By Gregory Daigle at January 16 2020 06:24:13
There are many very good examples of sample business proposals on the Internet, but there are also some scarily bad examples being held up as first class efforts. Having spent the last 20 years as a professional banker and investor I can say this with some degree of confidence. The bottom line is that even if you do manage to stumble upon a great example it won't be relevant to your unique business or the market dynamics that pertain to your business idea. The parties who will assess your proposal and decide whether to invest are generally well trained and experienced. They read hundreds of these documents every month and can spot a copy and paste job a mile a way.
The only time we would recommend using a sample business proposal is if you are approaching a bank for finance and they provide an example of what they would like to see. However, banks don't provide samples, they provide templates, which is basically them trying to educate entrepreneurs before they apply for finance. In this case this is the bank endorsing a structure for the proposal so it is OK. It still leaves all the blanks to fill in though so it isn't really a full solution to your problem.
Will A Sample Business Proposal Help Me? Using a sample business proposal is OK if you are just looking for some tips on how to structure your own proposal. Of course this is predicated on the fact that the example aligns well with your business and is a good example. If you are looking around the Internet for sample business proposals it's a fair bet that you are not sure what is a good example and what is a bad one. For this reason you may borrow heavily from a poor example and this will actually detract from the thrust of your effort.
What is The Solution? This might all seem a little bleak but there is an easy solution to this dilemma and it demands a little more of your time and effort in return for a deeper understanding of your business. You have to learn to write a business proposal rather than using a sample business proposal to take a short cut. Don't do the latter as it will make the experience of approaching investors and financiers unnecessarily painful and will dilute your experience of creating your vision from scratch and your strategic understanding of your own business. Plus, you will be found out!