How to Write a Winning Business Report - Softcover

Mancuso, Joseph R.

 
9780671763589: How to Write a Winning Business Report
Softcover
ISBN 10: 067176358X ISBN 13: 9780671763589
Verlag: Touchstone, 1992

Inhaltsangabe

A CLEAR, STEP-BY-STEP SYSTEM FOR WRITING A BUSINESS PLAN THAT WILL ATTRACT THE FINANCING YOU NEED
Joseph R. Mancuso offers key guidelines and valuable tips on how to gear your business plan to the people who control the cash. Featuring the original business plans from three highly successful businesses, plans that raised millions in upfront financing, How to Write a Winning Business Plan also reveals:
* What financiers look for in a plan
* Nine questions that every plan must answer
* How to prospect for financial sources
* How to romance the money men
* How to locate hidden sources of capital
* How to handle objections
* How to gain a commitment
* And much more
Complete with handy checklists and key financial forms, this book is your launch pad for a thriving business venture.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joseph Mancuso is an American author, who has written 24 entrepreneurial books for entrepreneurs and CEOs, and an international businessman and keynote speaker. Mancuso is the founder, CEO and current president of CEO Clubs International

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Chapter 1

The Perfect Business Plan

PREPARING YOUR PLAN

People are always telling me that they'd like to see the perfect business plan. "Would you mind handing me that business plan over there? Right -- the perfect one. You see, I'm in a hurry and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time writing one, so I'll just take advantage of someone else's hard work. Just show me the perfect plan and I'll copy it."

Can you imagine the results? What you'd end up with would be a program for a word processor that types out "John went to __ __ high school in __, and then he went to __ __ college," and so on. All you do is feed in a few magic words and change the business from computers to a restaurant, or a restaurant to construction, or construction to software, and you're ready to go. The program has all the boiler plate stuff in it already, so abracadabra, you've got the perfect business plan. In fact, there's a company in Los Angeles that does just that. I'll bet it does pretty good business with accountants, lawyers, and other business plan preparers. As far I'm concerned, a plan like that is just a waste of time. It's like saying, "Let me see a work of art that's perfect. I want to have the Mona Lisa in my house, so give me a paint-by-the-numbers kit."

It's foolish to think that you could paint the Mona Lisa by numbers. And when it comes right down to it, a business plan is a work of art in its own right. It's the document that personifies and expresses your company. So when people ask me whether it should be five pages or fifty, I answer them by saying, "Who knows?" Some people might type up three-page plans and raise a million-and-a-half dollars. I could show you one that's only seven pages long that raised more than a million. But most business plans are "wheelbarrow" plans. You have to put it in a wheelbarrow to carry it, and that doesn't even include the appendix that you left back at the office.

I like to use the example of someone who was my hero when I was a kid growing up. His name was Joe DiMaggio, and he played baseball for the Yankees. The guy looked great and acted great, and when he hit the ball, his swing was level perfect. Even in the outfield, he was a beautiful and graceful person, and his lifetime batting average was .325. At the same time, there was a guy over in St. Louis who stood at the plate with his fanny sticking out, his arms tilted, and his knees bent. It looked like he'd either fall over from the wind off the ball or get hit by the first ball thrown his way. His name was Stan Musial, and even though his stance was completely different, he had a lifetime batting average of .331. The message is the same when it comes to business plans.

I can't give you a magic formula: Copy this and you'll have the perfect plan. In fact, the perfect plan is probably one that was turned down. The ones that get financed are seldom perfect, but they are always sweet. That's why my advice is called the "Frosting on the Cake Principle." I start out with the assumption that most entrepreneurs can write a business plan that's about an 8, on a scale of 1 to 10. And that's not bad because most business plans aren't even 8's. Most plans are about 6's, but it doesn't really matter whether a plan is an 8, a 4, a 6, or a 2 because the ones that get financed are 10's.

Let's say business plans that are "found in nature" are 8's. As I said, a plan that's an 8 is a good plan, but 8's don't get financed. So if you start with an 8, how do you put the frosting on the cake? Read another book? Go back to fundamentals? That's fine for bringing a 1 up to an 8, but how do you go from an 8 to an 11? It's like golf. It's a lot easier to bring your score to 80 from 100 than it is to bring it down to 70 from 80. It looks like a linear scale, but it's not. An 8 is an entrepreneur's plan as it's "found in nature." If you add an accountant and a lawyer, another two months and another three grand, you come up with a 9. But a 9 is no better than a 6 because neither one of them gets financed. So if a 10 is a plan that gets financed, what's an 11? The answer is, an 11 is a plan that's so good you have to turn back money.

If you actually take in too many checks and have to explain to an investor why he or she is being cut out of the deal, that's an 11. And this book is designed to tell you how to take a 9 and turn it into an 11 with magic. If you ever did magic tricks as a kid, you'll know what I'm talking about. The first question a magician hears after having done a trick is, "How did you do it?" And if the magician finally gives up and shows how to do it, what does the audience say? "Oh, is that all? I knew that all the time!"

So what I'm going to tell you about business plans isn't very different from common sense, but the problem with common sense is that it isn't always that common until someone else explains it.

NINE QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE ANSWERED

Before I go any further, it's time for you to do some of the work. Please answer the following questions:

1. What is the single most important aspect of the business plan, according to the venture capitalist?

2. List, in chronological order, the six steps in presenting a business plan.

1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

6. __

3. Name two elements of a business plan that can bring it from the 7 to 9 range, up to a 10.

1. __

2. __

4. List the five questions that a venture source needs an answer to.

1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

6. __

5. In what order are the parts of a business plan read?

1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

6. __

6. Rank, in order of importance, these ten sources of linkage people for introducing your deal to venture capital sources.

1. Entrepreneur in the venture portfolio __

2. Another venture capitalist __

3. Accountant familiar with a venture source __

4. Lawyer familiar with a venture source __

5. Banker familiar with a venture source __

6. Friend of a venture source __

7. Blind letter to a venture source __

8. Customer of a company familiar with a venture source __

9. Investor in a venture capitalist's portfolio __

10. Telephone a venture source __

7. Identify the nine members of an entrepreneurial team and circle the most important player.

1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

6. __

7. __

8. __

9. __

8. What should be found on summary page of the business plan?
1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

9. What are the six most common debt/equity instruments available to a lender or investor?

1. __

2. __

3. __

4. __

5. __

6. __

Dr. Edward B. Roberts, the David Sarnoff Professor of Management and Technology at MIT, did a study of 20 business plans submitted by high-tech, start-up companies to venture capitalists in the Boston area. Here are some of the results of that study:

1. While all 20 plans stated an overall objective, only 14 had a specific strategy that appeared rational and achievable.

2. The central thrust of the plans broke down as follows:

Product 47%

Market 29%

People 24%

3. Profitability and growth were not discussed in detail in 45% of the plans.

4. Three-quarters of the plans failed to identify details about their competitors.

5. The marketing plan was consistently the weakest element of the 20 plans, while the R&D aspect was consistently the strongest.

6. Marketing research and selling were given very low priority in three-quarters of the plans, and little background in these areas was evidenced. (It is interesting to note that earlier...

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Verlag
Touchstone
Erscheinungsdatum
1992
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
067176358X
ISBN 13 
9780671763589
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande

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