ChApter 5 | YOUR RESUME AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT | 79
First, make a list of every job and
experience in which you produced positive
accomplishments for any organization,
even if you were a volunteer or working
for yourself. Since you’re not writing a
standard resume, dates of employment are
optional. You may be able to create this list
by cutting and pasting old resumes, or you
might just start from scratch. Also, it’s okay
to include personal information about your
hobbies and family status in this resume.
Your financial backers want to know you
as a person.
Under each organization, list the busi-
ness areas you worked in—for instance,
sales, management, delivery, credit, and
so on. Now, set out the specific things you
accomplished for that organization while
carrying out your responsibilities. This
information will become the raw material
from which you choose the accomplish-
ments most likely to support your proposal.
Remember, this isn’t the place to be
humble. Getting a new business off the
ground is no project for the meek. Maybe
you reduced costs for your employer by
redesigning a delivery route. Perhaps you
designed a better canoe or came up with
a new marketing strategy that increased
sales of tortilla chips. Maybe you figured
out how to improve the efficiency of a
computer system or revised a recipe to
make brownies taste better.
Once you’ve completed your first list of
accomplishments, write a statement that
shows how your specific accomplishments
relate to your ability to run your business.Include experiences and achievements that
support your case and exclude those that
are too general or off the point. Emphasize
your knowledge of how your potential
business works and your knowledge of
and respect for financial realities.
Now that you understand the process
and the objective, write a first draft of your
business accomplishment resume. You
may have to rewrite it several times to get
the right perspective. Depending on your
experience, your resume probably should
be between one and three pages long. Ask
someone to read your drafts to make sure
you’re convincing the reader that you’re the
right person for the job. You needn’t prove
you can walk on water, but you should
show a good understanding of business
realities.exAmple 1:
Here’s an example of an inadequate
statement for a credit manager’s job.
This description doesn’t give a potential
investor any information about the
credit manager’s ability to run a
business:Credit Manager, XYZ Company:
Supervised two clerks and the accounts
receivable and billing sections.exAmple 2:
Here is a much better version that
details the credit manager’s positive
accomplishments for the company.
It shows that the credit manager