10 weeks of Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa tips – Week 6 – Business plan is the key! And the keys to a successful business plan.
A business plan is a
compulsory visa requirement for an initial entrepreneur application. It is also
a key to a successful application and meeting the Genuine Entrepreneur Test.
A business plan is a CV (some say “Resume”) of your
business. It is a description of your idea, the actions you plan to make it work.
The steps you have already taken, such as the market research, approaching
potential clients, learning about UK taxes. Plus the steps you are planning in
the future, such as organising marketing and employing staff. Finally, a financial
plan: how you spend your capital of GBP 200,000, how much sales your business could
achieve and profit it would eventually make.
Like with your CV, you would
like to highlight your skills and experience for the “job” (the job of running
your business in the UK), Like with a CV, you should NOT make the most common
mistake of downloading a standard template from the internet. The problem with that
is the same as with most CVs these days. They all look the same, they have the
same “buzz words”. Just like with a CV, they are full of exaggerations, after
all, no one is expecting an “honest” CV, don’t they! As an employer myself (and
an immigration entrepreneur in London), I stopped reading CVs a long time ago
and prefer interviews where I can judge
the person’s reaction on the spot.
Worth asking a question:
why are Entrepreneur visa interviews so poplar now? Perhaps the visa officers cannot
make any judgement from reading yet another “boring” business plan that looks exactly
like all others? Perhaps they would rather talk to you at the interview and ask “tricky” questions
to see your reaction and how serious and competent you are?
The most important thing
to remember is that your business plan will be assessed by the visa officers,
ie by the government employees (not by your industry colleagues and not by businessmen).
They won’t be familiar with the professional terminology, but they will have to
somehow judge whether your business is going to be successful.
What do we do differently? For
starters, we use the structure that reflects the visa requirements. We include information about the applicant (a “CV”), your plans to
create jobs for settled workers and what duties they will perform for what
salary (remember, it is one of the conditions of the visa!). We do not go into
a very detailed financial analysis (the visa officers are not accountants) except
the common-sense and realistic calculations, such as how you will be spending the
capital GBP 200,000, how much sales you expect and how much profit you are
likely to make.
We try to explain how the
business works in as simple terms as possible. This is achievable with most
types except very specialist ones, such as a specialised banking software or
nanotechnology where we have to include more terminology than normal. Even
then, we add explanations of the terms as much as possible.
Most importantly, we insist our Entrepreneur
clients provide plenty of evidence to support their business plan. Running
a business in your home country? Great, add evidence (accounts, bank statements,
clients’ references etc). Have potential clients who may use your services?
Even better, add correspondence with them. And so on, so every claim you make has to be
supported with the appropriate proof. It is likely that your business plan
would be about 30 pages while supporting evidence – 2 or 3 times of that.
What an impressive application you will be
submitting!
To read about our business plan writing services,
provided by our firm of immigration entrepreneurs, visit our website now: http://www.1st4immigration.com/business-plan-writing.php
For
individual advice or to make an application please contact usinfo@1st4immigration.com or visit http://www.1st4immigration.com/index.php We respond emails on the same working day! 1st
4Immigration Ltd, authorised by the OISC, ref 200800152. we operate at the
highest Level 3 of expertise. Office address: 68 King William Street, City of
London, London, EC4M 7DZ.
