Posts tagged "small business"

It’s very important for everyone who’s attending my next Internet Cafe workshop to study this list in great detail. Develop a basic business plan as part of your preparations for this unique training we offer at NETucation that combines the best black business and technology expertise in Southern Africa.

Lenders and investors may see hundreds of business plans in a single day. Make your business plan stand out against the rest, and avoid these common mistakes.

1. Not proving that you have the management expertise to make it happen. The quality of your people will lend credibility to your ideas and even to your financial projections. If your management team is not as strong as it could be, join forces with a great board of advisor’s.
2. Not demonstrating where your revenue will come from – what customers pay you and why they pay you. Do not be too aggressive in setting revenue projections or you will undermine your credibility.
3. Not proving that your business model and long term cost structure is good enough to make a real profit. How will your business make money – what is your margin structure, what are your costs?
4. Not being clear enough in your product description to allow the reader to quickly see the need and the niche for this product. It may seem obvious to you, but not so to the reader not educated in your business.
5. Not proving that the market opportunity is big enough to get interested in. How big is your market now and what will it look like in 5 years?
6. Not adequately acknowledging your competition. Investors know that if there is no perceived competition, there may be no market for what you are offering. The better you can describe your competition, the better you understand your market, and the more likely you will dominate it.
7. Not writing for the target audience. Although the core is the same, the plan should be written for the perspective of banks, equity investors, and others. Go as far as you can to tailor each plan to the audience’s specific interests to show you have done your homework and know to whom you are talking.
8. Starting with a boring, unenthusiastic executive summary. This is the first section to be read, and if it is not exciting, the rest may never be seen. Make it fun and be enthusiastic. It should stand-alone and generate interest for more. It deserves all the thought you would put into a professionally done promotional piece for your customers.
9. Poor presentation. If you have typos and grammatical errors in your business plan, the reader will assume the work you do in your business is sloppy too.
10. Saying too much. Keep the entire plan to a maximum of 30 pages, with an executive summary of three pages or less. If investors are interested, they will ask for any other information they need. Amateurs talk in the business plan about unimportant details because they do not know what they should say and what they should not. Hire a professional editor to reduce the page count and help you emphasize your strengths.

source Jan B King