A Business Plan Consultant can help You Create an Effective Business Plan

An Experienced Business Plan Consultant Will Take the Time to Understand Your Business

A good Business Consultant will take the time to get to know you and your business. The business plan consultant will issue you crucial business plan questions and requirements for you to answer as part of the offered Business Plan Services, which when analyzed by the consultant, will build an effective Business Plan. 
Nobody can solely write a business plan for you.  The business proprietor and management team must be integrally involved in the business planning process as you know your business better than anyone else.  A good Business Plan Consultant harnesses the requisite information by asking the right questions in order to build a solid Business Plan, while applying and providing valuable expertise and experience during the planning process.

There are Huge Business Plan Benefits When Working with a Business Consultant

An experienced business consultant offers years of valuable Business Plan Writing Services and business development experience. The consultant has the benefit of working with a wide range of businesses, businesses at different stages of development and maturation, and different industry sectors.  The consultant applies all that acquired knowledge and experience to the development of your business pan.
If you hire a Business Consultant early on in the business development stage, the consultant will not just help to build an effective Business Plan, but also be available for advice as you implement your Business Plan and grow your company.  A Business Consultant can show you effective ways to maximize profits and margins, while minimizing expenses.  Moreover, a Business Consultant can introduce you to important business networks and connections to bolster your company operations.

Should You Hire a Business Plan Writer to Develop Your Business Plan?

The answer is Yes and No.  You do not want Business Plan Writers or technical writers to build the business plan.  You can use a professional writer to make your plan read better and be more professional after the business plan is amply highly-developed. For instance, hiring a business plan writer to adapt your business plan to raise funding is a great way to go.  However, hiring an experienced Business Plan Consultant can be quite advantageous when building a business plan.

Modeling The Business Financials Section of a Business Plan

Have a Good Strategic Plan to Start

If you develop your Strategic Plan effectively, completing the Financials should not be difficult.  The principal reason why business owners have such a hard time with the Financials Section of a Business Plan is oftentimes due to a cursory job on their Strategic Planning (as well as other important business plan sections).  Financials are typically not realistic because there is small correlativity with in the business plan, particularly with the Strategic Plan section.  Guess what lays the foundation for a successful Strategic Plan?  The proceeding section, the Marketing Plan.  The order and type of section with in a business plan are significant since each business plan section should build on the other, which will correlate and culminate in developing financial data for easier financial projections.

Develop Realistic Financials

Financials need to be realistic to be believed, and if anything, they should be defined from a conservative point in frame. Too often as Business Plan Consultants I see the extremes- too many numbers, too many details, or conversely, too few. Find a balance.  If you build out your Financials as a direct result of your Strategic Plan, this process results in numbers that are realistic and achievable.  An option is to build two sets of Financials, conservative and a little more aggressive.  We find if you have truly conservative numbers, you will often exceed your Plan, which is a great Psychological resurrect for any company in any stage of development. 

The Main Kinds of Business Financials

You should have two sets of Financials, simple and detailed, as well as, conservative and best case.  The following types of financials are typical for a Business Plan.

• Cash Flow: Monthly basis for 12-36 months. Yearly and Quarterly basis for 3-5 years.
• Income Statement: Monthly basis for 12 months. Yearly and Quarterly basis for 3-5 years.
• Balance Sheet:  Yearly and Quarterly basis for 3-5 years.

The Financials Should Interrelate

When you are constructing your business financials, understand how they relate to one another. Using a Business Plan Writer, as well as, a financial software program can be very helpful here as it automatically makes those correlations.  There’s a lot of back and forth between the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement.  The Cash Flow Statement is the most important Financial for many reasons but chiefly because it shows in detail how much cash is necessary to finance and grow your company.

Assumptions Are Critical

A very important component of the Financial Section, and what I see constantly overlooked as a  Business Plan Consultant, is the Assumptions area.  This details the assumptions you have utilized in constructing the financials.  You should also list the various calculations and formulas used in your financials since those formulas can be company, deal or project specific.  Financials should also include Return of Investment / Return on Equity calculations and the assumptions used in those calculations.

An Example Format for the Financials Section of a Business Plan

Adjust for your needs and particular business plan purpose.

1)     Sources and Uses of Funds

2)     Financial schema

3)     Capital Equipment Valuation

4)     Company Collateral

5)     Assumptions

6)     Financials

7)     Valuations

8)     Financial Analysis

9)     Budgets

10)   Exit Strategy

11)   Harvesting Value Strategy

12)   Venture Risk

13)   Effects of Investment and Finance on Cash Flow

14)   Tax Strategies

A Business helps to Overcome Obstacles and Changes

A Business Plan is the most important and often overlooked part of running or starting a business, expanding an existing business or obtaining finance for a business.  If a Business Plan is originated effectively, the success rate for the purpose of the plan rises exponentially, whether it is to start, expand or run a business, and / or obtain finance for the business. 

If a business plan is well thought out and developed, particularly using the guidance of good Business Planning Books, then it leaves less room for errors and failure. You cannot predict everything that will happen in a company's future, but a good business plan will help avoid many pitfalls and overcome obstacles and challenges as they arise. But most importantly, a good plan helps you see and create business opportunities. So when you do encounter business challenges, having that business plan in place and integrated in your business, provides you with a very effective platform and system to effectively deal with these challenges. Often, you can turn these challenges into opportunities by effectively managing them proactively.

Let’s start with the fundamental questions...Why have a Business Plan?  What can a Business Plan do for my company? 

A Business Plan helps you run a Business and is the roadmap to business success.  This is the primary reason for a Business Plan, as well as, using a Business Planning Book for direction. The plan should be initially scripted from this standpoint.  However, there are many other beneficial reasons for developing and implementing a business plan.  A Business Plan forces the various departments in your company to work together to implement a synergistic Strategic Plan. 

Business Plan Uses

There are different Business Plan Books and formats and purposes for various circumstances and situations.  It is recommended to first develop a Comprehensive Business Plan to effectively and successfully run your Business, Venture or Projects.  Once the Comprehensive Business Plan is completed, you can take certain parts of the Plan to form other Business Plans for various purposes and situations, such as a Funding Business Plan for a Bank or Venture Capital Firm. 

How Business Planning Helps to Fix Management Experience Gaps

Effective business planning will clearly illustrate what is lacking in a company’s management team’s experience base. This is true for any stage company, whether a growth company, start up venture, or mature stage company.

A Great Management Team Finds Success

As a  Business Plan Consultant I have seen that no the matter the obstacles, a solid management team will find solutions and meet business goals. It is important to not wait until it is an emergency to shore up your management gaps. Get started to today building the management team that fills the gaps and meets problems with success. As importantly, don’t wait to Writing a Business Plan for future management gaps as your company evolves.

Finding Management Experience Gaps in a Business is Critical

• If you want funding, you need to show you have the right team in place to implement your business model.
• If you want to grow your company’s profits, you need a capable team and Business Plan Company who can develop and implement the Business Plan.
• Experienced and talented personnel are the number one grounds why a company will succeed, not the product or service.
• A company that has plateaued needs new blood to reinvent its Strategic Plan and develop markets to sustain the company.
• A good CFO goes along way toward understanding what company numbers pool and financials are telling a business. Many businesses lack this experience and are behind the ball on identifying potential problems and negative trends.
• A Business Plan Writing will supply an objective assessment of a company’s experience base. This process will identify where a company needs help for what they are trying to achieve in the business plan. Without this process, a company is just guessing about who they need to be successful.
• Forces a company’s founders and owners to evaluate their skills in running a company and carrying out the business plan. Are they the best people for the job?
• Helps a company determine if they have the right mix of people to handle the responsibilities assigned for major milestone objectives. Are you strategically aligned?

How to The Fix The Gaps

The sooner you implement an objective assessment of your people’s experience, the quicker you can own up to your gaps in experience. Then you can formulate a plan to deal with these gaps. Do you need to bring in more people or will a strategic alliance fill the gaps?

Everything You Need to Know About Business Plan Development, Length and Packaging

Business Plan Length

A Comprehensive Business Plan Write will distinctively be over 50 pages and can be upwards of 100+ pages.  This is highly dependent on the size, background and sophistication of the business, venture or project.  From the Comprehensive Plan it is a simple task to form your Ancillary Plans, such as a Funding Business Plan.  Ancillary Plans typically are no more than 30 pages with 20-25 pages being the goal.  Ancillary Plan brevity forces you to decide what is most important and necessary for the type of plan and the intended audience.
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Business Plan Writing and Development Time

300 Hours to Write Business Plan would be the upper limit in most circumstances with 75-100 hours being a typical range.  Again this depends on the scope and complexity of the Business Project. If you use the services of a  Business Plan Consultant, then you can share the time estimation roughly 50-50.

Business Plan Packaging Tips

1)     Clear Front Cover, Dark back cover, bound
2)     Cover distinctly denotes the Type of Business Plan (i.e. Funding Plan), Your Company Name and name of the Venture Project.
3)     First page should contain any Disclaimers, Non-Disclosure Requirements and Proprietary Protections. 
4)     Well organized Table of Contents
5)     Organized by Sections and corresponding sub-sections
6)     Cover Letter accompanies the Plan with Hot Button highlights for the specific reader.
7)     Use a Long Version Executive Summary, Fact Sheet, Venture Overview, Investment Overview and / or  Loan Summary (as applicable for your type of deal and targeted reader) to solicit interest.  Follow up with the Business Plan if serious interest is obtained, afterwards having your Non-Disclosure Agreement signed (if applicable and really necessary—unnecessary NDs turn off potential investors).
8 )     Neat.  No sloppiness or errors.  Good Grammar and Punctuation.
9)     Use concise nomenclature.  This is a business document, not prose.  Don’t be too technical for external plans.
10)  Have paper copies, email version and online versions.  When sending a Paper Copy to somebody, also include a DVD so different parts can be printed off as requisite for department or committee review.
11)  Keep your Loan Package and the Business Plan as separate documents.  The Loan Summary should go with the Loan Package and the one sheeters (Venture Overview, Fact Sheet and Investment Overview) should accompany the Business Plan (these summaries can be used as standalone documents as well).  
12)  The Business Plan Package is specific to the audience.  Include Sections specific to that audience’s requirements and interests. Each Write a Business Plan is packaged and edited for the Type of Plan and customized for the audience.  Select the particular sections from your Comprehensive Plan and adjust as necessary to target the audience and use.

Some Examples of Specialized / Ancillary Business Plans

a)     Funding Business Plan:  i.e. for Lenders, Venture Capitalists, Investors, Finance, etc.
b)    Strategic Plan:  i.e. For the Strategic Planning Team, Sales director, Strategic Partners, Suppliers, Customers, etc.
c)     Marketing Plan:  Internal Company Version and External Version (i.e. for Customers).
d)    Sales Plan: Combine the applicable parts of the Strategic & Marketing Plans for your Sales Division.
e)     Supplier Plan
f)     Customer Plan
g)    Distributor Plan
h)     Government Relations Plan
i)      Public Relations Plan
j)      Technical Plan
k)     technology Plan
l)      Joint Venture Plan
m)   Strategic Alliance Plan
n)     Product Development Plan