Monday, November 5, 2007
Past, Present or Future Tense
I am finding comflicting messages about how I should be writing my business plan. I belive that Judy told us that it should be written as if you were already up in running. Instead of "my business will employ 12 people"..."my business employes 12 people". But the template I am using for my BP uses future tense. What is everyone else doing? Also are you speaking about yourself as a third party "The Management will..." or are you using your name?
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2 comments:
I've found conflicting info as well and am interested in what everyone has to say.
In case no one gets back with a definite answer, here are my thoughts on it. A benefit to writing it in the present is that you don't have to go back and change the tense once you are up and running (as I assume we will be using our BPs as a framework that'll keep us on track, right?). Furthermore, in case we will need additional investors, it'll make it easier not to have to go back and make those corrections as we'll have better things to use our time on.
And as for the 3rd person vs 1st, I think the 3rd sounds more professional, no?
I agree with Zrinka. 3rd person definitely sounds more professional to me. As far as tense goes...I've also found all of my examples and templates to use future tense so the way I'm writing mine is to use present tense for everything I'm doing now (or have done) and for anything that sounds like a forecast or goal, I'm just going ahead and using future tense. I don't know about anyone else but it feels a little weird to me to write a mission statement saying "I have taken over the world" when I really haven't done so yet (can we say loss of credibility?). I guess what I'm saying is not really anything groundbreaking but the challenge will most likely reside in trying to figure out what should be present tense and what should be future tense. I don't think it's wrong to use future tense for stuff that you're planning on doing because obviously if you plan to build your location in February and it's still November, you would look crazy submitting a business proposal saying "We have built a location in February 2008.." (and again...can we say loss of credibility?) Bottom line...I don't think it's bad to use future tense if you are using it to clearly show that certain things are part of your timeline and projections. It certainly isn't unheard of to use it as opposed to lying or imagining in your own head that you've actually done something (like hiring 12 employees when you're running the business all on your own) when you have not yet done so. I think most of it will just depend on what position you are in. If you are writing to secure investors to start the business up, then your plan will definitely use more future tense than if you were already operating and writing your plan to just figure out a direction for your company.
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