Capitalizing your business is a full time endeavor. Developing your business plan is the single most important step you can take toward your success. To maximize your potential to receive capital, it is vital that you develop a business plan that will guide your company and allow outsiders to picture where you are going and how you plan to get there. Take great care in preparing your plan, it is the road map that will lead you where you want to go.

Lenders or Investors, which way do I go? They tend to look at transactions from very different perspectives. Lenders are mostly concerned with "Can you repay?" While investors are more interested in "How far can you go?" There are certain items of information common to both. That information will be disclosed at the start.

Executive Summary

This is it! Grab them here and you may never lose them. This summary is an overview description of your product or service, its market, your niche, the management, the mission, company structure, pro forma highlights, funding request, use of funds and proposed terms. No more than two pages, sell the sizzle not the steak.

Give a brief yet concise explanation of the following items. Remember, you will fully detail and support each of these later on in your plan, so keep it short.

Desired Amount:	__________________________________________________________
Desired Terms:	__________________________________________________________
Company Name:	__________________________________________________________
Industry Type:	__________________________________________________________
Time in Business:	__________________________________________________________
Principals:	__________________________________________________________
Use of Funds:	__________________________________________________________
Collateral Offered:	__________________________________________________________

Narrative

This can be called the elevator pitch. It should quickly and clearly define what your company does and it should take less than twenty seconds to do so.