Writing Tutorials

How to write a business plan

By Gerry Richmond

This site has been reproduced with the kind permission of Gerry Richmond. His original site can be found at www.business-plan-help.com

Business Plan Attachments

You can attach information that’s not central to your business plan but is useful. This lets you avoid going into too much detail in the body of your plan. Information could include: articles, charts, contracts, detailed financial information, patents, product information, price lists, brochures, newsletters and technical drawings. However, do not expect your readers to study attachments — they want most relevant information in the body of the business plan.

Letter of Confidentiality

Whenever you send a business plan to prospective businesses, financial institutions, or staff there is often an issue of confidentiality. There are several common ways of dealing with this:

Get your recipients to sign a confidentiality agreement
Insert a paragraph at the beginning of the plan that binds the reader to secrecy
Try to not include sensitive information

The last option is not always practical since prospective investors - especially banks - will want to see key financial information. Sometimes it may be possible to openly hold back this confidential information and let your prospective investors know they will have access to it later once trust or preliminary agreements have been reached.

I have included a example of a letter of confidentiality from Brian Finch's book How to Write a Business Plan. Of course this is only an example, and if you are concerned about confidentiality you should consult a lawyer.

letter of confidentiality example

(B.Finch, How to Write a Business Plan, 2001)

Dear Sir,

The Information contained in the Information Memorandum ('The Information') to be sent to you is the property of John Smith and is commercially valuable. By signing this letter XXX acknowledges this and undertakes:

1. Not to use the information for it's own commercial purposes. Not to establish or aquire a business in the same trade or approach or enter into commercial negotiations with any staff, customers or suppliers of John Smith for a period of 12 months following the date of this letter.

2. To keep the information confidentiality. To take all reasonable care to avoid disclosing The Information in whole or in part either directly or indirectly to anyone except its own staff and professional advisers in order for them to work on the proposed aquisition of John Smith. It undertakes only to disclose the whole or part of The Information after its staff or professional advisers have been bound to the undertakings to John Smith on the same terms as this letter.

3. Not to make any copies of The Information without permission and on the request of John Smith to return the documents and to destroy any copies or extracts that may have been taken or made.

The signatory acknowledges that the appropriate recourse for any breaches of this undertaking comprises injunctive relief in addition to damages.

XXX indemnifies John Smith for any actions, claims, costs, expenses, liabilities, losses or payments arising from the breach of this undertaking by itself or any employee or professional adviser.

The terms of this letter do not apply to information that already in the public domain or becomes so, other than through a breach of this undertaking.

The signatories agree that this undertaking shall be governed by Australian Law.

Yours faithfully,

John Smith
Agreed by,
Date.........................

Jim Jones for XXX
Date.........................