The business plan is probably one of the most important documents you are going to work on in order to grab the interest of an investor and to receive funding. A good business plan is convincing and speaking of professionalism.
Several characteristics determine the attractiveness of your business plan and its ability to get you the much needed funding. Keep the following in mind when working on the presentation of your project.
Realistic
You can come up with the greatest business plan that involves millions of dollars of investment and many years of work without any returns. This business plan will fail because it is unrealistic.
Describe a project that can be implemented easily. All of your research and brilliant presentation skills will fail compensating for the lack of realism in the business plan. Balance all the aspects and know what you will need in order to get started. If you are asking for too much without offering anything significant in return, you might as well skip the meeting with the potential investor.
Executive Summary
The executive summary is the part of the business plan that contains all the important details. A potential angel investor may be too busy to go through the entire thing. You need to include a summary that contains the essence without the additional information.
The executive summary should contain information about your products, competition analysis, the investment needed to get the project going, the staff and the technology that will be required.
Financial Plan
The financial plan is a crucial part of your presentation. It shows your knowledge and it demonstrates whether your expectations are realistic.
This is the part of the business plan that will be most difficult to draft because you will have to do some calculations and you will have to include revenue estimates, as well. Unrealistic figures will result in failure. It is crucial to spend enough time working on the financial plan.
Full of Details
The details do matter in a business plan. The more specific and detailed it is, the better a potential investor will understand your idea.
A simple list of products and expectations will communicate a very vague message. Describe the products, show the investor what makes them unique and worth spending some money on. Expectations are great but you need to have some idea about how you are going to get there.
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Marketing Plan
Every good business plan should address the issue of marketing. A breakthrough idea will fail if people are unaware of it and its advantages. You need to think about promotion before you even get started.
Each product and service can benefit from ads presented in a specific communication channel. Are you going to use internet marketing because it is targeted and inexpensive? Will you need television ads in order to reach a broad audience? Think about these issues because the investor will be interested in your marketing strategy.
Peter