Every business concept has brilliant ideas or elements in them. Unfortunately, great ideas are not enough to produce a great business. I’ve seen hundreds of great ideas, but few of those great ideas end up creating a new business because so many ‘would-be’ business owners lack the experience or expertise to successfully run their great ideas into cash-rich businesses.

Go ahead and develop your business concept. Identify and consult all the essential professionals for the project [accountants, lawyers, engineers, designers, architects, builders, and trades ]. You now have a clear understanding of what is involved in completing the implementation of your project.

He has obtained competitive quotes on the costs that each profession must charge for its professional work, the inputs of the various trades, and the materials for each task and stage of the completed work. Eventually, he has put all this information together with his project manager’s schedule plan. Now you can put each task, stage, and the corresponding cost in a timeline format.

So, the disposition schedule brings together each task, the cost of that task or stage, and the time by which the work must be completed. These are the 3 elements of a reduction schedule.

When all of this is complete, you can now quantify the drawdown schedule, where you need to pay each contractor or professional as they complete the stages of your project.

How to do this? Create a timeline with markers at regular intervals, indicate each month of the implementation phase of the project. [Tip: Number the first month of project implementation as Month 1 etc. Therefore, if there are delays in starting, you don’t have to re-write the spreadsheet.]

Now locate each component of your project on that timeline, show when each part of the task should start and when it should finish. You may find this to be quite complex. If you’re doing this on paper, it may take a few tries to finish. This will depend on the complexity of the project implementation.

If you’re recording the timeline on a computer, you may need to reorder the information a few times to get everything neat. Now mark on this time line axis a place for the expenditure of each component of the work. When this is done for each part of the project, it will be worth $$$ for the amount of capital needed to pay for all the work. Be sure to include the costs of accessing investment financing, commissions to be paid, etc.

By identifying the amount of capital that you and your fellow shareholders have available at the outset, you will be able to identify when you will need to access funds from an investor to continue your development program.

Now your ‘retirement schedule’ is complete. This is vital information to bring to us as we prepare your winning business plan. His detailed work demonstrates to the investor that he understands the complexity of all project dimensions and has thoroughly prepared for the implementation phases of his new business venture.

Because a quality business plan not only sells your investment opportunity to an investor, it also demonstrates your competence. The investor will place a high value on his capacity and preparation, as well as on the profitability or impact of the project.

Make sure you use great professionals to ensure that your great idea becomes a successful start-up in every way!