Writing a business plan

Silvery · Tue, 15th Dec '09, 8:17pm

HELP!

Me, Rob and a friend of ours are about to buy a garage and I've been elected to write the business plan! I really need to make it a good one as we're going to have to convince the bank to lend us a lot of money.

I have no idea where to start as the business plans I've written in the past have never been presented to a lender or anything. Anyone have any clues where to start?

Blackthorne TA · Tue, 15th Dec '09, 8:21pm

http://www.bplans.com/auto_repair_sh...summary_fc.cfm

Silvery · Tue, 15th Dec '09, 9:29pm

This is why I love you guys!

Morgoth · Tue, 15th Dec '09, 10:07pm

There are a couple of things that always helped me when writing papers:

1. Try to be clear as possible.
You must describe the right amount of information. Too much and the reader might feel insulted, too little and the reader will ask questions or make wrong assumptions, which you'll have to work with when you will be discussing the document with the banker.
If you want to make sure that the reader will understand your document, you must place yourself into the position of the reader and read your own work with a critical eye. Do this a few hours after writing, because you need to have forgotten about all the details and ideas you had in your mind while writing. You don't want to remember these when your are reading, because those little ideas and thoughts form the mental make-up from which you wrote the document. The reader won't have have this make-up and so he won't be able to understand what you are trying to say. You can explain the facts and assumptions that he needs to build the make-up, but do that before he is going to need it.

2. Try to make the reading as painless as possible. If it becomes to hard to read, people will skip sections or refuse to read it at all. Watch spelling and grammar.
This is related to the previous point: when people don't understand what you're saying, they will skip and make wrong assumptions.
The banker is not going to make any large effort to read your document because they are not really forced to do so, they have other applications to read and another refusal is not that much of an issue to them. You are the one who needs to do the effort to convince them. A document that requires very little effort to read helps a lot!

3 - Formatting. Add images, but make those look professional. Watch line-breaks. Use nice fonts (Arial and Times New Roman are favourites.)

Tue, 15th Dec '09, 8:17pm	#1
Silvery I won't pretend to be your friend coz I'm just not that nice Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Co. Durham, UK Posts: 3,143 Blog Entries: 30 Like: 52 Liked 68 Times in 38 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 9,293 Level: 28 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 91.29% Daily Activity 49.07% Weekly Activity 14.03% Monthly Activity 49.14% Achievements	Writing a business plan HELP! Me, Rob and a friend of ours are about to buy a garage and I've been elected to write the business plan! I really need to make it a good one as we're going to have to convince the bank to lend us a lot of money. I have no idea where to start as the business plans I've written in the past have never been presented to a lender or anything. Anyone have any clues where to start?
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Tue, 15th Dec '09, 8:21pm	#2
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Tue, 15th Dec '09, 9:29pm	#3
Silvery I won't pretend to be your friend coz I'm just not that nice Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Co. Durham, UK Posts: 3,143 Blog Entries: 30 Like: 52 Liked 68 Times in 38 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 9,293 Level: 28 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 91.29% Daily Activity 49.07% Weekly Activity 14.03% Monthly Activity 49.14% Achievements	This is why I love you guys!
	__________________ Oh for the Love of God...sigh Firstly it's BlackBerry - My last facepalm from Kitrax. Love you buddy

Tue, 15th Dec '09, 10:07pm	#4
Morgoth Forever reading, never to be read! Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Amsterdam, Holland Posts: 3,609 Like: 2 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 8,326 Level: 27 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 58.69% Daily Activity 2.34% Weekly Activity 0.67% Monthly Activity 4.52% Achievements	There are a couple of things that always helped me when writing papers: 1. Try to be clear as possible. You must describe the right amount of information. Too much and the reader might feel insulted, too little and the reader will ask questions or make wrong assumptions, which you'll have to work with when you will be discussing the document with the banker. If you want to make sure that the reader will understand your document, you must place yourself into the position of the reader and read your own work with a critical eye. Do this a few hours after writing, because you need to have forgotten about all the details and ideas you had in your mind while writing. You don't want to remember these when your are reading, because those little ideas and thoughts form the mental make-up from which you wrote the document. The reader won't have have this make-up and so he won't be able to understand what you are trying to say. You can explain the facts and assumptions that he needs to build the make-up, but do that before he is going to need it. 2. Try to make the reading as painless as possible. If it becomes to hard to read, people will skip sections or refuse to read it at all. Watch spelling and grammar. This is related to the previous point: when people don't understand what you're saying, they will skip and make wrong assumptions. The banker is not going to make any large effort to read your document because they are not really forced to do so, they have other applications to read and another refusal is not that much of an issue to them. You are the one who needs to do the effort to convince them. A document that requires very little effort to read helps a lot! 3 - Formatting. Add images, but make those look professional. Watch line-breaks. Use nice fonts (Arial and Times New Roman are favourites.)
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