Do Business Well

Just as we judge books by their covers and people by the way they dress, so we judge business plans by the way they look. In addition to being clearly and concisely written, the business plan must also be accessible in other ways. The way the plan is bound, typed, and organized sends a message to readers.

At the same time, the plan differs from a book in that it isn’t intended for general circulation. Much of the information is confidential, and you don’t want it falling into the hands of unauthorized customers, suppliers, or competitors. How you package the plan can affect who it goes to—and doesn’t go to.

Here are some suggestions for making the most of your plan’s overall appearance:

1. Make it businesslike. The plan should look neither too slick nor too shabby. Too slick could be leather binding and Linotronic typesetting. Too shabby could be faded Xeroxed pages stapled together.

The wonders of desktop publishing have made it possible to put together a business plan that ten years ago would have been considered inordinately fancy. I’m talking about charts and graphs and font varieties that make a plan easy to scan and quickly grasp.

As color printing catches on, I’m certain we’ll see the standards for business plans upgraded as they have been for many types of presentations.

2. Look for ways to make the plan stand out. If your plan is going to individuals who tend to see a lot of plans, like bankers or investors, it helps if you can find a way to stand out from the crowd. Undoubtedly, these individuals would welcome a business plan that shows some creativity.

What is a business plan that stands out? It might be one like the owner of a floral business put together, with a cover featuring color photos of cut flowers. Or it might be one like the owner of an electronic components company put together, which contained bulleted single-sentence summaries on the left-hand page to go with the text on the right-hand page. Or one like the owners of a new printing company put together that had photos of various members of the management team included at points where their duties and background were discussed. If the product is small and/or inexpensive enough, you might want to include a sample to accompany the plan.

Increasingly, entrepreneurs seeking financing are including color charts and photos inside the plan to go along with color covers. With the advent of color copiers, it is easy and inexpensive to duplicate color pages.

And more entrepreneurs are including short videos about their companies. For those companies that are well established, the videos might provide glimpses of the company’s headquarters and manufacturing operation. For start-up or early-stage companies, the videos might provide brief interviews of the members of the management team summarizing the company’s plan.

For potential financial backers, videos provide another dimension to the written plan. Videos give life to the writtenstatements and numbers, enabling the financiers to decide whether they want to go to the next step in the financing process, which is a personal meeting.

Getting a video produced can be expensive, especially if it involves many different scenes and interviews and fancy graphics. It isn’t unusual for a video to total $1,000 per minute, or $10,000 for a ten-minute video. One that simply includes two or three top executives summarizing segments of the plan would likely cost much less. Also, it’s sometimes possible to negotiate barter or other such arrangements with individual video producers to keep out-of-pocket expenses down.

3. Tend to the details. That means a cover page with the company’s phone number and a table of contents with page numbers. It also means that the plan has been carefully proofread for typos and misspellings These little things, if not tended to, can easily turn off potential backers.

4. Limit access. While you want the plan to be attractive and accessible, you don’t want it going to anyone besides those individuals for whom it is intended. Here are three ways you can limit its circulation:

• Number the plans. Each plan should have its own number—shown on the cover page—preferably below 10 or 12, to convey the message that the plan has been duplicated in small numbers and that each plan’s reader is known and accounted for.
• Include a statement that copying is prohibited. On the cover page or table of contents, include a sentence or two to this effect: “The contents of this plan are proprietary and confidential. It is not to be copied or duplicated in any way.”
• Insist that readers sign a confidentiality statement. This is a simple statement m which readers agree to refrain from revealing the plan’s contents or ideas to anyone else.
• Keep in mind… None of the steps just discussed guarantees that the plan won’t be copied and read by others. But they will likely inhibit most of those who read your plan from simply running it through a copying machine and handing it out. It will also inhibit them from freely discussing the plan’s contents with others.

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• Making a Plan: how to construct a simple and workable business plan part 6
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