Business Plan Worksheet

1. Executive Summary

One page a credit officer can read alone: the business, the price, the structure, and why you. Write it last, from the sections below.

• What does the business do, for whom, and since when?
• What are you paying, financed how, with how much of your own cash?
• Why are you the right operator for this specific company?

2. The Business

The company as it runs today, not as the CIM sells it. Lenders read for durability: recurring revenue, customer spread, and what actually produces the earnings.

• How does revenue arrive: contracts, repeat customers, one-off jobs?
• How concentrated are the top customers, and how long have they stayed?
• Who are the key employees, and what breaks if one leaves?

3. You, the Buyer

The resume section, aimed at one question: can this person run this business? Adjacent experience counts when you connect it explicitly.

• What have you run, managed, or been responsible for that maps to this?
• What will you not know on day one, and who fills that gap?
• Will you run it full time, and if not, who does?

4. The Transaction

Price, terms, and where every dollar comes from. This section must reconcile exactly with your sources and uses table and the LOI.

• What is the price, and what multiple of SDE or EBITDA does it imply?
• How is it funded: loan, injection, seller note, and on what terms?
• What is included: assets, inventory, working capital, real estate?

5. Market & Competition

The local reality, not an industry report: who competes for the same customers and why this company keeps winning its share.

• Who are the actual competitors in the service area?
• What keeps customers here: switching cost, relationships, reputation?
• Is demand growing, flat, or cyclical, and what drives it?

6. Transition & Operations Plan

The first year, concretely. Lenders fund continuity: how the seller hands over, who tells the customers what, and what you change or deliberately leave alone.

• How long does the seller stay, doing what, paid how?
• How and when do employees and key customers learn about the sale?
• What will you change in year one, and what stays untouched?

7. Financial Projections & Assumptions

Numbers a credit memo can check: built from verified earnings, with each assumption stated and the debt service covered with room to spare.

• What are the trailing earnings, and how were they verified?
• What do you project for years one through three, and why?
• What does debt service coverage look like in the flat case, not the growth case?

8. Risks & Mitigations

Naming the deal's real risks earns credibility; a plan without them reads as either naive or evasive. Every guide's deal-killer list is a source here.

• What are the two or three things most likely to hurt this business?
• What, specifically, reduces each one?
• Which risk did you decide to accept, and why is the deal still good?