You’ve spent a lot of time putting together your business plan. You’ve got an excellent package ready to send off to the bank. But maybe you want to make your business plan more professional looking and more appealing to a reader. Particularly, you might be wondering if you can put pictures in your business plan. It is always a great idea to put pictures in your business plan. Images can provide...
Where to Start When Writing a Business Plan
Getting started is usually the hardest part of any project. The first time I wrote a business plan, I was pretty overwhelmed. It seemed like such a huge task. I knew that once I got started, the momentum would carry me through. Yet, I wasn’t sure where to start. If you’re wondering where to start when writing your business plan, read on. After writing more than sixty plans over...
Find Free Industry Information for a Business Plan
So, you’ve decided to write your own business plan. You’re ready to start gathering information on your industry and target market, but your Google search results are mostly research firms that want you to pay for their reports. Odds are, if you’ve decided to save some money by writing your business plan, you’re not interested in paying for industry and market data. Don’t worry. There are...
Two Ratios You Must Have in a Business Plan for a Bank Loan
If you want to write a business plan for a bank loan, you have to tailor your proposal for the bank. What’s most important for a bank? Getting their loans paid back. A loan to your business is an investment for the bank. They’re betting that you’ll pay them back, with interest. The bank won’t be in business long if it makes bad investments. The challenge for a bank...
Can a Business Plan for a Bank Loan Be One Page?
A business plan is a lot of work. Between the industry, market, and competitor analyses alone, you’ve got to do a bunch of research and write pages of text. It makes you wonder if a one-page business plan is enough for a bank loan. With some business plans reaching into the hundreds of pages, it makes you doubt anyone is going to read the whole plan. On top of that, if the executive...