How to Write a Business Proposal in Nigeria – and Possibly Woo Investors!

If you’re here to learn the simple guide on how to write business proposal in Nigeria and win the heart of your clients without much ado, this blog post will walk you through the right path.

Have you ever met a client who demanded you write a business proposal for him/her before the negotiating project(s) will be awarded to you?

If yes, I know how it’ll feel because it might seem challenging just like when I was accosted by a big client from United States of America (USA) who told me that without a detailed and formal business proposal, no job for me!

Business proposals have become common in today’s world, with many not knowing how to go about writing it. But you may be asking…

What is Business proposal?

A business proposal in Nigeria is like any business proposal in the world.

It is a written document stating an intended form of business to a client, seeking their support in the process. Support in the case isn’t just monetary, it could be in psychological or material form – something that’ll benefit your intended business.

But Business Plan is NOT Business Proposal….

It’s so sad that many people outside there are interchanging the term business proposal for ‘business plan’, which is 100% wrong because both terms are quite different.

Yes, writing business proposal in Nigeria is different from writing business plan and you shouldn’t make any mistake taking the two as one. But they both share certain similarities such as;

• They are both written document
• Proposal is for a client(s) or sponsors while your business plan doesn’t need to be submitted to anyone, you could just write a plan that’ll guide your daily operations.

Before setting out to write a business proposal in Nigeria, some personal and financial-oriented questions need to be asked, with appropriate answers given.

Now, let talk about these questions:

Questions to Answer While Writing a Business Proposal in Nigeria

·       What’s the business all about?

Defining your business model to yourself is the first step to writing a good business proposal. What does your business intend to do, what are the necessary skills required to run that business successfully, have you got those skill, if yes, that’s good. If no, what are you doing in other to learn the ropes of such business?

Lots of questions that you’ll be asking yourself and providing answers to. It’s best all these are written down, as most of us lack that habit of writing important things – yes, important things because in the long run, it’ll determine the level of success or failure our intending business.

·       Who are your target audience?

This is trivial question that needs to be answered. Once you define your target audience, you decide how you’ll be scaling up your business or service to better suit them. Your target audience could range from people at a particular geographical area, to age grade – let’s say the young folks or their counterparts.

If you’d be offering more than a product or service, then I’m sure not every product will be for everyone. In this case, you’d have to define the audience for each product or service you intend offering.

·       Size of Capital

If you want to write a business proposal in Nigeria that’ll speaks your business and as well, convince your prospective client, you’d be soliciting for a kind of support and most times, this is monetary.

You should define how much will be needed to take your business off the ground to somewhere around the zenith. What plans have you set aside for getting your capital, do have some money or equipment that’ll aid you in starting this unique business of yours? Or, are you thinking of getting a loan?

To be frank and sincere, people won’t think of supporting you, if you don’t have anything in form of finance in place, your client(s) will require you to show some working – it’s your business and not theirs, you have to remember that.

·       Why this business?

What makes this business you intend proposing unique, how is it different from other businesses, are their similar businesses with similar profit opportunity, if yes, why are you going for this one, is it more or less stressful, does it helps the environment or degrades it? If it does, how do you intend to minimize to the lowest level its dangerous effect to the environment?

These are some questions that needs well-articulated answers as they’ll be needed by your client meaning, they should appear in your business proposal.

·       Profitability

This is probably the most important question you’d be providing answers to, the most important to your client(s) as they wouldn’t like to invest or support a business that isn’t profitable.

This is the most difficult question to provide an answer to, how does your fantasies turn out to be real profit?

It’s a business you’ve not yet started but you may draw some insights from those already in the business, but if you’d be starting something ‘unique’ that no one has done, then you’d have to define how your profit will be made.

With all these being put into consideration, you could begin crafting your unique business proposal in Nigeria.

·       Writing the proposal

Since a proposal come in the form of a written document, there needs to be a way to structure it according to standards. Minds you, this is not a one-page document – business proposals could run into lots of pages so it’s best you take your time to effectively structure it.

Now let start!

How to Structure and Write a Business Proposal in Nigeria

1. Cover page and Letter

This is the first part of the proposal document – the cover page followed by the letter. The cover page will include specific details about you and your intended business, and also the person being addressed to. Coming over to the cover letter, you’d have to give some brief info about the business to want to engage in and how beneficial it is before heading over to the next section.

2. Index

Next on the proposal will be the index of content which will make it easier for anyone reading to navigate the document. They could skip the already read pages and move to the unread page. The pages should be properly numbered.

3. Reason for choosing this business (Content)

This is the part where the questions asked above begins to come in, why you choose to venture into the business, problem this business will solve, and what makes the business unique from other businesses.

4. Problem solving strategy

You highlighted some problem above, how your biz intended to go about solving those problems and what strategies are to be employed, this is what comes next on your document.

5. Duration

What’s the duration you’d be taken to accomplish such, your clients will need to know this so as to know the kind of investment to wish to venture in. The duration needs to be feasible not to long, and if it’s going to be, give reasons why.

6. Cost

Telling ourselves the truth, the reason for writing a business proposal is to get assistance from investors in form of finance and materials for the business. The price for the whole cost of things should be stated properly and how they’d be utilized.

Most time, investors would want you to have something in place before reaching out to them for financial support.

So, it’s imperative you already have some money to start out yourself.

Conclusion – Writing a Business Proposal in Nigeria

To write a business proposal in Nigeria could prove to be a quite difficult task as most people lacks persuasive writing skills and this has deterred a lot of them from getting started with that outstanding business idea on their head.

After going through this piece I’m sure you’d be well equipped on crafting those wonderful business proposals for your clients within and outside Nigeria.

But if you still find it difficult to write, there are lots of agencies which could help you out with it.

And you can hire us @ GbolaByte Web Solutions to help you write a great business proposal.

Thanks for reading this piece, if you find it interesting do share it with your friends!