By Clifford Contreras at January 14 2020 22:23:44
They lead to entrepreneurs skimming over the research component leading to a proposal that is disjointed and fails to make a cohesive business case. Having a sample business proposal as a guide detracts from the entrepreneur engaging fully in the business planning process in that they will have only a cursory understanding of the finer details of their proposal. It will not prepare the entrepreneur for detailed questioning around their business strategy and by association their financial projections. We have seen this all too often in presentations for equity finance. It is glaringly obvious when someone does not understand the proposal intimately and this devastates credibility and trust, virtually nullifying your chances of convincing an investor to part with their cash.
There are too many people on the Internet these days offering quick fix solutions or shortcuts to preparing business proposals to attract funding. On balance these solutions are not adequate to get you funding. Here's why: They encourage entrepreneurs to use other people's business proposals as a template that dilutes the originality and can lead to the inclusion of data that is irrelevant.
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.
Don't send your proposal out before you proofread all the pages. Remember that spell check cannot catch words that are correctly spelled but misused. It's always a good idea to enlist someone who doesn't know your work to do a final proofing pass, because all writers miss errors in their own work. Finally, save your proposal and then deliver it to your potential client or funder. The best delivery method will depend on your relationship with the recipient. It's common to email a PDF file to a client, but you may want to make a personal effort and hand deliver a printed proposal to show you're willing to go that extra mile.