Problems › We Need a Business Plan for the Bank › Retail
A lender is not reading for ambition. They are reading for whether the downside case still services the debt. This page works through it for retailers specifically — including an unedited excerpt from a real analysis of a retailer.
A lender is not reading for ambition. They are reading for whether the downside case still services the debt. For retailers, this shows up in a particular place. The numbers that carry the answer are four-wall margin and sales per square foot, and the complication specific to this industry is that 22 leases expire within 24 months and nobody can say which stores are actually profitable. The general version of this problem and the one you are actually in have different first moves.
Plans written for lenders fail on the same thing: an optimistic single case with no visible arithmetic. The reader is trying to establish whether they get paid back if things go moderately wrong, and a plan with only a good case gives them nothing to test.
What survives scrutiny is a base case with stated assumptions, a downside that is genuinely bad rather than politely reduced, and a clear line from operating performance to debt service in both. The upside case matters least.
The second failure is inconsistency — a revenue line that does not reconcile to the headcount plan, or working capital that does not move with sales. Lenders read these documents for a living and find those quickly.
These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.
✓ You need the document by a deadline set by someone else
✓ The projections exist in a spreadsheet nobody outside the business has stress-tested
✓ There is no downside case, or it is the base case minus ten percent
The move that usually makes it worse. Writing the plan to be persuasive rather than to be checkable, which is the fastest way to lose a reader who checks for a living.
It is for you if you run or finance a retailer and you need the document by a deadline set by someone else. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.
It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a retailer. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.
The subject is Marlin & Crowe, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $95M revenue, 40 stores.
Excerpt from a real Percision run · Competitive Positioning · sample company profile
The move. Lock in the 8 stores that deliver 14.1% four-wall margin before 22 leases expire.
The leak it closes. Prevents $1.9M annual EBITDA leakage from lease non-renewal
The assumption it rests on. Landlords accept ≤3% rent escalation on all 8 leases — the engine put the probability at 0.75.
| Investment required | $160K total ($40K legal + $120K store refreshes) |
| Expected return | 11.9× on $160K investment via $1.9M EBITDA protection |
| Revenue, year 1 | $13.5M protected store revenue |
| Revenue, year 2 | $13.9M (3% rent absorption) |
| Revenue, year 3 | $14.3M (volume growth from personalization) |
| Exit criteria | If fewer than 6 leases renewed by Month 6, pivot to sub-10k sq ft pop-up format in high-traffic street locations. |
This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.
This question routes to Business Plan Studio, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For retailers it works through four-wall margin, sales per square foot, occupancy cost ratio and traffic density, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.
You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.
Short enough to be read and complete enough to be tested. The financials and the assumptions behind them carry the decision; narrative beyond what is needed to explain them adds risk rather than confidence.
Whether the cash flow services the debt under a case that is not the good one, and whether the numbers reconcile internally. Almost everything else is context for those two.
Match the term of the facility, monthly for the first year. Detail beyond the horizon of the loan signals unfamiliarity rather than rigour.
Materially, yes. 22 leases expire within 24 months and nobody can say which stores are actually profitable — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are four-wall margin, sales per square foot, occupancy cost ratio, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.
Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on four-wall margin and sales per square foot. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.
Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.
Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.
Describe the situation in your own words and we will tell you which analysis answers it — before you sign up for anything.
Describe my situation →Prefer to skip ahead? Go straight to the free diagnostic.