subject: Writing a Business Plan Requires Some Research [print this page] After years of tending bar and helping a couple of different bar owners make hundreds of thousands of dollars, I decided to venture out on my own and open my own pub. I knew that I would either need an investor or a loan, as well as a strong business plan. What I soon discovered is that writing a business plan requires some serious research.
First and foremost, you have to know exactly what you are trying to market and to whom, and that is not always easy to articulate. The investor I approached had all kinds of questions about the location I planned to open my pub, which age group I was trying to draw in, facts about the community where I was hoping to open up shop, and so on and so forth.
I had not really addressed that as well as he was hoping in my business plan, so I had to re-work that before he would even look at he rest of my proposal. I knew that writing a business plan had been described by many of my friends as very challenging, but that was just the first lesson I was to receive.
My prospective investor then wanted to know exactly how much money I needed, and what I planned to use it all for, to the penny. He wanted to know if I planned on using any of his original investment on salaries, how much the rent on the building would be, how much my inventory would cost, the size of my staff and on and on.
Fortunately, when I had first decided on writing a business plan, I focused on this area and was pretty well-prepared for most of his questions. However, I had not dotted all of the I's or crossed all of the T's, apparently, and he told me he still had "some concerns" regarding where exactly his money would be going.
After about a month, I finally a had a business plan set forth on which we could both agree, and most important, that made him happy. He told me that writing a business plan is never easy, and said he liked my idea from the outset, but wanted to make sure that I had a very clear concept of what exactly I wanted to do. He added that it was just as much for my benefit as it was for his.
At the time, I was a little annoyed and put off by the whole situation. I had no idea that writing a business plan would involve so much research and time, but looking back, I am glad that I went through it, because it did make things a lot easier going forward.
To make a long story short, I got the investment, opened up my pub, and things are going pretty well. Writing a business plan was definitely one of the more challenging experiences of my life, but it turned out to be among the more rewarding, as well.
Writing a Business Plan Requires Some Research
By: Son Jarvis
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