Obtaining funds with a great business proposal is something that is commonly referred to as business plan funding. Every business needs a good business plan if they want to succeed in obtaining monies for their company, and it doesn’t matter whether they are starting a business or they already have one.
It is important for you as an entrepreneur to have a realistic looking business proposal because those that you will be applying to for business plan funding will be analyzing all of the details. They will look through the details of the actual business idea, the budget, and all the other sections of the document. This is not the only reason for writing an accurate business plan. In doing so, you will find potential errors that you may not see otherwise. It will also help you in the future to see how far you have come towards achieving your goal.
Before writing the business proposal to win the business plan funding, you must consider who your audience will be. If you are addressing a bank, you will be writing the content slightly differently than if you are approaching a government body. You may also be turning to external investors, business resource firms, or any other type of institute that distributes business plan funding.
There are a number of elements that your plan should include if and when you are applying for business plan funding. These can make the process long and time-consuming but they need to be taken care of and they will benefit you will the long run. There are some main sections to this plan that you must include and here is a look at those.
- Executive Summary: This is the outline or overview of the business that you intend on starting or have started. This is one of the most important parts of the plan if not the most important. Sometimes lenders base their decision on accepting your application for business plan funding on this section. It needs to be clear, well-written, and accurate.
- Short Description of Business: This is the section of the proposal for business plan funding application explaining who you are, what your products or services will include, and who your target market will be. This is not the same as the executive summary although some details may be similar. Copied sections will not work for business plan funding applications.
- Sales and Marketing Strategy: You will need to have a section on how you plan on marketing your products or services and well as how you plan on selling them. You should have a good breakdown of the different types of marketing and sales strategy included for a more successful business plan funding application.
- Competition: It is important for you to include this part in your application for business plan funding to acknowledge that there will be competition for your lenders to see that you are aware of your surroundings. It is also important for you to know this information because if there is too much competition in your certain field, you will need something to make you stand out from all of the rest. This could mean changing your sales or marketing strategies or even the products or services to make them more original. The creativity of your business will be demonstrated by the amount of competition that you have and if there is too much, you risk your acceptance for business plan funding.
- Management Team and Personnel: This section will be listing and describing all of the members of the management team involved, plus any other personnel that you already have. You may include intentions for furthering your staff if you are planning on doing so in the future. The lenders will want to consider all of these when reviewing your business plan funding application because this denotes some of the expense of the business.
- Skills: This section will relate to the previous in that you will need to explain the skills that these people bring to your organization. Aside from the lender seeing the necessity of these people, you will also see it, and if there is redundancy in the positions, then you can fix those errors right at the beginning. If there are positions being filled that are not needed it will not look well in your business plan funding application.
- Operations: This is the section that you will need to explain the facilities that you will be working with, the premises that you business will be running on, the technology that you will be using including your information systems, and anything related to this subject. If there are concerns about the operations management, it could stall or even prevent the successful bid for business plan funding.
- Financial Forecast: This section takes all of the information that you have already included and makes a forecast on what you realistically see as the financial future of this business. It needs to include the costs, profits expected, and any other financial related matter. This section is very important and you do not want to exaggerate because a lender will spot this error and it may remove any chance of receiving business plan funding.
There are many websites that can help you out with writing your proposal for you business plan funding application. Microsoft online has many different templates to help you out. Bplans website is also a good choice. Other ones include Business Link, Northern Ireland Business Info. These all have structured guidelines that you can follow so that you will have the best result for your business plan funding application.
After you have your proposal written and ready to submit for your business plan funding application, make sure you have proofread the material several times. Leave it for a few days after you have drafted it, write a final copy, and check this one over as well. You will need to have the document written with good grammar, spelling, punctuation, not to mention well-written. The lenders of the business plan funding will not likely even entertain the idea of an interview with someone who doesn’t take the time to write a plan using correct English. For extra help, there are always advisers available to go over your business plan funding application. The sites mentioned above, such as Business Link, can lead you to a professional who can assist you.