Want to be a Business owner, make a Business plan

Are you a filmmaker that wants to start your own production company or maybe just an Entrepreneur looking to start or expand a different type of business?

Starting a new business is no easy task; it takes research, marketing, and a good product/service (of course), but most of all you need capital.  Capital is financial assets or the financial value of assets such as cash. That’s where that age old saying comes from “you need money to make money”. 
Capital can be accumulated from a multitude of different sources; crowd funding, savings, or a rich uncle, but the most common ways of getting capital is by business loans or investors. 

How do you get a business loan or attract investors? A GOOD BUSINESS PLAN.
A business plan is a written document that describes in detail how a new business is going to achieve its goal, from marketing expenses to expected revenue. 
A good business plan is a great tool to get the funds you need to help grow your business, but the odds of actually getting a loan or investmentor are not guaranteed, especially if your plan is not good at all. 
What makes a good business plan? I say knowing and understanding what you’re talking about, but lets hear the opinion of an expert.
Dave Lavinsky and Jay Turo are co-founders of growthink.com which is a business plan development site, where a small team of business and entrepreneur specialist help qualifying and up and coming businesses become all they can be, by helping them acquire more capital by constructing custom business plans for their clients. 
Forbes, the wall street journal, business week, and other periodicals endorse Growthink, so they must know what they’re talking about. 

What growthink believes in is the same as other business plan development firms, but what they emphasize are 5 key attributes to a successful business plan:

• The right overall value propositions

-Successful companies only need to do 1 thing really well; offer a product/service that customers really want.

• The right marketing and sales strategy

-Most business plans include merely a cursory marketing and sales plan. Successful companies have, well thought out and comprehensive marketing and sales plans.

• The right business model

-Your business model is more important than your industry.
You must think through all the possible business models. 

• Action plans developed from reverse engineering success

-You need to decide where you’d like to be in 5 years, then reverse engineer it. 

• Are communicated brilliantly

-Strategies are useless if not effectively communicated. You’re business plan is a marketing document. Who are you marketing to? Investors/lenders/employees/partners.

Growthink fees are higher than most other companies and completion time is even longer (7-14 weeks). Growthink s a great company that says to only represent business that already have a customer base or entrepreneurs with a record of success, all so that the odds of getting the capital is increased. The entrepreneurs that demonstrate key indicators of success are more likely to succeed in their book; which is good so to always show off high approval percentages.
There are many other companies that develop business plans, which can be used with banks, venture capitalist, and angel investors. 

There is a well-known angel investor named Bill Payne whom is an entrepreneur and investor that has a side business of reviewing business plans, so that they get his professional critique before you go to a bank or investor. Bill states that entrepreneur’s focus on innovation and product and loose focus on key business plan preparation and organizing a good management team. Entrepreneurs should research their competition, their market, sales channels, and required capital when constructing a business plan, it is what makes any business plan, but important non the less. Bill can review your plan in 1-2 weeks, touching basis with you and Q&A via conference call.  As for management, Bill believes businesses fail after receiving capital mostly because management teams are unable to execute plans of success. That’s when the entrepreneur needs to re-evaluate his team. 

Angel investors are your guardian angel, they come and give you money when banks tell you No- only when they believe in the success of your business, which is what a good business plan can prove to them.  
Getting a Loan is harder than ever because of high interest rates, and so many people filing bankruptcy; they Don’t trust you! But they might trust a written plan of success.