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How a Financier Reads a Business Plan and Tips for Writing a Business Plan

This article explains the importance of a business plan when seeking help from a financier. In addition it provides useful tips for writing a business plan.

A business plan has four main purposes.
1. To establish the viability of your business
2. To document your objectives and forecasts for the business
3. To benchmark and measure progress
4. To communicate your plans to outsiders – such as a financier

There are two types of financier, the lender and the investor that you may approach or who may be interested in your company venture.

The Lender i.e. a bank will be looking to see how you propose to handle potential risks that your company may encounter. Their main concern is regarding the security of the repayments for the money they have loaned you, and will therefore want to ensure that you will be managing the company’s risk wisely. As well as checking your credit rating a bank manager may ask you a number of questions in an interview which you will need to be able to answer, such as:

• Why do you need the amount requested?
• What will you do with it?
• How do you know it’s enough?
• How much less can the company survive on?
• What other sources of finance do you have or who else are you borrowing from?
• How are you going to pay it back?
• What collateral or guarantee do you have?

You need to ensure that these questions are already answered in your business plan as it is much harder to change the manager’s mind in your interview with them. The bank will look for collateral and cash flow within your plan.
Make sure you are not afraid to ask for the exact amount required, because if they lend you an amount that is not enough to get the business going and you need to ask the bank for more money, they may question how well you have planned your financial requirements. This could make them sceptical about lending you more.
Professional Investors accept risk, although they will try to limit their exposure to it. The questions they may be asking themselves while reading your business plan are:

• How much can I make? – They are usually looking to make around 30-50% annual compound growth on their investment
• How much can I lose? – What is the risk of losing their investment?
• How can I get my money back or out of the company?
• Who else is investing it this company?
So now you know why it is important to have a business plan when seeking investment from a financier, the article will give some useful tips for what to include in the business plan. The business plan should summarise the following points:

• The overall objectives of your company.
• Who your clients will be and their current buying behaviour.
• Who your suppliers are and how much bargaining power they have.
• Who your competitors are and how you will differentiate yourself from them.
• Who are the key personnel and what their core skills are.
• How the business will operate, including the assets needed to run it.
• How much finance is required; and contingencies should sales fail to meet the forecasted level.

To conclude, business plans are very useful for raising finance for a business. Even if you are lucky enough to be in a situation where you do not need to raise capital, preparing a plan will help focus your thoughts, check your calculations, help you monitor results and enable better communication of your ideas.

Business Loans and small business Loans

The word Loan does not need any specific definition nowadays. Yet the meaning of Business Loan at this juncture could well be defined as money borrowed for the specific period of time at the agreed rate of interest by the particular person who operates some business or projects to start some business. The terms of repayments of such loans are also required to be mutually agreed upon in the official format. The definition of Business Loan is very broad and there are different kinds of such loans available to the general business people across the world. The basic factor considered while approving such loans is the viability or the feasibility of the business and actual profitability involved in the business for which the loan is sought. If the applicant borrower is new at his business, or has little experience or skill about his projected business, this may force the lender to think thoroughly before extending any lending or business loans.

It is therefore rather advisable for such new business persons to establish enough business creditability in the market and then approach for any business loans. Business credit may definitely help him getting business loans to great extent. Establishing business credit could easily be done by:

• Initiating or opting for the business credit card account and settle it in full from time to time creating good records
• Procure all the equipments and required supplies mainly from the companies that would report good and favorable standing to the business credit bureaus
• Have really good business plan and poise genuine earning potentials, letter of intent besides any types of customer contracts already laid out successfully

All such attempts could help strengthening the business person’s business credit records and ease the loan application sanctions without many hurdles. Most of time, the lenders or the financing institutions, demand extensive business plans be prepared. One should be prepared to spend a long time fulfilling the necessary certification paper work before applying for the business loan. The business loan is always permitted on the business status as well as based on the personal credit history of the applicant. Hence the business projection must satisfy the lending institution about the profitability and security of the amount to be lent, besides the borrower’s ability of timely repaying the borrowed amount. Different states have different policies for the business loans so it is rather advisable to evaluate the probabilities before applying. Even your local bankers may extend you the desired business loan as they do monitor your company’s growth, turnover and profitability. Try to utilize the most the of loan amount on the projected business to ultimately avoid unnecessary burden on your profitability.

There are different types of business loans available which include the options like secured loans against collateral, non-secured loans based exclusively on the credit worthiness of the applicant, as well as the government loans especially for the small business enterprises, women and minorities. The government loans are usually secured type of loans that are given to the business owner who can prove that the community in general will be benefited by the business project. In most of the government loans, the lending is based on the personal creditability of the applicant.

Some of the commonly and easily available business loans include:

• Loan for acquiring the already existing lucrative and prosperous business expansion
• Loans for Inventory
• Loans for Account Receivable
• The loans as working capital for converting the company’s assets into working capital
• For leasing of equipment
• Loans for the commercial properties
• Loans to finance warehouse facilities
• Loans for running international export – import business
• Loans for franchise
Business Loans