I have put together a list of useful resources. These are by no means exhaustive.

Google Docs Templates and Microsoft’s Office templates are, in general, very good resources for

presentation templates, MS Word and MS Excel based small business templates. Check them out. The resources below are in addition to the above and address a specific need.

1. Presentations

Brainy Betty is a very good resource for free and paid templates. Besides just the templates, they also offer a range of extra utilities and add-ons to be used with PowerPoint. The premium templates are not free, but are good. You can search for different kinds of templates on the basis of keywords and template colors. Microsoft’s Business Presentation templates and HP’s business templates and images section are good sources where you can get very good free templates to be used for presentations. A couple of resources for pay-to-use PowerPoint templates are Presentation Load and Dream Template.

2. B-plans

Business plan templates are essential for those run-ins with Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors. Having your plan ready and accessible makes you prepared for such situations. Bplans.com has a few good business plan templates to be used. Another very good resource for getting help on making B-plans with prepared templates is Score’s template gallery. It has business plan templates for start ups and established companies.

3. Financial Accounting Worksheets

This is a very good tool for goal setting as well as continuously assessing your growth. Monitoring cash flow and financials is good habit for small and large companies.

Score’s template gallery has profit and loss projections, balance sheets, sales forecast, start up expenses, financial history and ratios, cash flow, and breakeven analysis templates.

If you are an expert in finance, Exinfm is a good resource for getting some very good and free templates for financial valuation and the like. They are organized as per expected requirements and you are bound to find some that will suit your needs.

4. Invoices

Billing invoices need to be prepared fast and quick once the job is done. Microsoft’s site for Office products offers free templates for invoices. They are spread out over a range of different needs and requirements as anticipated for almost all kinds of businesses.

5. Office Agenda and Memos

If you need to have meetings frequently with your group, you know how important it is to have an agenda for the meeting ready and circulated among the members prior to the meeting. Having a simple template according to what you usually discuss makes it easy for you to record the proceedings and make sure that critical issues are covered. Meetings can stretch on for hours if no agenda was agreed upon in the beginning and valuable time is lost. I found that Microsoft’s online help has a good set of free templates for you to use for internal meetings, conferences, community meets among others.

6. Non-Disclosure Agreements

You often need NDAs when you share sensitive information with an affiliate or a client. Having a simple template for this is always handy. This is a fairly generic document, so you may try out any of the following templates. Please note that if there are some specific laws or clauses to be inserted, you need to have a section for them. Links: Business-in-a-box, Experienced People. You should also know that p2w2 has off-the-shelf, customizable Non Disclosure agreements that you can use when you document terms of service with a professionals.

7. Work-for-hire agreements

A simple work-for-hire document is about getting work done through others (like you can do on p2w2) but protecting the intellectual property in that work so you can claim it. P2w2 has off-the-shelf, customizable work-for-hire templates. In addition, Docstoc is a good source of such templates.

(Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or blog should be considered legal advice)

About the author: Chaitanya Sagar is the Co-Founder and CEO of p2w2, which helps small businesses outsource services like writing, software, graphic design, virtual assistance, business consulting and research. He is fascinated by entrepreneurship and the difference technology can make in people’s lives. Chaitanya blogs at p2w2 blog (RSS) and tweets at www.twitter.com/Chaitanya.

Picture credits: Envios, Endlosautomat

    ]]> http://www.p2w2.com/blog/index.php/7-template-resources-to-save-you-time/feed/ 7 http://www.p2w2.com/blog/index.php/my-guest-posts/ http://www.p2w2.com/blog/index.php/my-guest-posts/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:10:34 +0000 Chaitanya http://www.p2w2.com/blog/?p=163 I had written two guest posts recently. The first is on Small Business Trends. I wrote on how small businesses have to learn to delegate and to outsource.

As a small business grows, and as the scale at which a task is done increases, you have to find ways to get the time to focus on the bigger picture. If you don’t, you will get caught up in myriad routine activities, and can’t progress on strategic areas of your business. You have to make time to steer your business in the right direction. And you can do that by delegating work to others, by outsourcing, and at times, it’s as simple as asking other party to visit your office instead of you visiting them!

The post has 35 comments as of now. Thanks to every one who commented. I am hoping to make it 70. It will be great if you can comment on it!

And the second is on SMBCEO. I wrote about smart ways to finance your business.

If you are creative, you will be able to fund your business in a number of ways:
•    You could negotiate longer credit period from your suppliers (with a good business plan or sheer perseverance). Preferably, if your customers pay you faster than you have to pay your suppliers (even by narrow margin), then you need much lesser capital
•    You could try an alternative pricing structure, say a 10-20% discount to customers who pay upfront, as the woman in our first example did
•    You could pay your suppliers in installments
•    You could ask your employees to work for stock options for part of their salary
•    You may lease your company assets rather than buy them
•    You could barter a portion of your service, e.g., you are good at writing/business consulting/marketing or even giving business leads! while a friend is good at graphic design. You could swap those services for each other, (not to mention pitching for common clients)
•    You could choose services/products that don’t take too long to build

Hope you like both the posts!

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About the author: Chaitanya Sagar is the Co-Founder and CEO of p2w2, an online marketplace for services like writing, software, graphic design, virtual assistance, business consulting and research. Chaitanya blogs at p2w2 blog (RSS). He is fascinated by entrepreneurship and the difference technology can make in people’s lives.

    ]]> http://www.p2w2.com/blog/index.php/my-guest-posts/feed/ 0