Business Plans
Most business owners will never be take their company public, pursue venture capitalists, or seek angel investors. If this is true, a business plan should not be written with these professional investors in mind. A business plan, first and most importantly should be written for the business owners. Secondly, it should be written with lenders in mind. If investors are anticipated, the business plan should be written under the watchful eye of a securities attorney to protect the business owner and to insure proper disclosures are made for potential investors.
Business Plan Outline
Here is a simple outline of what may be included in a full-blown business plan:
- Executive Summary
- Company Description
- Industry Overview
- Market Analysis
- Marketing Plan
- Operations and Sales Plan
- Management Team
- Risk of the Business and Risk Mitigation Plan
- Financial Plan and Projections
Documents:
Business plan template
Business plan sample
Business Plan For Lenders
It is important that you plan your business plan. If you have a small business or are starting one, and you want to apply for a small bank loan, writing a full-blown business plan for that purpose is usually overkill. Banks do not want volumn, they want quality. Here is an example of an outline that may be used with a small business loan application. One banker referred to it as a "White Paper" as opposed to a business plan. Even though this is a condensed form of business plan it still requires research for each paragraph which should define how you will run your business.
Loan Requested (Let them know what you want and the you understand their needs.)
Detailed Product or Service Description ( A paragraph explaining in detail what was briefly addressed in the Introduction.)
The Market (This is very important. Explain where the customers will come from and how you intend to attract them.)
Operation ( How will you deliver the product or service to the customers?)
Owner and Management ( Your experience and why it qualifies you to run this small business.)
Legal Structure (If the business is not yet organized this is the proposed legal structure of the business.)
The written part of this kind of plan may be as few as three or four pages but no more then ten pages. Most banks prefer a plan that gets to the point and covers the things they that are important to them. The things most important to them is what do you want to borrow, and collateral or means of payback should the business fail. Address that on the first page.