A company’s success or failure depends on its people. Those who read your business plan will want to know about the personal histories of the owner and top managers and will also want to know the place of non-management employees within the company.

Personal Resumes

Most people use personal resumes to sell themselves to a company when they are trying to land a job, but you can use the resume in the business plan to sell yourself to a potential investor. Such documents should highlight the skills of each top management employee, the reason they were chosen for the job, and how they will help the company succeed.

Typically, a resume takes up just a single page. It should include a work history, including names of former employers as well as dates of employment, starting with the most recent employment and moving back through time in chronological order. The history should include a description of what the person did for each employer, and, if possible, how the person improved the employer's business. There should be a section on educational history, showing institutions attended, including dates, major areas of study, and degrees received. Additionally, the resume should list professional affiliations, civic accomplishments, awards, and other honors. Finally, the resume should note any special abilities that will help the person make the business successful.

This does not necessarily have to be a standard resume that you would send to a potential employer. Dates and names are not as important here as accomplishments, especially those related to running a business successfully. And because potential lenders are trying to learn about you as a person, information about your family and your hobbies would be appropriate here as well.

Your Staff and Their Jobs

It will also be necessary to decide how many employees you will have, the kinds of jobs they will do, and their schedules. For example, if you plan to use part-time employees, it would be appropriate to note here how may hours per week each person would work, and when they would work.

A job description would be useful here. This would be a relatively detailed list of each employee's duties, the level of education the job requires, and other information a new employee would need to get started on the job. Such a document may also prove useful later in case you have to take out a "Help Wanted" ad to fill the position.