Business Plan – You and Your Team


Introduction

Now you may be a oneman band or you may already have 10 partners with differentexperience and expertise or you may already have a work force inplace. The point is this is the section where you need to sellyourself and show what you bring to the business and how you aregoing to fill gaps in the experience. This section is important whenit gets to getting funding, because people are not only investing inyour business and the idea, but also in you as a person. So they needto be sure that you have the right skills and background to get thisdone.

Your Teams Skills

It needs to clearly layout the skills you have in your management team and your staff,concentrate on the strengths in your team and show how you are goingto deal with obvious weaknesses. Please note the word obvious, if youhave no one with marketing experience and this is clear then yesdiscuss how you are sending the GM on a marketing course to fill thisknowledge gap. But you don't want to discuss the GM's love ofholidays and so he takes time off every 5 weeks. Only talk about whatis glaring and what needs answering.
The Management Team

This can sell yourbusiness and get you that much needed investment so how do you do it!Explain who is involved, how they fit into your organisation. Includea C.V. For each key individual in the appendix and a paragraph oneach person in this section. Concentrate on RELEVENT experience,skills and qualifications. Also include the greater support network,financial advisers, accountants, lawyers and specialist advisers.

In order to securefunding this section must prove to potential investors that you havethe right mix of skills, determination, drive to make the business asuccess, with a keen focus on the business related aspects includingoperation and market experience, sales and marketing, financial andpossibly man management these are just as important in marketspecific skills.

This section is whereyou show your commitment to this venture so give it your all, letyour excitement, commitment and personality come through this willhelp you emotionally connect with investors.

The last thing youshould discuss in this section is how much money will each individualdraw from the business, this is very important for an investor asthey use this to determine how much of a stake will be left. It isimportant to leave a substantial percentage for business development,especially in the first 3-5 years, this shows a long term commitmentto this venture.

Your people

Give informationregarding the size and demographics of your workforce, break themdown by department if that is appropriate assign responsibilis andtalk about any branch of the business which will be outsourced. Ifyou are already established important stats include retention rates,productivity, average salaries and sales per employee if appropriate.

This section shouldalso contain information about your recruitment and trainingprocesses, it should show a commitment to your people and shouldindicate time-scales and costs involved.

Be realistic aboutmotivation and loyalty of your staff, we all know cold calling saleshas a high turnover, but what investors want to see is how are yougoing to improve staff morale and improve commitment.

We will next be talking about the operation section of the business plan.