If your emerging brand is looking to raise funds, it’s extremely important to get your sales forecast right. It’s great to present an optimistic outlook when discussing potential growth, but experienced investors need to see the substance and logic behind your projections before they have faith.
In this talk, former investment banker Marc Levit of Forecast Easy, provides a guide on how to make your brand’s pitch more palatable for investors. For instance, breaking growth projections down into digestible segments provides investors with more opportunities to jump on board with aspects of your business plan, rather than allowing them to make a blanket judgement.
When painting a picture to investors, Levit recommends breaking down five-year growth plans into channels like on-premise, off-premise, and e-commerce or by SKU/category and accompanying each sub-projection with specific reasoning. He also advocates for transparency with investors in regards to expectations of price per unit and cost of goods sold per unit.
Levit advises, “Being very thoughtful about each channel and each product that goes in (your projection) is essential for management of your business and is also essential to bring other folks along the ride with you.”