to pay for family necessities rather than to make money for extras. For my business, this means that professional working women will appreciate even more in the years ahead the extra service and convenience that we offer.     Second, as the baby boom matures, the number of women in the age group that enters the workforce is declining. This means that I cannot count on an ever-expanding population base for my business.     To accommodate these trends, I plan to pay attention to my customers changing tastes as they grow older. I also intend to find new ways to market to the smaller number of younger women entering the workforce. F. Break-Even Analysis: Will Your Business Make Money?     Some people have a bigger problem than others when opening a new business. These are folks who are positively enamored with their business concept and are desperately eager to begin. They are so smitten and eager to start, they have no patience with the economic realities involved in their business. If you recognize this tendency in yourself, its extra important that you prepare a financial forecast carefully and pay attention to what it tells you. This step tells you whether your idea is a sure winner or a sure loser or, like most ideas, whether it needs work and polishing to make it presentable.     How can you tell if your business idea will be profitable before you implement it? The honest answer is, you cant. This essential fact makes business scary. It also makes it adventurous. After all, if it were a sure thing, everyone would go into business.     Just because you cant be sure you will make money doesnt mean you should throw up your hands and ignore the whole problem. You can and should make some educated guesses. I like to call them SWAGs ("Scientific," Wild Ass Guesses). The challenging part is to make your profit estimate SWAGs as realistic as possible and then make them come true.     The best way to make a SWAG about your business profitability is to do a break-even forecast. Although a break-even analysis or forecast can never take the place of a complete business plan, it can help you decide if your idea is worth pursuing.     Most financial backers expect you to know how to apply break-even analyses to your business. Your backer may ask what your profits will be if sales are slightly higher or lower than your forecast.     Many experienced entrepreneurs use a break-even forecast as a primary screening tool for new business ventures. They wont write a complete business plan unless their break-even forecast shows that the sales revenue they expect to obtain far exceeds what they need just to pay all the bills. Otherwise, they know their business will not last very long.     WarningYou can use this technique as a "quick and dirty" profit analysis, but dont use it as a substitute for the full profit and loss forecast presented in A break-even forecast is a great screening tool, but you need a more complete analysis before spending any money.     NoteProject development note: The break-even analysis described below does not apply to a project development, since only one sale occurs. This exercise is designed for a continuing business with ongoing sales revenue. Before they begin, developers must know how much profit they will make after the project is completed. A developer prepares a break-even forecast every time she calculates the likely sale proceeds and subtracts estimated costs. Developers can skip this section, unless they need a refresher course on break-even analyses.