QUICKIE: Business Plan - First or third person?

[DazRave]

As the title says.

Not sure which i should go for really?

I find it harder to write in third person. I'm struggling to make sentences flow but always presumed business plans should be third person?

 

[That Bates Girl]

Who is the business plan for?

If you find it easier to write in the first person, but you really want the finished business plan to be written in the 3rd person, simply write it in first person initially, then when you're happy with it, swap all the pronouns.

Lyds

 

[DazRave]

Who is the business plan for?

If you find it easier to write in the first person, but you really want the finished business plan to be written in the 3rd person, simply write it in first person initially, then when you're happy with it, swap all the pronouns.

Lyds

It's for myself, and that is initially what i have done (after writing out a lot of it for my entry into 'The Pitch') but converting it to third person just doesn't flow/sound right now... which made me wonder if i should bother switching it to third person at all.

 

[Simply Business]

Hmm, if you're pitching on this then 1st person should work just fine. 3rd person gives an air of separation whilst 1st person is exactly that: personal.

 

[That Bates Girl]

If it's just for you then I'd stick with 1st person - although, psychologically it might be interesting to convert it all into 2nd person.

"You are a cutting edge technology company, you will have a turnover of £300,000 in the first year, you will develop long term relationships with your customers to reduce client acquisition cost, etc"

I can only think of 2 reasons why you might want to write something in 3rd person.

1. When the person you are sending the business plan to has specifically asked for it in 3rd person
2. When you want to avoid looking like a one-person business

Other than that, do what works for you (or him, or them, or DazRaveLtd)

Lyds

 

[DazRave]

If it's just for you then I'd stick with 1st person - although, psychologically it might be interesting to convert it all into 2nd person.

Oh sorry, It's for me (as in i'm writing it myself haha!) for a business that won't always just be me running.

Your second point is pretty much what i'm trying to achieve. For now it's just a one man band however i don't intend it to be that way.

Still 50/50 about which route to take!

 

[barryo]

1st person's fine if it's not going to potential funders/investors but for them it really needs to be 3rd person. A company is a legal entity in it's own right and to address an investment-seeking plan otherwise would be considered amateurish. Also, the content and format of a plan for your own use needs to be very different than when seeking investment.

 

[That Bates Girl]

1st person's fine if it's not going to potential funders/investors but for them it really needs to be 3rd person. A company is a legal entity in it's own right and to address an investment-seeking plan otherwise would be considered amateurish. Also, the content and format of a plan for your own use needs to be very different than when seeking investment.

A company as a legal entity can still talk about itself in the 1st person. It's just that it's more likely to use the 1st person plural (we) than the first person singular (I).

Lyds

 

[barryo]

Good point, but in forty years running businesses and making and and raising investments I've never seen a plan presented in other than 3rd person. Perhaps as an oldie I'm out of touch. If so, I've just learned something

 

[DazRave]

A company as a legal entity can still talk about itself in the 1st person. It's just that it's more likely to use the 1st person plural (we) than the first person singular (I).

Lyds

I presume it's down to the marketing/image that the company has too? I can think of a few companies that like a more personal approach and might perhaps choose first person over third.


In the end i went with third person. Harder it may be, but since i do want to use it to seek investment i thought it was the best way i could go.

 

[barryo]

Perhaps the main point is to think it through, preferably follow the preference of the potential reader but in the final analysis go with what you feel most confident in presenting.

 

[DazRave]

Thank you for your replies @barryo and @That Bates Girl.

I'm probably well into the 3rd draft of the business plan now and it's still not quite finished.

On a slightly related question, regarding Business Plans, is the standard CV styled format the norm for presentation? I have a flare for good design and my CV's have always been very, i guess you could call, 'left wing'.

Now I don't want to go the the attention grabbing lengths that my CV has previously gone to with my business plan, but I do favour perhaps turning the Business plan into a branded booklet instead of just multiple A4 pages stapled together.
Honest opinions, Is it a risk worth taking?

 

[That Bates Girl]

Again, it depends on what the purpose of the business plan is, and who the intended audience is.

Lyds

 

[DazRave]

Again, it depends on what the purpose of the business plan is, and who the intended audience is.

Lyds

To be perfectly honest, Investment.

 

[LucaPrintsome]

I would write it in third person and referring to the company as a person as it shows formality and professionalism.

 

[That Bates Girl]

Put yourself in the position of the specific investor that you're trying to attract. Not a general 'platonic form' of business investor, but the actual human being who is going to be reading the document.

What are they expecting to see? What do they want to see? What would worry them? What would impress them? What are they looking for in an investment? What sort of things have they seen a million times and got sick of?

Answer those questions, and you should be closer to an answer to the pretty/boring question.

Lyds

 

[DazRave]

Answer those questions, and you should be closer to an answer to the pretty/boring question.

Lyds

Lyds,

Thank you. I think I've been staring at this plan for so long now I just needed pulling away for a second to gather my thoughts.

The questions you have written seem so obvious (and also something I did initially start to do but seemed to lose focus on).


Darren

 

[That Bates Girl]

No probs.

It's really easy to get caught up in content and design, to get bogged down by the tiny details, or lost in the grand plans. So much so that we tend to forget that most communication is about one human being connecting with another human being.

Lyds

 

[barryo]

Because it's to raise funds, it's critical that the format is presented to suit the audience. Various sources of funding have very differing requirements. What scale of investment are you looking for? If it's less than a couple of £million it's unlikely to be VC/PE and if it's more than (say) £500k it's probably too big for a Business Angel (unless it's syndicated). If you're going to crowd-source, use a bank or an asset lender, you need a different formats again! These questions are much more important than simply 1st or 3rd person.

If you've never raised investment before I strongly advise you not to go it alone, otherwise it's highly likely that you'll be in the 95%+ plans which don't get read beyond the ES!

 

[DazRave]

Because it's to raise funds, it's critical that the format is presented to suit the audience. Various sources of funding have very differing requirements. What scale of investment are you looking for? If it's less than a couple of £million it's unlikely to be VC/PE and if it's more than (say) £500k it's probably too big for a Business Angel (unless it's syndicated). If you're going to crowd-source, use a bank or an asset lender, you need a different formats again! These questions are much more important than simply 1st or 3rd person.

If you've never raised investment before I strongly advise you not to go it alone, otherwise it's highly likely that you'll be in the 95%+ plans which don't get read beyond the ES!

Thank you for the response... it was very informative.

I am going in alone at the moment and I've also never raised investment before either. Which is one of the reasons I'm literally trying to cover as many bases as i can, i'm not scared of criticism.

I'm actually thinking more along the lines of sub 50k for start up capital. I have another thread on UKBF explaining a little bit about my concept/idea.

To be perfectly honest I'm not sure which investment route to take at all and just figured I would plan and gather as much as I could for now so I had as many options as possible later.

 

[barryo]

Be very careful about how much you disclose on forums. Despite being an enthusiast, you don't want to create competitors before you've even got off the ground!

 

[DazRave]

Be very careful about how much you disclose on forums. Despite being an enthusiast, you don't want to create competitors before you've even got off the ground!

I've already got competitors, if anything they have been my inspiration of what to change and do better.

The advantage i have is my USP, in which the competition will find it extremely difficult to match, i have the skills to build and maintain a system. They all use the exact same system which is licenced to them. Costs are on going due to the licence, development is slow and actually costs them money to upgrade to new versions... if they ever come out. Whereby my system can evolve and grow alongside the business, i can easily trial new features and drop them again if it doesn't work etc.

I'm confident my advantage over the competition is strong enough, even if they eventually copy certain elements down the line, they'll almost always be playing catch up.