I believe business planning is important - but not every plan needs to be a formal one.

I write a new plan each year, and the plan answers all of the basic questions I need to operate successfully.
What do I do? Who do I do it for? What are my annual goals? How do I plan to reach them? What are my financial goals, and how do the link to my activities? How will I reach new clients and continue to better serve existing ones?

I think a business plan works best when it is a "living document" that you turn to often for revisions and tracking. Some people operate just fine without one, but I think for most of us written goals are more likely to be achieved than those that float freely in the mind.

My 2 cents anyway.

Michelle Lanham at PrintWest is a great local resource. She can do tours of their printing facility and does some great education on how the whole process works and on what options are the most cost effective.

She's at:

Office 425.402.8600

michelle.lanham@printwest.net

I use Typepad through Moveable Type. Wordpress was nice, but I'm not a techie, and I liked the clean user interface and simplicity of the Typepad platform. It also has good integration with Technorati, Feedburner, and other tools you can use to drive traffic.

I liked Wordpress, but it felt like too much work to make it look good.