I recently had a client who wanted to buy a professional business plan from me for submission to the NEF for a business loan.

Now that is not an unusual request – I’m usually busy with about six business plans at any one time. What made this one different was that she could give me no data to work from.

Just imagine. You want to acquire about R2m from an NEF loan to start a shuttle service and you have no idea what turnover you expect, how many cars you’ll need, how many trips a day you expect, how much you will charge per trip, how much fuel you will use, what the insurance will cost. I was supposed to come up with those numbers for her!

In other words she wanted me to plan her business. Well, unfortunately it just doesn’t work like that. A business plan is a presentation of a vision for the future. The client must do all the research and present me with his or her best estimates of all of the elements of the business. My job is to put that together, look at the result, question the assumptions, help figure out how to improve the outcomes or make them more realistic and gradually polish the plan to a finished product that is workable and probable.

Need help with a Professional Business Plan?

Contact us today or set up a free meeting with our CEO, Derek Springett to discuss your options. We have been offering expert business advice and services since 1971. You can also read more about why you should choose us for that all important business plan when applying for a business loan, by following this link.