One of the reasons why you may be compelled to prepare a business plan is when you want to get a loan either from a bank, a non-bank financial institution or any other lending institution.
To you, your business is of supreme interest and importance to a bank or fund manager, your plan is just like any other document that he finds on his desk. You must win his approval and keep his interest while reading it. For it to do this, your business plan should
have the following qualities:
- Simplicity and clarity
- Brevity
- Logical
- Truthful
- Be backed up with figures whenever possible.
Simplicity and Clarity
The person reading your business plan is busy. Quite often he has other things to think about and can be attracted and motivated to read your business plan only if it is simple and clear. The following tips will aid you in this:
- Keep your language simple
- Avoid trying to put too many ideas into one sentence.
- Let one sentence flow on logically from the last.
- Avoid ambiguous words.
- Tabulate wherever possible.
Brevity
If the banker or manager gets bored while reading your business plan, you are unlikely to get the sympathetic hearing you deserve. So prune and shorten, keeping only the essentials of what your reader ought to be told. In short, be brief and to the point.
Logic
The facts and ideas you present will be easier to take in and make more impact if they follow one another in a logical sequence. Avoid series of unconnected paragraphs. Also, let your chapters and headings or sub-headings follow each other systematically.
Truth
The business plan, as has been seen, is not only meant for acquiring a loan, it is also a blueprint, used for monitoring the operations of the business. You should therefore tell the truth in your plan. Do not overstate your case for it may do more harp; than good.
Use of figures
The banker or financier reading your plan thinks in terms of numbers. Words will not impress him/her unless they are backed by figures that you have made as precise as possible. Therefore, try to quantify your ideas wherever possible
