PREFACE

Your business needs backing? You need a business plan.

You don’t know where to start? Congrats, you’ve come to the right place! Let this book be your guide in crafting a plan that will give you every chance to win a backer.

This is the third edition of this book. The first, launched in 2011, met with a gratifying response – from entrepreneurs, managers, employees, consultants, academics and students.

They liked the style, the approach, the tools and the case studies. But, most of all, they liked the perspective.

This book is written from the perspective of the backer. It guides you all the way through to addressing the issues that are likely to concern your backer.

It urges you to tailor every word, every number, every fact, every assertion in your plan to the needs of your backer.

The reason behind this is simple. The vast majority of business plans received by a financier end up rejected. Tossed in the bin.

Put yourself in their shoes. They see so many business plans, dozens and dozens of them, every month, that unless it is evident that the plan writer has done the homework and taken the trouble to address their likely concerns, in the bin it goes – even if the business proposition contains elements of (as yet unproven) promise.

This book will show you how to design, craft and shape a plan to the needs of your backer.

Readers’ feedback also included a number of most useful recommendations on how the book could be improved, which I happily took on board for the second edition. I put greater emphasis on the specific challenges faced by start-ups, new chapters on pitching the plan and performing against plan and new appendices on alternative sources of finance, an example business plan in its entirety and what to read next.

There have been fewer changes or add-ons for this third edition, with the main emphasis having been on refreshing and updating. New real-life case studies include the sky-rocketing start-ups Cazoo, Revolut, Chilly’s and Gymshark, but many of the older ones, like Pret A Manger, Reggae Reggae or Woolworths, are retained because they illustrate a specific strategic point so well.

This edition also adds sections on certain issues that backers today are keen to see addressed, for example social media marketing and the influence of influencers (see Part 2 Postscript: Tips by business type) and energy conservation (see Chapter 6 Resources).

A new section has been added as a postscript to Part 2 on the differing emphases placed by investors on various types of business. For example, investors will be more interested in plans for social media marketing in an app business than for a business-to-business manufacturer. But, if you are a business-to-consumer manufacturer and have a sound strategy for landing a social media ‘influencer’, that may well be music to investors’ ears.

And, of course, there is the issue of extraordinary risk, as exemplified by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020–22, which had such a damaging impact on many, though by no means all, sectors of the economy. This is addressed thus:

• ■For the central, fictional case study of the Dart Valley Guest House and Oriental Spa, it is assumed that the pandemic never happened – or the case would no longer be typical for the writing of a business plan for most sectors over the next few years.
• ■In Chapter 3 Market demand, the issue of extraordinary risk is highlighted in a text box, with the shattering impact of the pandemic on the retail and transport, travel and hospitality sectors given special attention.
• ■In Chapter 8 Risk, opportunity and sensitivity, a special text box addresses ‘Black Swan’ risk, one of very low probability and very high impact, yet predictable in retrospect, and highlights the need for such a risk to be managed, where possible.

The main aim of this book, as in the first edition, is to help you write a winning business plan. But the secondary aim has always been to give you a good read.

Enjoy – and the very best of luck with your launch or expansion plans!

Vaughan Evans

P.S. Need a hand in writing a winning business plan? Or an ­independent critique before you pitch your plan to financiers? Let me know at: [email protected]