1.      To raise monies for companies, a Business Plan (an Action Plan for smaller companies) will be required. The Business Plan will probably be around 24 pages plus appendices, whilst the Action Plan will be around half a dozen pages.

2.      The Business Plan will include inter alia the following sections: Executive Summary, Key Personnel, Company History, Products and Services, The Market, Marketing, Risk Factors and Financial Highlights.

3.   Accompanying the Business Plan will be the financial projections, which will probably have detailed month-by-month and annual profit and loss accounts and cash flow forecasts for the first three years plus annual projections for Years 4 and 5. Projected Annual Balance Sheets will be also required.

4. Beware: the vast majority of Business Plans never achieve what they set out to do; usually because sales do not materialise as quick as expected and costs are usually far greater than originally expected. 

5. Raising finance takes time. To arrange a simple bank loan or overdraft will usually take a minimum of a month; whilst raising monies from investors in three months is quick going and normally takes 3 to 6 months – sometime more.

6. Finance can come from many sources so pick what is best for you – for example, do you need an overdraft, a Bank Loan, an EFG (Entreprise Finance Guarantee) government loan, grants, invoice discounting, factoring, stock finance, soft loans from “friends and families”, private inventors or Business Angel monies, venture capital (institutions providing new and early stage funding) or private equity (institutions providing early stage / development finance or monies to finance Management Buy-Ins or Buy-Outs) or monies from a company (Corporate Venturing) or Venture Capital Trusts, which are publicly quoted companies, which invest in unquoted companies?  

7. Always raise more money than you think and use some of it as ‘financial” padding – because if you run out of money, you will find it difficult to negotiate extras funds from your Bank and if you have to raise more monies from investors, your shareholding will be diluted significantly.

8. If you are raising monies, which entails giving an investor or institution a share of your company, you will have to be clear at the outset how they will make a return on their money – for example do you envisage a trade sale, going public or buying-out the other shareholders via a Management Buy-Out or just continuing to trade with an agreed dividend policy? 

9. Raising monies is not easy but if you believe in your self and your company, you must remain committed and focused and do PERSEVERE. Anita Roddick of Body Shop fame had great difficulty raising money for her second shop – but eventually found a private investor. Thirty years later, she sold the company to L’Oreal for £625 million. 

10. Do not try and re- invent the wheel; ask JFP for advice on sp@jfpstrategic-planning .co.uk or 01344 872 230.