The Business Plan as an Investor Sales Brochure

Business planning, and a business plan, is important for any business. Business planning provides managers the opportunity to systematically think through all aspects of their business:  who their customers are, who their suppliers are, who their competitors are—and how they will compete.  Planning allows managers to develop a profitable business model and determine how they will make money. A business plan captures that planning at a point in time and provides a roadmap for management to guide a company towards it goals and to provide an indicator when additional planning is needed. But a business plan is particularly critical for early stage companies or those seeking investment and funding from outside parties as it also serves as a detailed marketing brochure for prospective investors.

A business plan provides significant insight for prospective investors into the various aspects of a prospective investment.  Several often overlooked insights that a business plan should provide are the ability of the management team to plan, how well the management team understands the company’s capabilities, their customers, their competitors, and their costs.   The business plan should indicate how thoroughly a management team understands and plans to address these risks.  The plan should also indicate how well the company’s management communicates it goals, risks, and plans.  Thus, the first benefit of a business plan for prospective investors is that it provides insight into the competency of the company’s management team.

Investors tend to invest in people rather than projects.  Aside from simply providing background information on the management team, a good business plan also provides some practical insight into their management style, approach, and priorities.

Most business owners and managers have a strong understanding of their company, the industry, market and their customers.  They understand their goals and their plans to achieve those goals.  However, many business plans don’t capture all of this information in sufficient detail to allow those outside the company to see this depth of knowledge and understanding.  This is where having an outside consultant draft or assist with a business plan is helpful.

The third party consultant is not there to simply write your business plan.  They should be available to assist you in the planning process and to capture and articulate the resulting document in a manner and format that makes for easily reading to prospective investors.  A business plan consultant should know what investors like to see and the order in which they want to see it. The outside consultant should be able not only to help articulate underlying assumptions and to assist readers in understanding and verifying assumptions, but also to identify and address risks and challenges which will certainly be perceived by investors.

A good consultant assisting with a business plan should be able to help package it in such a way as to capture the investors’ attention immediately and fully address both the benefits and risks of the investment. For anyone seeking capital, a good business plan is a necessity.  The project only has one chance to make a good first impression, so it is imperative that it be done right if one is to give themselves the best chance at success in receiving funding.

Large renewable energy and biochemical consulting firms certainly have experts in the more common areas like of bio and renewable fuels, biomaterials, biomass and biomass power, biomaterials, biochemicals and biotechnologies.  But, they also have an expertise in a wide variety of specialty services like expert witness testimony, ag biotech, agricultural waste, alcohol fuels, algae biofuel, alternative proteins, animal-free products, beverage fermentation, bio-based chemicals, biocatalysis, biodiesel conversion, biogas production, biomass power, carbon intensity, co2 utilization, combined heat & power, conversion technologies, enzyme technologies, ethanol gas, Fischer-Tropsch, food waste, fuel additives, green energy grants, hydrothermal carbonization, industrial enzymes, industrial fermentation, landfill management, microbial fermentation, organic synthesis, plastic pyrolysis, plastic recycling, plastic waste, pyrolysis oil, railroad ties, reactor design, recycled plastics, renewable identification number, rfs2, solid recovered fuels, solid state fermentation, sustainable foods, technical feasibility studies, torrefied biomass, waste to energy technology, and waste-to-hydrogen. Renewable energy experts in these firms should be able to also assist with things like renewable energy finance, renewable energy insurance, techno-economic analysis, due diligence, and feasibility studies.

Lee Enterprises Consulting is the world’s premier bioeconomy consulting group, with over 100 highly qualified experts serving in all these areas.  Take a look at our experts and the services we provide.  Most of our experts are also available to advise and serve as expert witnesses in bioeconomy litigation matters.  For the larger projects, we specialize in putting together full service, interdisciplinary teams with one point of contact.  Call us at 1+ (501) 833-8511 or email us for more information.  See also:  Due  Diligence For Emerging Technologies: Beginning with the End in Mind.