A business plan is an essential thing to start a business. It is a plan of how your business will work and how you will make it successful. It includes the organization’s nature, sales, marketing strategy, and financial background with an estimated profit and loss statement. There is a lot to consider before hiring someone to write a business plan. So we guide you through some ideas and suggestions that can help you to decide. Let’s dive in.
Can I hire someone to write a business plan?
Since it is about your business, It’s better to write it by yourself with a consultant’s guidance. But, if you do not have a thorough knowledge of writing or apply for a loan or investment, you can hire a consultant to write the entire plan as your preference.
But it’s not that simple. There is a process we go through before someone hires or write it by yourself.
Before we start, I suggest watching this video.
What is a business plan?
A business plan means that a guide and a roadmap for your business that outlines goals. It explains about Development of all the action plans and business strategies needed to transform a business opportunity into a real business project.
Identify, describe, and analyze a business opportunity are the main component in a business plan and operating a business and examine its technical, economic, and financial viability.
How about writing a business plan by yourself?
The best idea is to write your business plan. You can get help from a consultant to review it and make suggestions for changes. And the process of assembling the first draft yourself is beneficial to your new business.
If you are a good writer, you can hire a mentor to guide and advise. But do most of the writing yourself. This is an excellent investment as long as you make the most of your hard-earned money and choose a professional who understands your business. It is helpful to ask a counselor to review your plan and suggest changes. But the process of assembling your business plan yourself will be very beneficial to your business.
Here are some reasons to write a business plan on your own.
- You are the one who knows everything
It can take hours for a consultant to adequately disclose all the details of your business. Even then, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person. By trying the first draft yourself, you will have plenty of time to build it up and refine it as you learn more about the challenges you face.
When you create your business plan, it will show your passion for your endeavor. This enthusiasm is more likely to win investors’ and partners’ attention than a perfect word but an objective plan.
- You can think widely through the process
You have to describe your plans, goals, and resources to build your business when writing the business plan. So, you may take an in-depth look at your idea, outlining each stage of development.
As you develop your business plan, if you realize that your concept is conceivable and can never implement, you can change it to succeed. You may find a way anyhow, to reach the goals.
- Protect business secrets
Your business plan describes every aspect of your operations. You cannot trust a third party. Sometimes, they may get your valuable ideas and share them with your competitors. Do you want to pass all that information on to a third party? Even though you ask the contractors to sign an undisclosed agreement, there is still no guarantee of protecting the business secrets.
In addition to these risks, you also have the responsibility of working with a contractor. This means clearly defining distributions and making sure your contractor meets deadlines and stays within budget. Before hiring a specialist to help, make sure you are ready to take on these challenges.
Even if you prefer to work with a specialist, consider putting your effort into your first draft. You can ask a business consultant to advise you on the best approach to your business plan, or an advisor should edit it later, but the work behind the first draft should be yours and yours alone. This will provide you a hands-on approach to your business plan that will help you and your business in the long run.
- You learn through the process
The process of writing your business plan requires an in-depth look at your idea and business model. You gain clarity by identifying and stating the goals, activities, and resources needed to build your business. Through this process, you develop analytical and communication skills that will help you run your business.
You need to know every tiny thing of your business plan. As the business owner, you will be asking tough questions from prospective investors, Lenders, and other stakeholders who read your business plan. When hiring someone to write a business plan, you will not be ready to answer their questions. Even if you have read the plan that someone wrote for you, you will miss some details.
- It is not a one-time task
Business planning is not a one-time attempt. Your business is growing rapidly in the early stages, and your business plan lasts only a few weeks or months. Your business plan should be a live document that you review and revise when you test assumptions. If someone else is writing your plan, you may find it challenging to keep up to date as your business evolves.
Advantages of writing a business plan by yourself
- You can do it for free
Writing your business plan saves your money because you do not have to pay professional market fees. Depending on your business’s size and the complexity of your business plan, this can lead to significant savings, especially over professional rates.
- Personalize your plan with industry insight
When you write your plan, you can use your many years of experience to suit your particular situation and the industry insight you have gained as a leader in your field. No one knows your business and your place in your industry better than you so that you can use it as your own best resource.
- A close understanding of your plan
You never know when the business level will more closely link to each level. As you work through all the financial statements, charts, and research, you will develop a more in-depth knowledge of your business and its location than hiring someone to write a business plan. This can be especially useful if you want to present your plan to an investor or bank and talk consciously about everything in it.
Disadvantages of writing a business plan by yourself
- There is no guarantee if there are mistakes
Because you write the plan yourself, you limit the time and specificity you have to develop your plan. If you hire specialists or use paid software, you will receive some guarantee of accountability, and the plan information will present accurately with accurate calculations. If you are developing your business plan, you have no guarantee that the charts are accurate, the data is accurate, and the calculations are accurate.
- It’s a huge work
At every step of the design writing process, you have to do all the work yourself. Also, you need to create these essential documents yourself. In comparison, this may seem easy if you are comfortable with desktop publishing software. It will take a long time, even for desktop publishing benefits. This requires integrating different types of documents, integrating spreadsheets, or complex paging or formatting.
- It is more challenging to keep your plan up to date
If the plan has created by software, it can update automatically. And if specialized experts have created it, they will update for you. When you make your plan, you have to update it yourself and ensure that any updates and changes continue from the beginning to the end of the plan. It can be a lot of extra work.
The path you choose for your business plan will depend on several factors, but before choosing it alone, make sure you are comfortable with the various tools and datasets you need to complete your business plan. If you have any questions or concerns about the process, it may be best to use business planning software or hire a professional to help you write your business plan.
Things to consider when another person is writing the business plan
If you are fully employed or have substantial funding, you can hire an expert. The best thing to do is consider hiring a consultant, and then make sure they guide you through the business planning process, and perhaps write the entire business plan for you.
However, it is important to get the most out of consulting. You need to be involved throughout the process and understand everything in the plan. You need to understand it from the exit strategy to the mission statement. Otherwise, you end up with a costly paper load.
A professional consultant can increase your chances of getting funding for your business and increase your chances of success once you get the funding.
If the market is vast, and you want to grow the business to a significant percentage, understand what the risk of not getting things right from the start is more than the cost of hiring a consultant to ensure you do.
First and foremost, make sure they are truly professional. Before hiring someone to write a business plan, it’s better to consider the following questions:
- Do they have a reliable website?
- Are they incorporated?
- Do they have satisfied clients?
- Are they direct you to these clients?
- Do they understand your business?
If the answer to all these questions is yes, you can select that person to write your business plan.
Here’s some extra help for you when you consider hiring a business plan writer.
- Find someone who works for a long time
Avoid hiring anyone who assumes that a business plan can use once. That is not the way real business plans work. Business plans are inactive in a few weeks.
For a plan to be effective, you need to regularly review the results, monitor progress, and revise them frequently. So you need someone to help you get the plan across, then you can easily review and revise it, or get it later to assist in the review and revision.
- Find someone with tremendous industry experience
Since the plan’s actual content is more important, you need to find someone with relevant experience who can match your design experience with what it compares to.
It would be best if you had someone who can tell you that marketing costs are less or more profitable than realistic. All you need is someone who can make you aware of what the metrics are important for. You probably already know those parameters because they are generally specific to your business.
For example, some businesses grow on traffic, others on conversion rates, and some on sales per square foot, tours, lead, presentations, etc.
- Find someone with relevant industry experience
The best place to find someone who has long industry experience, know your industry, and has relevant experience. Think through your list of managers and mentors.
If you think that making a business plan can be done by anyone who knows a business and not a specialized skill, it’s a wrong idea. A person should have better knowledge and experience in the industry.
Advantages of Hiring a Business Plan writer
A business plan writer can have an objective approach. The writer will do the necessary research to gather important information while saving you time. The time you save can spend exploring other business areas, gathering new ideas, or continuing to work in your current field to save money for new businesses.
Business plan writers know the suitable content to add to make a business plan stand out to investors. They are also familiar with the language and can follow a pattern that investors expect. The process can do very quickly with a writer within a pre-determined time. Often, people who write their own plans waste time writing small amounts of money and moving on to another task – some business plans take months for people to write.
Disadvantages of Hiring a Business Plan writer
A business plan writer does not fully understand your business vision and what you are trying to accomplish. It is essential to make sure that they carry your thoughts and ideas as per your ideas. The writer can use a standard template for all the designs they write, and this may not have specific requirements for your industry. If the writer does not have information about your industry, this can create a problem for investors.
Suppose the writer may not be with you at meetings to answer investor questions about the plan. If investors have questions about what to write, you may not know how to answer the questions. When you are hiring a writer, be sure to ask them to explain any statement you do not understand, so you are ready if an investor asks you the same question.
Think of you are on a tight budget; hiring a writer can be difficult.
In that case, rates vary depending on the writer you decide to hire and their experience.
In general, if you are starting your own business and using the plan for your purposes, it is a good idea to skip the business plan writer and write the plan yourself. If you could not decide about whether to hire a business plan writer, you may want to write a plan yourself and hire a writer to rewrite it for you. This way, your ideas are still part of the plan but include important language and terminology for investors.
How much does it cost to hire someone to write a business plan
A professional business planning consultant will typically charge between $ 3,000 and $ 20,000 for a complete business plan. If your business plan includes new or sophisticated technology, unusual or multi-revenue streams, or requires significant investment capital, you should expect high-end fees on this scale.
Conclusion
Business is an important thing since it leads to earning money. Since the business plan is the essential initial step in a starting business, you should pay more attention to that. If you are a good writer, it is better to write a business plan by yourself.
If you want a more professional business plan, get a loan or an investment, and have plenty of money to spend for a writer, you can give it to a professional. But the main thing is, you should have a better knowledge of your business. Even though another person writes it, you should know about the content, and the ideas of the plan are more important since investors may ask questions from the business plan, and you have to answer them well.
