In your search for venture capital don’t expect fairness.

If you’ve ever been looking for a job and eagerly sent your resume off (only to have it ignored), or if you’ve ever been an employer and looked at an in-tray of hopeful candidates (only to flip through them seeking the one that jumps out), you’ll know that evaluation methods are often less rigourous than they should be. It may be a scan for just twenty seconds that has your resume placed back on the desk, and another picked up.

Seeking investment capital is similar. As a business owner, you are often one of dozens, or even hundreds of proposals which are submitted to an investor. The future of your business it seems is dependent upon something as fickle as getting your business plan actually picked up and read.

The truth is that you will often be judged by factors that you don’t even know about. And if your business plan is passed over then you don’t even get to be judged on its merits.

So, what can you do?

1) work on presentation as much as content. If your proposal doesn’t get picked up, then it doesn’t matter how excellent your idea is.

2) acknowledge you will need to get it to a lot of people.

3) follow up. You are selling an idea. You’d follow up a sales call (I hope).

4) ask for feedback. If you get a “no” for your proposal, ask why. This can help you learn for the next one (and the one after that, and the one after that).

5)  forget about what YOU want, except to the extent that it helps an investor get what he wants.

6) consider how you are delivering it. Just as in job hunting, there is more than one way to find the ideal position. If you are sending your resume off in response to job ads, the best you can hope for is to considered equally with other candidates. As they say, the best jobs are never advertised. In raising capital, there are various ways of finding and contacting investors including referrals, networking, and recognised channels such as corporate advisors. Corporate advisors such as us (so yes, I am disclosing my interest!) have the ear of many investors and our opinion is valued.

And remember, there are many stages to your pitch. I am talking here about your initial written submission. When it comes to the next stages, there is even more to consider…more that can go right, and more that can go wrong.

Life’s a pitch: Getting your message across to an investor is a post from: Venture Capital Centre. Click Here To Download Our Free E-Book Explaining Exactly How To Create A Business Plan That Investors Will Read

Writing an effective venture capital business plan can be a challenging task to say the least. Business plans for venture capital require strength, determination and quality since you are going to be talking to the investors that hold the key to the future of your company in their hands.

Unfortunately, no more than 2 to 5 percent of companies looking for venture capital actually succeed with their goal.Some fail on the first attempt and give up, others learn from the experience, correct the mistakes they made with their first venture capital business plan and strategies and go back to the venture capitalists for a second, third and forth time before they get the growth capital they require.

The small percentage (2-5%) that succeed in getting a venture capital investment for their business probably know something that the others don’t!  Those that are successful in getting venture capital know how to position their companies in front of the venture capitalists, they know how to present them to capture the attention of their prospective investors and in many cases this is done in the first instance by the presentation of aneffective venture capital business plan.

It is obvious that this is no small achievement given the small number of people that are successful in finding growth capital from investors, so what did they do?

Here is a closer look at a few things that you can do:

1. Position Your Company – This means being in a successful industry with the potential for growth, ideally one that the prospective venture capitalists know well. Having a chain of ten successful stores is a very strong recommendation and would help your prospects as would the vision of ten successful stores presented in the right business plan to the correct group of venture capitalists.

2. Venture Capitalists Want A Sense of “WOW” – The initial response to your VC business plan needs to create a WOW factor.  An effective business plan is one thing, but a business plan that makes people sit up and take notice is another.  Having a WOW factor in your business plan doesn’t have to mean you set unrealistic goals, it just means that the vision you have, and your mechanism for implementing it are in line and that the venture capitalists reading your business plan can envision it coming to place with the correct injection of growth capital for your business.  The presentation may not be everything, but without it, there is nothing.

Business plans for venture capital will have the most unique approach of all. Venture capital business plans cannot be “canned”. Entrepreneurs who use business plan templates at this level of funding just won’t get this level of funding, its as simple as that.  The people who are reviewing these proposals have seen hundreds if not thousands of business plans and know which ones are genuine and which ones are from the wanna-bees.

A venture capital business plan presentation must be sophisticated, complete, accurate and, yes, it must also be dynamic. It must represent the company just like an ad in The Financial Review or The Australian would represent the company.

More than any other type of business plan, yours must have a solid foundation of marketing stats. Research, research, and more research.

You should create the most outstanding business plan possible. Sometimes there is no second chance at some venture capitalists, so make that first impression count.

Create an outstanding website. Whether your company’s business is based on the internet or not, a strong presence here is essential to convey your professionalism and seriousness to the potential investors.

It’s an mistake to believe the catchphrase that venture capitalists don’t invest in companies, they invest in people. Without doubt, an exceptionally strong management team with a so-so product will get a better response than a weak entrepreneur with a good product. The theory is that it’s easier to improve a product than it is to improve the people behind it. So strut your stuff — the VCs are watching. (This means you should “make that business plan so outstanding that they can’t refuse it, no matter what the product is.”)

Writing An Effective Venture Capital Business Plan is a post from: Venture Capital Centre. Click Here To Download Our Free E-Book Explaining Exactly How To Create A Business Plan That Investors Will Read