The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success Paperback – March 15, 2011

I loved 'The Right-Brain Business Plan' by Jennifer Lee! It's perfect for anyone like me who wants to take a more creative approach to business planning. Jennifer’s approach is a game-changer, making business planning truly fun with tools like collages and mind maps.Her exercises helped me turn my creative chaos into a clear, actionable business plan without losing my artistic soul in the process. It felt like exploring my business ideas with a good friend who really gets the creative process. If you’re ready to turn your dreams into reality but want to keep it playful and visual, this book is your go-to guide. Jennifer Lee really knows how to speak to a creative heart!

I do business plans and strategic plans for nonprofit organizations, which I find very rewarding. But a plan for my own company, well that is another story! This summer I vowed to build my business and set a firmer foundation from which to grow. I have read numerous books both on creating a business plan and creating vision boards and love the creative process, so giving a book like this a try was exciting for me. I am about half way though the book and three quarters finished with my business plan using the book as a guide. The left brain/right brain approach has been very satisfying. I found I had an altered book on hand to use for my creative plan and use envelopes to house the more left brained things like financial projections. I have found this book and technique very useful and plan to create some exercises for my clients to help them bring more right brain thinking to their planning process. This book is not just vision boards and magic, it is a very practical guide as well, and provides a variety of resources that will be needed for a more public plan (like when you go for a loan or are pursuing a new client). If you are totally left brained, this might not be your bag, even though it is very practical at the same time, for me it has been a great way to really think out and envision the future of my company.

Jennifer Lee is the author of The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success. (This Jennifer is not the author of Frozen, this Jennifer runs Artizen Coaching.)If you run your own business, you have either avoided business plans or mastered them. There's not much room in between. Lee's idea is that business plans are left-brain based and that makes them hard for right-brain people. So she wrote a book that helps right-brain people write that business plan.The book is laid out with lots of color and worksheets (which you can download from her website.) Many of the steps look like art projects. If you like the idea of mind mapping, you will love this book!She has a left-brain, logical approach (with process steps) on how to use the book and why you should have a business plan. Then she helps you do it, creative style.Chapters in the book:The Skinny on the Right-Brain Business Plan Process and StructureWhere Is Your Business Headed, and What Do You and Your Company Stand For?It's a Big World Out There--Where Do You and Your Business Fit In?Find and Connect with Your Perfect Customers?Develop a Financial Plan with Fun and FlairBuild a Creative Playground of Business Support So You Don't Have to Go It AloneMake Your Plan Real with Goals, Strategies, and Action StepsPut the Finishing Touches on Your Right-Brain Business PlanKeep Your Right-Brain Business Plan AliveIt's an interesting book, I bought it because I'm always interested in new approaches to old ideas. And I am always interested in how very different people communicate with each other.I do find that she would help more people if she unwrapped some of the words she uses and assumes everyone knows. For example, she asks you list your values. Most people might think she means "honor, patriotism, generosity" and those are fine values. But in a business sense, she probably means different, more subtle values like, "doing administrative work regularly so it doesn't pile up," and "posting tips on my blog once a week." Still the book is a good read for a beginning solopreneur with no idea how to manage a business plan.

I just used this book to develop my business plan and loved the approach. I'm right-brain dominant (although my left brain works just fine too) and this book really worked for me. I'm a graphic designer by trade and found a lot of the exercises in the book tap into skills I've picked up over the years at my job and at goal-setting workshops, along with tapping into my natural abilities and thinking patterns.The things I appreciated most were that there was no one way to create this business plan - creativity rules - however, if you go through each chapter (in whatever order you like), you will have your business plan in your head and planned out on paper at the end and be ready to get started or if you've already started you will have an actual plan to check your progress against.

Stunned at how spot-on Jennifer Lee's book connects with me. "Launched" a new biz venture on my b-day, only to realize that I'd totally failed to make a business plan. Turned to a retired exec who HAD given entrepreneurs time & advice - which he no longer does (in FL more than in SE PA). He suggested I check out books on writing biz plans. What a blessing - get the good karma of his interest, while experiencing the grace of this remarkable book. Am only partly through it, but already seen great results. My husband - also a creative - is my visualization partner!One of the most astonishing outcomes has been an unexpected overhaul of a long-time toxic family communication pattern ~ triangulation ~ that drove me nuts all my life but which I felt helpless at changing. Might not change how others communicate, but changed how I see triangles: vision-values-voice! BIG shift!I hoped for great things when I purchased this book. What I've received is more, much more. Remarkable!!