Should You Bring In A Consultant To Help Develop Your Business Plan?
If you want to hire a professional business plan consultant, what skills and qualifications should you look for? How much should you expect to pay? We look at how much to pay for these services and what skills we should look for. Let's explore the answers to these questions in this new guide to finding a consultant for a business plan.
What makes a good business plan
Whether setting up a new business, expanding, or restructuring - no entrepreneur can avoid drawing up and updating a business plan. In connection with venture capital financing in the New Economic, the business plan instrument increasingly came into the public eye.
A good business plan arouses the banker's or investor's interest with the first few sentences and ensures that he wants to learn more about your project as it progresses. Ideally, the written part of a good business plan is like an exciting short story that won't let go of the reader.
Why should you bring in a consultant?
If you are looking for funding from banks and investors and are not comfortable writing, you should take someone with you. The reason is mundane: bankers and investors reject many financing questions because they cannot see beyond doubt what the written explanations are actually about. They don't even look at the figures anymore but put the question aside unprocessed. Bad texts are off-putting and make bankers suspect that your management may be just as unprofessional as your writing style. Does that sound superficial? Yes, it does. And unfortunately, experience shows that it is not an exception, but it happens again and again.
Once the banker or investor has read the text and is impressed by your business idea or project, he or she looks at the figures. This should be clearly laid out and, above all, contain realistic figures. Have you never prepared a spreadsheet in the form of a three-year plan? Are you comfortable at market research about your industry and using these numbers in the financial plan? A professional business plan writer can support you with a professional financial plan and growth strategies that convince a bank.
What makes a good business plan writer
Business owners in need of a quality business plan should look for expertise. As they only have one chance to make a great first impression and pitch their idea.
The be-all and end-all of a consultant is, of course, professional competence - a consultant should be familiar with your industry and have a wealth of experience from which you and your company can benefit. Consultants are the informants of critical business decisions and are also highly paid - so clients naturally have very high expectations of the result and the corresponding insights. It would be best if you looked out for case studies and references.
The saying "the devil is in the detail" has long been overused - but it is appropriate for pro business plans writing services. Every advisory service is based on a skillful analysis of data. The minor errors in the evaluation can falsify the overall result - that is why every consultant needs the right eye for detail and a careful way of working.
Sometimes solving a problem may not be as easy as you think. Some business plans may require extra hours of work. When a business plan consultant focuses on creating solutions rather than counting hours, it means they are relentless and will not stop until your company has achieved the desired goals. It is the people who are willing to go the extra mile who become consultants in the first place.
Who writes the best business plan?
There are numerous firms out there offering business plans—marketplaces like Fiverr or Upwork offer business plan writers and similar services at different prices. From our experience, the writing needs to meet the requirements from investors and banks and receive investment are often not met on these platforms.
If you need a pro business plan, you should look for a business plan writing service from an expert. A company that has a proven track record and won thousands of euros in investments and grants. One of these companies is the German growth consultancy M&M Consultants. They have several awards with their business-and financial plans increase your chances of receiving an investment dramatically and write business plans starting from 1.500€ at a fixed price.