The Language of Small Business Texts and Vocabulary Training (for students of Economics) Part 2. Учебное пособие

The Business Plan

−accountants can help you prepare the figures. Some of the bigger firms of accountants will have specialist departments to do just this.

−corporate finance specialists. This is a relatively new profession and such people are mainly interested in helping you raise substantial sums of money from venture capital sources.

If your forecasts are likely to be fairly complicated and to need changing, you might consider using a computer program designed to enable you to produce forecasts and to examine the effect changes will have on the results.

WHAT SHOULD BE IN THE PLAN?

b)brief summary of past performance (put accounts for last three years in an Appendix)

c)indication of how relevant or not past

a)your past employment and business record – identify achievements, not just a chronological statement

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b)the finance needed and what it is needed for

c)shareholdings suggested (if appropriate) prospects for the investor or lender (if appropriate, including possible value of business if floated on the stockmarket, so investors will be able to cash in their investment)

THE LENGTH OF THE PLAN

In the outline above, suggested maximum lengths for each section are given. If your need for finance is small (£1,000 of £2,000) and your business simple, these would be too long. Probably all you will need for your bank manager is two or three pages plus the financial forecasts – a bit more if it is not your own bank manager.

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The Language of Small Business

However, if you need a large sum of money, such as £100,000 plus, you may need to put rather more in than the above suggestions. But keep at the forefront of your mind that you need to get across to your reader what is interesting about your business.

One possible way around the conundrum of giving all the necessary information without boring a potential investor would be to include a note of what other figures and data are available, if requested.

PRESENTING YOUR PLAN

Financiers will assume that if your presentation to them is unsatisfactory, your presentation to customers is equally unsatisfactory. So while it may seem obvious, your plan will look better if it is neatly typed and presented in a smart folder. The information will also be more understandable if you do not try to cram too much on one page. How you should present your plan and who you should approach for money is covered in ‘Raising the money’.

Vocabulary

Definitions of terms

Forecast ECON. Any methodical attempt to tell the nature, extent and direction of future changes in the economic system, such as a change in the size of the population. Such forecasts, called projections, are essential aids when deciding government policy.

Cash flow ACCTS@FTN. (1) the amount of cash made by a business during a specified period which it can use for investment; it can be calculated from the accounts of a business and is a means of measuring its financial strength. To the net profit (after taxation) are added depriciation and any sums put to reserves; the resulting sum, after taking away the expenses of running the business shows the ability of the business to earn cash. Syn. cash generation; flow of funds; funds flow. (2) the information provided by a cash budget.

Balance sheet ACCTS. A statement showing the financial position of a business at a certain date, usu. the end of the financial year; it contains the balances of the ledger accounts separated into liabilities (mainly capital invested, creditors, reserves, e.g. for fu-

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The Language of Small Business

ture taxation, and provisions, e.g. for staff pensions) and assets (mainly land and buildings, machinery, stock-in-trade, cash, investments, and amounts receivable from debtors). Balance sheets are presented in one of two forms:

account-form balance sheet in two columns with liabilities on the left and assets on the right;

report-form balance sheet the more modern form listing assets, liabilities and ownership capital one under the other.

Definitions of terms

Бухгалтерский баланс – форма бухгалтерской отчетно- сти, характеризующая в обобщенных денежных показателях средства предприятия, фирмы и т.п.; в активе отражены сред- ства предприятия и их размещение, в пассиве – источники этих средств на определенную дату; является основным источ- ником анализа финансового состояния фирмы.

Поток денежной наличности – сумма доходов до упла-

ты налогов и амортизационных отчислений.

Summary

1.Если вы хотите получить деньги на свой бизнес, вам надо иметь хорошо представленный, тщательно разработан- ный бизнес-план для обоснования своего запроса.

2.Составление бизнес-плана поможет вам также контро- лировать свой бизнес – вы сможете постоянно видеть, на- сколько ваша фактическая деятельность отличается от спрогнозированной, иэтозаставитвасобъяснитьразличия.

3.Подготовка плана может помочь вам предвидеть успех или провал вашего предпринимательства. Это также

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The Business Plan

сможет помочь отчетливее представить те важные шаги, которые надо предпринять.

4.Подумайте, будет ли один план достаточен для спонсор- ского (внешнего) и внутреннего использования, или два плана окажутся более полезными.

5.Ваш план должен донести до читателей, чем интересен ваш бизнес. Особо подчеркните свои управленческие спо- собности и четко обрисуйте рынок для своего продукта.

6.Оптимальный объем плана для внешнего использования

– от трех до десяти страниц текста, который очерчивает наиболее важные моменты, плюс ряд финансовых по- казателей. Более подробная информация должна быть представлена в Приложениях.

7.Помощь в составлении плана может быть вам оказана консультативным агентством, бухгалтером или специа- листом по финансам. Очень важно опробовать свой план на ком-нибудь независимом, прежде чем вы представите его кредиторам к инвесторам.

8.Воспользуйтесь информацией раздела «What should be in the plan» при составлении бизнес-плана.

9.План должен быть отпечатан и представлен в папке.

10.Включите в план прогноз потока наличности, прогнози- руемую прибыль и, возможно, прогнозируемый бухгал- терский баланс. Чем больше денег вы хотите получить, тем подробнее должны быть ваши прогнозы и тем боль- ший период времени они должны охватывать.

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The Language of Small Business

UNIT 3.

Raising the Money

Raising money needs careful planning, like a military campaign. You should regard it as the biggest sale you are ever likely to make. You need to get your act together to present your case. You need to know how much money you want. You need to know who to approach. You need to know how long you want the money for. You need to know what security you can offer backers. You need to know the business plan, the financial figures and the marketplace, inside out.

But that is not all. You should expect indifference, lack of interest, disbelief and doubt. You have to convince, persuade and excite sober, serious business people about the prospects for your business. This cannot be achieved by overstatement or rash predictions about success. Demonstrations of competence and skill are what is required.

Of course, a few strike lucky. There may be the odd story about bank managers agreeing overdrafts over the phone, or someone being able to pick and choose from a variety of backers who all want to put up the funds. But for most it is a hard, hard job.

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Raising the Money

THE MONEY

NOW MUCH MONEY? WHAT YOU SHOULD ASK FOR?

Only when you have drawn up your business plan and done your cash flow and profit forecasts will you know how much money you need to raise, if at all. Take a few deep breaths before you rush round to make an appointment with your bank manager to see if you can get the overdraft you need. First, your bank is not always your first port of call, as you can see from later pages in this chapter. Second, you should take a second, closer, more critical look at the amount of money you think you will need.

Being optimistic, as anyone starting a business must be, you naturally believe you are going to make the sales you have projected on the timescale you estimated and keep the costs down to your forecast figures. But supposing things do not work quite as you hope. Going back to your lender and asking for more money within a short space of time does not inspire confidence, and you may find your second request rejected, if it is not part of your plan. And there you are with a new business to which you have committed time and money, which is now short of cash, and you are unlikely to find any way of raising more.

There is a body of opinion which says when you first approach your lender or investor, ask for twice as much money as you think you will need. At any rate, be very conservative and go for more money than you think you are going to use. Obviously, the business plans which you present need to tie up with your request for cash, so adjust them if need be, incorporating more conservative figures

There are drawbacks. First, if your figures are too conservative, it may make your business proposition unviable altogether; if this happens, you do not need to worry about being forced to go back for more, your business will not even get off the ground in the first place, because you will not get the initial backing. The

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The Language of Small Business

second obstacle to this approach is that it is the natural inclination of any investor to try to make you manage with less money than you say you need.

The sensible advice is steer a middle course: be pessimistic, while remaining a sensible business proposal.

At this stage you know more than ever before about your proposed business and are likely to be very committed to it. But if the business does not look right – if you do not believe in it wholeheartedly – do not be afraid of ditching this plan and looking for a better alternative. You probably have only one chance of raising money for a business proposal, so do not choose a failure because it was your first idea.

For many people, this is the first point at which you are really learning what makes a business tick. One sign of a successful entrepreneur is that you can learn from your information and experience and can adapt. You want to go for calculated, but good risks. Of course, if you have already started trading, your business course is set.

How much money? £50,000 or more?

There is another odd fact about raising money: different sums of money can be harder or easier to find, depending simply on their size. Surprisingly, it is sometimes said to be much easier to find very large sums of money for your business (£100,000 plus) than sums in the 20,000 to £100,000 range (these figures are an indication only; there are always exceptions). This quirk of business funding is of no interest to the vast bulk of people who want to become selfemployed or start a business in a small way but if your plans are on a larger scale, think about being bigger still.

This oddity occurs because there appear to be more people around who are willing to invest in either small businesses which are past the start-up stage (that is, not brand new) and into a big expansion phase or in new businesses which look capable of very

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