Black and White and Read All Over: Business Plans: Selling Your Story

“A riveting read.”

“Kept me bolted to my recliner.”

“Mesmerizing. I couldn’t put it down.”

“A rollicking page turner.”

”An instant classic. Invest in this company NOW.”

Okay. Not likely responses to even the best-crafted business plan. But the point is that by adhering to some basic narrative principles you can turn any document—even a business plan—into a good read that holds your audience captive for the 20 or so pages you have to tell your story. What will ultimately sell your reader is the underlying credibility of your narrative, but it’s important to remember that you are competing with a host of other entrepreneurs for the investor’s time and attention. A well-wrought, tightly “scripted” plan that moves briskly and flows seamlessly is more apt to keep the pages turning…and the investor engaged.

The following principles apply to the writing of a short story. They also apply to the writing of a business plan that gets read:

• Stay focused. The best stories are the ones that follow a narrow subject line. What is the point of your story? Its point is its theme. It's tempting to digress, but in a “short” you have to follow the straight and narrow otherwise you end up with either the beginning of a novel or a hodgepodge of ideas that add up to nothing.

You’d be surprised how often a potential investor finishes reading a business plan and has no firm grasp of your business. By the time an entrepreneur sits down to hash out a business plan, he or she is so completely immersed in details that it’s hard to distill and clearly convey—in the span of two or three sentences—what it is he or she is proposing to do. You’ve spent weeks, perhaps months, even years, kicking this around in your head and batting it around among friends, family, and associates…the investor is being exposed to it for the first time. Focus is critical; the reader needs to know immediately, before turning the first page, what your business is about and what makes it unique and compelling.

A jargon-riddled, eye-glazing executive summary will turn your reader off faster than an economics textbook at the beach. This is the first section read and it needs to draw the reader in. It should stand-alone and generate interest for more information. At the risk of mixing metaphors, think of it as a movie “trailer,” designed to induce excitement and expectation.

• Cover a very short time span. It may be one single event that proves pivotal in the life of the character, and that event will illustrate the theme.
The short story is inherently engaging when it packs events into a short time frame—it adds pace, excitement, and drama. It grounds the reader in the here and now of the author’s fictional universe (even if the events took place in a previous century). Likewise, a business plan needs to address your recent past and immediate future. First, it needs to provide a concise look back and encapsulate your company’s brief history (if it is a going concern); the best indicator of future performance is past performance. A list of milestones and accomplishments gives investors the confidence that the team will execute in the future.

Second, you need to address the ever-critical issue of market timing: is the market ready to embrace your idea, will it take six months to a year to cultivate your market? Investors like to know when the company will begin generating revenue…the sooner the better. The most persuasive way of conveying your “timeliness” is to focus your reader’s attention on recent market behavior and where this market will be six months to a year down the road. Historical trends are tedious and often irrelevant, particularly given the pace of change in today’s world…and 5 to 10-year projections almost always invite skepticism and undermine credibility. (There is, admittedly, a fine line here: you do want to demonstrate your company’s potential for sustainable growth and increased market share…a five-year projection needs to be shored up with highly credible assumptions).

• Maintain a distinctive voice. All successful short story writers are immediately identifiable by their “voice.” Their language, the rhythms of their sentences, even their points of view, are consistent and inseparable from the stories they tell, no matter how diverse their subjects.
Business plans are often the byproduct of collaboration. As such, they can reflect different writing styles—or voices. It’s important that the plan strike a consistent tone. It is also important to bear in mind the target audience: banks, equity investors, and others. Consider tailoring each plan to the audience’s specific interests to show you’ve done your homework and that you know to whom you are speaking.

It is also important to view a business plans as a fluid work in progress, a document that you continually evolve to reflect investor feedback, changing market conditions, and other factors that come into play.

• Make every word count. There is no room for unnecessary expansion in a short story. If each word is not working towards putting across the theme, delete it.

The importance of economy goes doubly for a business plan. Stay on point and avoid redundancy and unintelligible jargon. As a rule of thumb, a business plan should not exceed 30 pages, with an executive summary of three pages or fewer. To maximize readability, use short crisp sentences and bullet points; details such as charts and graphs are best relegated to appendices.

There are a myriad of other pitfalls to avoid in developing your business narrative, including:

• Omitting successful competitors.

• Not tailoring management team biographies to the venture development phase.

• Stressing first-to-market advantage without spelling out barriers to potential competitors.

• Over-aggressive financial projections.

I would also add another pitfall—one that is not limited to the writing of short stories or business plans: procrastination. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the time and effort required to build a solid, investment-grade document. If you need capital in six months, now is the time to put together a plan and raise the money.|