Business Proposal Help

same question except i'd like to skip the business proposal advice step and was wondering if some of you so-called wealthy businessmen could just straight up give me $500

Need more info.

If it's a new project, you'll need input costs, projected revenues, market analysis, etc.

Just draw a picture of a banana riding a raft up a river in crayons.

pm me with your email and i can send you a sample one.

Sort of makes me shoot in the dark here, but here's some generic help:

1) Describe idea
2) Offer some sort of analysis to show why this idea will make money, i.e. there's a market for it
3) Project cost of implementation
4) Give three scenarios (conservative, medium, optimistic) for implementation, market penetration, whatever this has to do with
5) At all points, explain your assumptions and why you think these assumptions are valid

Sorry it's so generic, but you didn't give me much to work with.

This question is timely though, as I just presented a build project today, to try and tap into health care stimulus funds. Also hiding my details:

1) Described idea (a needed form of acute, interventional care)
2) Hired outside consultant that gave review of similar programs elsewhere and market available for us to tap
3) Hired architect that gave pretty pictures and hard number estimates
4) Fully open budget, from food to house keeping costs
5) Showed break even census and projected fill time to that

Hope that helps.

Simple tip: find out how your CFO likes financial projections and use that method in your proposal.

Structure isn't that important, just make sure you hit all these main points-

1) Executive Summary - A compelling overview of the plan that stands on its own

2) Company Overview - Can include your mission state, history of the company, origination of the idea, and overall strategy and objectives.

3) Your Product - Description of what you're selling, pricing, comparison to existing products, and its current stage of development.

4) Market Analysis - Have a look at some professional analyst reports to get an idea of how to structure this. Think about 'porter's 5 forces' to get you started.

5) Marketing Strategy - Your target market, pricing strategy, distribution strategy, advertising, sales, etc.

6) Operations - Just the scope of your operations. Can include info about production, estimated costs, margins, expenses.

7) Development - The steps needed to ramp up your business from its current status. Include a strategy, timeline, expense estimates.

8) Management - This is the background of the principals, personnel needs, organizational structure. And needs to speak to your ability to execute the business strategy. This is a summary, put the full bios in an appendix.

9) Summary of Financials - Summary of your financial assumptions, forcasts, capital requirements, risks, exit strategy (offering, valuation, deal structure.) Build a full set of financial profora to include in an appendix.

this is for a business plan tho, right? not to blame you as "business proposal" can be easily interchanged with "business plan"

The other thing is to start figuring out who will be for it and who will resist and why.

Then, address the potential concerns of the folks that are resistant. Manage perceptions. They are more important than reality.

Finally, in general, I prefer to hit the take home point right up front. Figure that you have about a minute of full attention from these folks. Make sure everything essential is said in that first minute. After that, they will be thinking about how much they want to go play golf, what they are going to have for dinner, what sex position they will use tonight, etc.

Everything else needs to support that first minute.

I have found this to be the best business plan outline for most new projects or all-new business ventures and best of all its free. I've used it with dozens of clients with great success.

http://www.business-plan.com/outline.html

Oman has a very important point. A proposal is MUCH simpler than a business plan. What everyone here has seemed to outline is a business PLAN.

A proposal is more like, "Here's what we propose to do for you - and here's what it is going to cost".

Now, depending on what you are proposing to do, it could require a distribution plan/strategy, etc..

I've done plenty of proposals. I try to keep them short and sweet - usually two pages of info.

Topics:

Background (if needed)
Description of Proposed Work
(E.g. "In order to penetrate this untapped market, our plan is develop a new line of widgets (or a new service called "Health Right") that meets the specific needs of these customers.)

If you are proposing a new line of business/service, you can then outline steps and a timeline to the development of that business/service.

You might need a "product distribution" paragraph

You might need a "deliverables" section, where you list or tell them exactly what you will deliver (if you are delivering a specific product or service).

You definitely need a cost section

You might need a revenue projection section (if you are suggesting a new line of business or service)



Ask your boss if he has a template that he'd like you to follow.

project plans should be very specific IME/IMO, let them know you understand their particular business challenge. i would break it down by what is the assignment, what is the challenge,what are the solutions to that challenge, how long will it take, what is the cost and how are those costs assesed, a timeline/schedule/list of benchmarks, payment terms, summary/recap.