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A business plan is normally written for an "internal" audience to guide the efforts of the business owners and managers. The bank is an "external" audience, so the executive summary has translate the plan into a clear, yet brief and concise snapshot of your business operation that anyone can understand. In effect, it is to your loan request what a movie trailer is to a feature film. So it's not only WHAT you say in that one-page summary, but HOW you say it.

By "grabbing attention" I meant a banker has to look at the executive summary and be able to see in about eight seconds that you know what you're doing and that all the detailed answers to his/her questions regarding your business, your people, your customers, the loan, its use, its repayment, etc. are going to be well-documented and fully explained in the package somewhere. The executive summary doesn't get you the loan, but it does help ensure that someone actually READS your plan and LISTENS to your business case.

It appears from the dialogue in previous posts that you've already contacted and are working directly with other consultants on this. Any one of them should be able to guide you on the format and content details, and give you some winning executive summaries they've prepared for other clients as an example. Best wishes!

Hi, I just learned about this site and was looking for some answers on expanding our business. Our business is exactly as you described as difficult to grow because customers take 30 -90 days to pay. I just learned about invoice factoring but am very leary and just need some advice. Thanks

So mark do these people lend on invoices also or just cc receivables.

Justice 1. I would love to help you out. There are pros and cons to factoring invoices and it is very good that you are leary. There are a lot of factoring companies that can hit you with a lot of hidden costs. Factoring invoices is becoming more and more popular, especially for companies that are trying to grow. I have an example of factoring at the bottom of my home page you can take a look at (http://www.spotlightfinancial.biz/)
Factoring is not a loan. You are selling your invoices at a discounted rate to a lender (factorer). This is why it is not your current credit situation that is important but rather the credit worthiness of your customers that are important. Used correctly, under the right contract with a factorer, you can choose freely what customers and or what invoices to factor. I would be leary of a company that wants you to factor all of your invoices. This solution will not provide you with flexibility and will end up costing you more. The draw back for factoring can be cost or some customers may not like being contacted by another company to collect for your invoices. Usually companies will inform their customers that they have outsourced their accounts receivable. If you have one person or more dedicated to accounts receviable you may be able to have that person combine jobs because instead of collecting they are simply faxing a copy of the invoice to a factorer. A factorer will can provide credit checks on new customers and may take on the risk of a customer not paying at all.
There is also some information that can be found at http://slfsmallbusinessloans.blogspot.com/.

Hope this helps!

Hey Mark SLF, thanks so much for the info. I've been checking our your web paige and it is exactly what we are going through. My question on factoring however, we have over 100 customers that we invoice each month. We have over 1,000, but either they are cash or only purchase once or twice throughout the year. So, how would credit checking for our customers work? We collect an average of 90% of our recievables, but it still usually takes 30-90 days to get paid. We have to buy our inventory cash up front, so with growth it really hits our cash flow. We have had so much growth in 06 and expecting double in 07, and now I'm am finding ourselves in that situation where we are having trouble keeping up with the bills and our company has always had a great reputation for paying our suppliers, so I'm worried about that. We are a family business, so payroll is easier but we still have to pay personal bills as well. I just don't know which route to take. My dad started this business in 1980, and it's always been tough to grow, but we have never had growth like this and we always had my brother in law's trust fund to bank roll us, but he left the business at the beginning of the year to do other things, and so we have been spinning around and around like crazy and I can see we have to act soon. I'm just trying to make the smartest decision.

Hello,
A solid Business Plan is the key to sucess.
If you need help,check our company.
www.nextiq.com
Thanks
Mat

Hello,

My name is Solly and i am a financial consultant at a company called MaxAdvance in New York city. We are currently helping several small businesses with our cash advance program. What we do is offer unsecured loans to be used for whatever you desire without collecting a collateral. We won't take compounding intrest, just one set factored rate wich means you can take as long as you need to pay it back without any penalties. CREDIT IS NOT AN ISSUE WITH US. All you need is a credit card terminal. Please feel free to contact me at any time at 1-866-629-4464 Ext:238.

Take care and good luck,

Solly Mizrahi
MaxAdvance
smizrahi@maxadvance.com