Be honest! Most of you stumbled across this article on a mission to find the easiest, lowest-cost business plan that the diligent Google robots can find. If this is you, you sound like a savvy entrepreneur. Anyone who’s successfully launched a start-up will tell you that low-cost is nearly always a good rule of thumb. But as an experienced entrepreneur, I have to warn you that skimping on the business plan is probably a bad idea if this is your first (or even your second) rodeo.
In this post, I’ll cover why entrepreneurs should consider finding someone with experience in business plan writing.
You Have Little-to-No Experience in Marketing
I used to think that marketing was easy. All you need is a sign on the door, or an ad on Facebook! But, after having run numerous businesses, I now know that marketing is hard and it’s easy to waste a lot of money on ineffective advertising. This is where a solid business plan will help dramatically. Marketing is a significant and important section to the business plan and an experienced business plan writer will provide realistic estimates of time and money, plus solid methods of delivery.
You have never run a business before
One of the biggest differences between a plausible business idea and a train wreck: the details. So long as a product remains an idea, you will focus on all of the positives and very little on the downsides. It’s not until you get into the nitty-gritty about price, market size, and startup costs, that you realize that your great business idea might actually be an obvious failure.
Here’s a personal example. For a few years, a friend of mine and I thought about getting into the retail gaming industry. It is something long missing from our area and we thought that a gaming cafe would be a viable venture. So long as we didn’t look too hard at the opportunity, we could daydream about our future grand opening. It wasn’t until we started a business plan and dug into the market that we realized the model had a high chance of failure.
Business plans force us to check our optimism and dive into the less-friendly details. A well-written business plan from an experienced professional will tease these problems out and potentially save you thousands of dollars.
You are looking for a loan or venture capital
If you’ve never worked with a bank or venture capital firm on lending, then you are woefully ignorant at what these lenders are looking for in a business. Most entrepreneurs think that a good business plan will have a graph with a red line pointing up-and-to-the-right. An experienced business plan writer knows that this is not a complete picture. Lenders are looking for more than a favorable profit margin. They want thoughtful, realistic financial projections.
Most companies aren’t profitable in the first year, so if you are showing dramatic profits, then you don’t understand business well enough to attract funding. A good business plan writer is going to know how to showcase the lifecycle of a business in a way that demonstrates the maturity of the leadership.
In fact, there is more to worry about than just presenting the good, the bad, and the ugly in the financials. Investors will want to see a reasonable, well-thought discussion about market, competition, and serious business barriers to growth. It’s nearly impossible for someone without experience to be able to present these facts in a way that will win over a skeptical eye.
Are Cheap Business Plans a Good Idea?
So the real question is, “when is it a good time to buy a cheap business plan?” It’s hard to imagine a circumstance. The whole purpose of a business plan is to be able to accomplish a meaningful analysis of how your business will grow and flourish. This takes time and experience, and those who are reading your business plan will want to see these characteristics on the pages of your business plan.
Owning a business puts a great deal of your wealth and capital on the line, and the business plan is your first line of defense in protecting you. Going in on the cheap would be like looking for the lowest cost on a parachute before skydiving. When starting a business, there are some things that are worth paying top dollar for. Your business plan is one of them.
If you are starting your business and would like to consult a professional business plan writer, consider reaching out to Friendly Neighborhood Bookkeeping at (585) 999-5455.