a position of dynamic opportunity. Look at your next educational step with an open mind; you may see opportunities that you can qualify for in one to two years that may never have seemed possible. Distance learning and general education online has made that possible for all of us.

The Other and General category is for general courses and degrees that don’t fit into more traditional academic structures. The reason for this is that online general education colleges have led the way in adapting academic pursuits to career orientation. For example, you can attend a traditional school and spend two or three years obtaining a masters in business administration (MBA). Not so long ago, the degree alone was enough to elicit many job interviews, but with a masters in a more specialized area, the opportunities for job interviews rise. Today, you can pursue an online MBA at the University of Phoenix with the choice of seven areas of specialization, ranging from global management to technology management. Or, you can attend one of their campuses in thirteen states.

That is an excellent example of an academic institution adjusting to a rapidly changing employment marketplace. Many online institutions offer general education classes for general degrees that simply don’t appear in course catalogues for traditional schools. However, those degrees do provide significance to the employment marketplace. Another example is Capella University, which has a Masters of Science in Human Services. What they have done is mix an arrangement of the social sciences into the following areas of specialization:

• Counseling Studies
• Criminal Justice
• General Human Services
• Health Care Administration
• Management of Non-Profit Agencies
• Marital, Couple, and Family Counseling/Therapy - CACREP Accredited
• Mental Health Counseling - CACREP Accredited
• Social and Community Services
• Sociology

It’s a much more direct approach in adjoining career aspirations to education. For careers that don’t require a white collar background but are just as lucrative, look no further than Wyotech. Their selection of vocational programs includes standards like HVAC and automotive technology, but also teaches skills in aircraft maintenance and has an auto body vocational program that includes manufacturing custom parts for show cars. They also have a thorough diesel program that takes students through power trains, fluid and electrical systems and engine management systems.