Good to Great Business Plans

Everyone has a different opinion on what is good, very good and great when it comes to most everything, let alone a business plan. Fortunately, a majority of the time investors and bankers alike believe our plans are great plans. Of course, you can't please everyone. There are other consulting firms that do a great job regularly, yet most small companies, not to mention so called “lone wolf”so called experts or out of work bankers that permeate the Internet and real world, don't complete great plans very often. They, like entrepreneurs who fall into the trap of Googling "business plans" and then using faulty software or templates, because they think good business plans are good enough.

Unfortunately, good is very rarely good enough. In a competitive environment where every investor, venture capital firm or bank is able to pick and choose between so many requests to lend the same or less money, only the great plans get funded. We review so many business plans completed by other consultants and entrepreneurs using templates or examples of flawed templates that are missing a true Executive Summary, a detailed Market Analysis, Rick Factors and Forecasts of substance, including Notes and Assumptions. The shame of it is so many have great business models and some have good business plans, but they choose the shorter and less expensive route in seeking funding. The bottom line? The highest of likelihood is a company without capital to have a bottom line.

Tim@TheBusinessPlanConsultants.com still offers a free consultation on your business plan or business plan considerations.

Capitalizing....

Capitalizing, as in raising capital (debt or equity) for existing or start up businesses is loosening a bit in this current economic environment, but still 2-3 times or more harder than just two years ago. That said, FUNDING IS AVAILABLE. In the last few months, clients used my company's business plans to obtain funding commitments for SBA, equipment lease, debt on raw land and seven figure equity placement. These were existing businesses looking to expand and start ups!

How, you ask? First and foremost, all had custom transparent and complete business plans we prepared. There was no generic look to these plans like so many I review every week from those googling business plans to use those woeful templates. They all had a great executive summary to get them in the door, not an "introduction" called an executive summary. They all had a strong market and competitive analysis that supported revenue assumptions, with forecasts that didn't leave the reviewer wondering where an assumption came from.

We helped negotiate one of recent client capitalization and placed the capital with our source on another. We don't just write great business plans, we are in it with you...if you want us to be. Team effort wins ball games, and it is a winning formula, capitalizing on your assets even when those assets are primary of which is your vision and efforts; and therefore literally capitalized. Aren't mixed metaphors of sorts great:)