Your Business Plan; Are You Making a Living or a Killing?
“Go ahead. Make my day.” Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry) – from the movie Sudden Impact
I get the opportunity to see a good number of business plans / pitch decks each week and I focus on the section of the plan I believe is most critical. While some may believe it is the management team or barriers to entry; to me it is the financial projections. So at this point, you have to be saying, “Of course; he is a CPA. What is so surprising about that?” The truth is, there is no other place in a pitch where one can get a better picture of the “directional indicators” of a plan. Please allow me to explain.
Years ago, a colleague of mind was tired of working the long hours at our firm and wanted to become his own boss. He bought a Basking Robbins franchise. He accomplished his objective; he still worked long hours but now he was working for himself. However, at the end of the day, all he did was replace salary with small business income; from a financial perspective he was still just making a living.
If you are doing a pitch before investors, remember they are focused on high rates of return; getting their money back in multiples of what they invest. They are looking at what we euphemistically call “making a killing” and they are looking for you to “make their day” by showing them how. So where does the projection fit in to all of this?
First, what is the size of the opportunity in your eyes? If your projections show that in five years, your revenues will be $5 – 10 million, you cannot make enough money to attract most investors. Please do not get me wrong; growing a business to this size is a real accomplishment and can be financially rewarding. It is just not a killing.
Next, does the financial model follow the plan? If the plan is a SaaS model with monthly subscription payments, revenue is simple; multiply the expected users by the planned fee and that should be revenue. So now I can see how many users you expect to have (market share) as well as the monthly payment (market price). I can also look at how you plan to get to that level of users.
Finally, are the projections logical? If your margin or operating costs are substantially different from competitors, do you explain why or are you just plugging numbers to provide a financial result some online advice indicated was what investors want to see? It is a simple logic test that many fail on a daily basis.
Shakespeare said, “The eyes are the window to your soul,” and I think your financial projections serve the same purpose as it relates to your plan. So after you get done “crunching the numbers” please step back to see what they really say. There is nothing wrong with creating a nice profitable business model that might allow you to make a very good living for a long period of time. I have had hundreds of successful clients who have followed that path. Just keep in mind how this approach has to “step up” if you are looking for that investor who wants you to make their day.
