One of the key areas business plan readers will focus on will be 'the numbers'. Specifically, they will concentrate on the projected Income Statement or Profit & Loss. The fact that numbers are projected does not mean that those figures can be included without due rigour or process. They need to be credible, defensible and consistent.
Of course, forecasting is not an exact science, and the use of proxies can help the author ensure that the figures included are plausible and consistent with the story being told in the other areas of the business plan. The figures must also show an ability of the company to generate free cash flows so that the business can be run profitably while satisfactorily servicing their debts at the same time.
All costs should be recorded including salaries to owner managers who run the company. It is not credible to generate P&L projections where expenses such as salaries are omitted to demonstrate managerial commitment or to artificially reduce losses, etc.
By the same token, no investor will be prepared to fund a business where the projected salary payments are excessive. While dealing with finances is not everyone's strong point, there has to be someone on the management team who is cognizant with the maths.
A business plan will need to include everything from break-even projections to proposed return on investments to cash flow forecasts, and one of the key players will have to converse on these subjects in a convincing manner. They will also need to justify the numbers.
2. Lack of a Viable Opportunity
A business plan needs to not only describe an opportunity, it must also detail how the opportunity can be exploited profitably and demonstrate the company’s ability to deliver what is required. In recent years there has been a significant increase in plans that are inaccessible to the average reader because they are couched in technical jargon and unfamiliar terms.
If the reader of the plan cannot fully grasp who the prospective customer is, how that customer will be targeted, and the prospective benefits from the proposed solution, the reader will not invest. In an increasingly time-pressed world, people crave simplicity.
Many business plan recipients will only scrutinize the Executive Summary and the financials, using these as the decision points as to whether to read further or not. Hence it is of paramount importance that both the executive summary and the wider plan describes the opportunity in readily understood terms, such as:
- What is the issue or pain point?
- What is the proposed solution?
- What are the benefits of the solution?
- Why are these benefits compelling?
- Who will benefit the most from these?
3. No Clear Route to Market
All opportunities are only prospective ones without evidence that the target market can be accessed profitably. Many entrepreneurs are inherently product focused, concentrating their energies on 'the idea' to the exclusion of many other important elements such as how they intend to access their customer base.
The growth in popularity of the Internet has certainly helped niche producers find geographically dispersed customers, making many more ideas commercially viable. However, it does not come without its challenges, as creating awareness online is both costly and intensely competitive.
The business plan must include a comprehensive and credible analysis of how the company intends to secure access to their target market in a cost-effective manner. The low cost and barriers to entry for websites have resulted in the creation of hundreds of thousands of sites. Ensuring that a site stands out from the crowd is easier said than done.
Knowledge of who the customer is and how they buy is very important, but identifying them and accessing them on an individual basis is much more challenging and costly.
