Writing a small business plan concept paper? The business plan can be reduced to its component parts with a little originality and some close editing, so you can arrive at a strong working concept paper in little time. Provided you start with all the key ingredients in play, and whittle it all down intelligently, you can describe the market potential, forecasted returns, and marketing strategy of an emerging small business in as little as 5-10 pages. But how do you accomplish this? How can you distill a full business plan or a broad assortment of company information into a clean set of objectives and projected returns? You need to streamline the plan without losing anything critical, which means:
• Keeping a concise executive summary
• Showing your products and services in short order
• Giving a compelling description of the market opportunity
• Detailing how your company can market its products/services to clients
• Telling about the team and showing the hiring timeline
The business plan concept paper will most likely require at least an abbreviated financial forecast. Typically a business plan being presented to a bank or someone else in position to extend a line of credit needs a three-year forecast; an investor or venture capital firm will require a five-year projection to make their decision. In either case, a revenue forecast, break-even analysis, cash flow, profit and loss, and balance sheet are the minimum requirements. In a concept paper, you can probably get away with showing only a profit and loss and cash flow, though check with your audience first regarding any special criteria. Need more guidance or writing/modeling assistance? MasterPlans can write the entire business plan for you – call us today at 877-453-2011.
