I would presume that the only reason people write business plans is for investors! Well wrong, the business plan is for you, it's the diary of your business! How about buy a notebook and everyday write in it everything that comes to your head about what you want to do, where you have been, what you have seen as problems and how you think they can be solved!
Everyone likes to read stories! How about an adventure? Investors are big headed and often don't read so you need to make them read! Let them see your heart! Personally I get tired of all those stuck up business terminologies of the legal and the financial world that it clearly can not describe the beauty of the picture you are seeing!
Can the first and the closing chapter in your writeup make someone want to read the whole book? Can they see the picture? Can they buy into the method of implementation and roll out?
One investors don't have time to be reading through 53 pages, except they have been intrigued by who they have met and the circumstances that made them meet!
I am yet to see anyone who got funding with their business plans from start! Your Business activities is what attracts investors. So you should be active and along the way you find the good Samaritan. Are they seeing you invest in yourself?
Lets imagine you are a football player that wants to play in the premier league. You have to be found by agents, you should be seen playing even if you are in self made boots, under the bridge. Personally I am getting tired of propaganda that for a business to be invested in it has to look good! Ernest what is look good? Being the best and not an empty gong! You will go and rent in the central of VI meanwhile your clients are In Benin! You are not ready for business then.
Often your story line of why and where you are now is what is the initial appeal. Someone once told me that Jean Claude van Dame stood outside of the directors compound on his famous pose for 3 days until the guy would hear him out. How true this is? Don't know but I do know I am one of those who do stuff like this. I stage my Movie and as i go i find "mutual collaborators" thats what i think an investor should be.
Often it is the executive page that is given not the full developed plan. You have to protect your intellectual property as well as you must be aware that the investor knows that what's in theory is never the same in practice. Every investor knows that business plans are written by professionals in the business of writing not those who are in the business itself, so they still need to meet the person and investigate the business.
StartUps don't receive investors funding simply because it has no developed story line ie track record to make real time analysis to make a forecast! A track record of the effort put in to raise the business to a level to evaluate the strength of the foundation! No one just gives money like that!
Your Exec summary should sound like an invitation and proposal to look at a potential and the word potential is very pregnant. Do you know if the marriage of strengths will work? do you know how many kids you will have? Can you show how the child will grow and of what benefits it would be to the society? When they say a business is a family it does mean exactly that! No one can survive alone or go to far alone! Children are a produce, the spouse is an investor/partner, the government is the shareholder with the society at large because you could create a nuc and who do you think pays the price for all the weapons created?
The owner of the dream should show huge amount of intellect and intuition. If employers are evaluating staff based on IQ and EQ is the investor any different from the employer?
That's why some businesses don't succeed. Who is the person behind the wheel? You could see someone very smart with a bad idea and still make money and someone with a good idea but not that intelligent and it flops! Although I don't believe in wrong ideas but wrong implementation I still have to accept that business isn't for everyone, just as not everyone is cut out for 9-5 jobs.
Your business plan is being sent to an investor, remember investments don't come as cash only. The word "resources" has a broad understanding and method of application! Many people who are looking for investment are self centred rather than look at what the investor wants! That's why they loose out on injection! Everyone wants something, real investors invest in a business and want a part in what the business produces.
I have enabled that! My investors buy into strategies and tactics that produce more by products that fit what they need and they leave my business alone. Their interest is in what they will gain for other projects they have not money returns alone. Investors come to me with the projects / problems they have and i give them solutions so this way they dont have a share in what i do but what i produce out of what i do! Investors come with their set of wants and I give them their desires.
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