Over the last six months the economy has slipped in certain areas. We see consumers’ confidence down, much like in 2008 when AIG, Lehman and more led to a downturn. As a consultant in the healthcare sector to pension funds, these managers of many millions of dollars in investments echo similar thoughts. From the standpoint of completing business plans, although our Google rankings are much higher for many searches like “green business plans” as one example, we see fewer entrepreneurs and business owners Googling us to address their business plan needs in 2011 versus 2010. Why? Again, it goes to consumer confidence in their ability to raise capital for businesses and succeed in the current market place.
Throughout history, there has always been fluctuation in the markets and economy. This downturn has lasted longer than most, with certain impacts not yet fully felt, such as the real estate market. Nonetheless, the majority of businesses are recession proof, and even in a downturn in an area such as real estate, there are always opportunities. As an example, over the last few years, we have completed a couple of dozen business plans for real estate with different models and different requirements and have many clients that have been successful in raising capital to take advantage of the downturn.
Businesses need capital and without question capital is tight. To access funds, a custom business plan completed by a team of experts that is on the pulse of the current economic situation and funding opportunities is critically important. Typically when providing a free consult on a business plan we look at two primary options for funding: i) SBA or ii) equity investment through angels, private partners or sometimes venture capitalists. SBA does require a good credit rating - a minimum of 680 was quoted by a senior manager of an SBA program at a major bank this week - as well as some equity investment, typically 10-25% depending on various factors. In many cases even startups that have already invested into their business may qualify.
Finding private investors still requires a very similar and high quality business plan, and that is a custom basis, not the negatives in templates I have blogged about often, a plan that is suitable for SBA loans or equity investment. We receive many inquiries about obtaining VC funds, an area in which our SVP of Finance and his team is intimately familiar, including our own custom database of over 750 VC and equity investment companies. However, unless the client has a new breakthrough technology for first phase funding or maybe assured contracts for major sales, or it must have substantial trended sales and investment in the business for VC firms to want to invest in second stage funding. Startups are not the realm of a VC firm unless a technology with little to no competition is involved, but many plans are the types of plans that very often can attract angel or private investor monies.
There are lots of so-called business plan consultants and plenty of people that can write. But the old saying “garbage in, garbage out” applies to those consultants and their clients all too often, let alone flawed templates that are so easy for entrepreneurs to Google and mistakenly use. We are different as we provide in-depth consulting to a custom business plan to suit many funding options and in many cases we get involved in obtaining that funding.
Ask us (tim@thebusinessplanconsultants.com) for a free quote.