Business Plan Specialist

  
  GrowthConnection  


 
                    
               

Why are business plans important?
"Rick Van Ness helped our company attract serious interest from key Venture Capitalists.  Rick provided great focus, high energy, and doggedly pursued answers to tough questions.  He was one of the smartest investments we made."
- John Mayse, CEO
  US Wirefree, Inc.
  Olympia, WA
 
"Our team began writing the plan using a template and soon recognized the need for a more professional direction.  The focus and results we achieved from Rick's involvement and dedication to detail were a much welcomed improvement."
- Jack W. Piippo
  Missoula, MT
 
"Rick Van Ness dives into projects with gusto and enthusiasm.  He creates great results in very short time."
- Douglas Finlayson, M.D.
  Seattle, WA

 

 A business plan is essential to obtaining financing.  Like a resume, it doesn’t get you the job/money but it may get you an interview. However, a carefully crafted and well written business plan is more valuable than simply this.  It can be a useful communication tool for attracting strategic partners, key employees, and “evangelizing” potential supporters.  The plan improves your chance of success by identifying a strategy and all key assumptions.  Importantly, it identifies market trends and explicitly calls out the bets that the company is making about the future.  A business plan is the roadmap between an entrepreneur's starting point and his/her vision.  Developing this roadmap provides you these important benefits:

  • Forces you to review every aspect of your business at once: your value proposition, marketing assumptions, operations plan, financial plan and staffing plan.  You’ll spot connections you otherwise would have missed. This can keep you from making serious mistakes.

  • Helps you understand how much money is needed and when.

  • Provides support for achieving financing (banks and others require a business plan before they will grant you a loan).

  • Guides your understanding of competitive alternatives and creates a strategy to compete successfully.

  • Helps you attract and retain talent. When a prospect asks to understand your business, you can hand them a plan that gives them an entire overview. Their reactions tell you something about how quickly and thoroughly they can think through your business’s key issues. Moreover, the written record of your goals coupled with a track record of delivering against those goals sends a message loud and clear: You understand your business and can deliver the results you promise. Great employees will respond to that message—as will banks and investors the next time you need to raise money.

  • Provides you with a road map that you can use to run your business. A solid plan helps you to keep your business under control and guides you when you need to make detours, change direction, or change the speed at which you start and operate your business.

If more businesses did better planning, failures would be fewer.  Today, 80% of all new businesses fail or close during the first five years.  One survey found that companies that do business planning have 63% higher revenue growth and 100% more profit. If that is not enough, consider the following common reasons for business failure:

    • The business was under-financed
    • Poor management systems
    • No overall vision
    • Lack of market planning
    • Not understanding the competition
    • No strategic plan
    • No established performance measures
    • Inadequate financial planning  
    • Owner underestimated the work required.

Here is a link to an excellent summary of key messages about business plans compiled from 50 or so unrelated speakers.

So viewing your plan as a fund-raising tool is just the beginning of the story. You’ll use the plan for so much more—for managing yourself, for operating the business and for recruiting. Before deciding to skip your planning phase, consider all the implications and what they mean for your future success.

Learn More:

What is a Business Plan?
Why are Business Plans Important?
Why Does it Pay to Hire a Business Plan Specialist?
Making the Transition from Business Plan to Operating Plan

Call today.  Let's discuss how we can work together.

GrowthConnection, LLC
Seattle, Washington
(425) 347-4678