Four tips to help you write a more impressive business proposal

So you have a good idea for a business – a new product or innovative service. All you need to do now is secure funding to bring it to life.

For many businesses, this is where they come unstuck. Without proper research and testing, their business proposals aren’t thorough or impressive enough to make the grade with investors or business partners.

So how do you prepare a proposal that’s going to include the right information and make an excellent impression? It all comes down to how thoroughly you’ve tested your concept.

With that in mind, here are four tips to help you write a more impressive business proposal.

1) Test market need

Is there a genuine need for what you offer? The only way to find out is to thoroughly research your marketplace, and identify the scope of potential business.

But that’s not enough. You also need to test whether there’s a genuine need for your specific product or service within that market. If you can establish this with well-researched evidence, you’ll help to make a strong business case.

2) Go to where you need to be

In order to properly research your idea and the market, you need to go to where people will buy.

It’s one thing to have abstract numbers taken from third party research, but nothing beats on the ground feedback from the very people who will buy from you.

And if that means traveling half way across the country or world, then it’s worth it. After all, you may only have one opportunity to impress a potential investor or partner. And you really want to ensure you’ve crossed evert T before the meeting.

And it’s not just idea or market validation that meeting your target customers face-to-face can give you. They may even suggest new ways of using or innovating your offering, and can help you understand better what will appeal to them – making your marketing and sales later on that much more powerful.

If time or location is critical at this stage, you may consider traveling by private jet. Companies like Stratos Jets Charters offer a range of private charter services that can save you time, minimise jet lag, get you closer to your exact destination, and make it easier to work uninterrupted while you travel.

3) Find a gap in the market

You’re not going to impress any investor with a copycat business idea. If you want to stand a chance of landing funding, you need to demonstrate that you’ve identified an as-yet untapped gap in the market.

That doesn’t mean you need to completely reinvent the wheel. While you may have a revolutionary new product or service to showcase, your innovation may simply be approaching an old problem in a new way, and offering a better solution than currently exists.

So investigate the market and your competition, and demonstrate why you’re completely different (and better) than anything that’s come before.

During your research you may even find that you can learn a lot from bigger businesses. Studying your competitors is a great way to avoid rookie mistakes, and get an early head start.

4) Improve your writing technique

As important it is to research your market and completion, you also need to investigate how to write a business proposal.

You can have the best business idea and the most thorough research and perfectly crafted business case, but if you can’t translate it into a comprehensible, professional business proposal, you won’t secure the funding or partnership you need.

Are are some key tips to consider:

  • Break your writing up into sections using headings and sub-headings as this will make your work easier to read.
  • Always check your spelling and grammar, and try avoid informal language.
  • Where possible, include useful graphs or pictures to enhance your document.

Now all that remains the done is start researching and writing your business proposal!

Photo by Corinne Kutz