Proposal Writing To Ensure You Have The Investment

Whatever your career, you need to be good at Proposal Writing in order to secure money for your business development project. You visit investors and maybe venture capitalists to see if they will invest money in you and your business. If you are successful. you immediately enhance not only your business, but also your own career prospects.

An investor views your project as a pure investment and has no emotional attachment to your dreams and ambitions. You need to write a proposal that is structured around a investors needs, not yours. What may interest you may have no relevance to your potential funder. You need a business plan that is 'investor-focused'.

An Investor Focused Business Plan

An investor focused business plan contains relevant information about your project. It addresses their concerns, questions and should allay fears that any potential investor may have. It should meet their needs exactly, because investors exist to make substantial returns on the capital they invest. They want to see a good return on their investment, and the way to do that is by compiling an investor focused business plan, so that it is clear to investors that you understand your business, you are focused, prepared to meet the challenges and competent.

It is always useful to prepare an 'Executive Summary' or abstract from the proposal. Then, in 500 words, or less, give the essence of your proposal so the reader understands your plan. As a rule, if the investor can get their minds around what you hope to accomplish, and how, from reading just your summary, and assuming it is a workable plan, then you should have a good chance of getting the investment you need. If the reviewer is at all confused after reading your abstract, you quite probably will not get the funding. In many ways, the 'Executive Summary' is the most important part of your entire proposal.

You can safely assume that the investor has seen so many poor proposals that people threw together without thinking them through, that they already believe that you have not put in the effort to think through your implementation plan. The investor wants to give you the money, as long as they can see there is a solid potential return.

There are four areas that need to be addressed by your proposal:

1. Management Responsibility
2. Know Your Markets
3. Know Your Product
4. Know How Management, Markets and Product Make Money

Management Responsibility

The strength of management assigned to the project can make or break your proposal. Investors need reassurance that you can manage their money. They will want to see a demonstrable track record in areas specific to the project you are pitching. The ability of management will be tested so be very prepared.

It's also true that investors like to know WHO they are investing in, so you need to include professionally written CVs for the management team along with your proposal documents.

I have a great deal of experience in writing, not only business proposals, but the style of CV you need to go with your documents. Click to find out more about Executive CV Writing for your proposals.

Know Your Markets

Your proposal writing will show investors where your income will be coming from. Your company must demonstrate a strong understanding of your customer base and be able to fulfill their needs. Your plan also must address the issues of any potential new or growth markets. Illustrate any research you have conducted to emphasise this so they can gain a feeling of your understanding of the market you are in.

Know Your Product

investors will want to fully understand your product. They will want you to demonstrate how the product that they are funding will attract customers. The information in this section must be extensive and also feature any potential expansions or upgrades that your product will feature. This will show that you have thought about long-term growth.

Know How Management, Your Market Knowledge and Your Products Make Profits

You must demonstrate that your management ability creates the links and paths between customers and products that make money. This element of your proposal writing must be very strong as ambiguous information, or assumptions will scare off any potential investor. Good proposal writing will create a step-by-step guide of how sales will be achieved and how the profit margin will provide the return on investment that the investor needs. This has to be clearly shown.

Professional Proposal Kits - Accurately quote your projects, multiply your profitability, brand yourself as a top professional and close the sale. Proposal Kit helps you demonstrate that you are the right professional for your customers and makes your proposal writing count.

It's mission-critical, easy, customizable, accurate and immediately downloadable. More details

Write Winning Proposals For Venture Capitalists

You need to secure money for your project. You visit venture capitalists to see if you can get that money. A venture capitalist views your project as a pure investment. A venture capitalist has no emotional attachment unlike you. You need to write a proposal that is structured around a venture capitalists needs, not yours. What may interest you may have no relevance to your potential funder. You need a business plan that is 'investor-focused'.

An investor focused business plan contains relevant information about your project. It addresses concerns, questions and should allay fears that any potential venture capitalist may have. It should meet their needs exactly. Venture capitalists exist to make substantial gains. They want to see a good return on investment. By compiling an investor focused business plan, it will be clear to Venture Capitalists that you are focused, prepared and competent.

There are four areas that need to be addressed:

• Management Responsibility
• Know Your Markets
• Know Your Product
• Know How Management, Markets and Product Make Money

Management Responsibility

The strength of management assigned to the project can make or break your proposal. Venture Capitalists need reassurance that you can manage their money. They will want to see a demonstrable track record in areas specific to the project you are pitching. The ability of management will be tested so be very prepared and get your proposal writing right.

Know Your Markets

Venture Capitalists will need to see where your income will be coming from. Your company must demonstrate a strong understanding of your customer base and be able to fulfil their needs. Your plan also must address any potential new or growth markets. Illustrate any research you have conducted to emphasise this.

Know Your Product

Venture Capitalists will want to fully understand your product. They will want you to demonstrate how the product that they are funding will attract customers. The information in this section must be extensive and also feature any potential expansions or upgrades that your product will feature. This will show that you have thought about long-term growth.

Know How Management, Markets and Product Make Money

It must be demonstrated that management can create links and paths between customers and product. This element must be very strong as ambiguous information, or an assumed relationship will scare off any potential funder. Create a step-by-step guide of how their money will be processed and how the customers money will be received. This has to be clearly shown.

Tie in these Proposal Writing points together and you are already in the top 3% of all venture capital submissions. Good Luck!

Dominic Dirupo survived the Tech Boom and Crash with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank after graduating with Honours at London's City University. Don't Buy Information is an online resource designed to help every consumer make a business decision for free. No Strings Attached.

You are here: Proposal Writing. Now go on to Small Business Information and Ideas

Return To Writing As A Career or go back to the Your Career Change Home Page

---

Looking for something specific about proposal writing?

Just enter your keyword in the search box below to find your answer on this site or anywhere else on the web.

Proposal Writing: Get proposal software and sample business proposals from Proposal Kit