Steps to Creating a Consulting Business Plan:
1. What is the purpose of the business plan?
As stated, a lot of consulting businesses work business to business (B2B). Business plans are used for internal measures and planning but could be a great way to market yourself to potential customers. There are two types of plans a business can create. The first is for internal referencing and the second is the marketability of your business. For some businesses, they could choose to write one business plan for both purposes or write two business plans for each separate need.
Within the first section of your business plan it should define the following things:
- Your Business Profile
- Goals
- Objectives
- Mission
- Vision
This way, as your business grows you can to refer to them and if needed, change them to your current state. As business plans are important documents, advising a business consultant to help with business planning and strategy may put your mind at more ease and secure your businesses future.
2. Market Research
Once completing the first step, it is time to understand your industry, competitors, audience and service. This research will help you understand what services or products you are selling, your point of difference (value proposition) and the longevity of your business. This includes:
- Target market analysis: It is quite astonishing how many businesses do not know their real audience. Conducting target marketing analyses not only determines what services are in demand but how to market to your customers. Not only this, but it will give you an understanding of price structure and how much they are willing to spend.
- Competitor analysis: Researching your competitors, their percentage of the market share, their services, location and accessibility is all part of competitor analysis. A great way to conduct this is by creating a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). By doing this, you will gain a competitive edge and help you understand where your business may lead to in the future.
Overall in this part of a business plan, you should include:
- Business Structure/Operation Plan
- Suppliers
- Business Location
- SWOT Analysis
- Staff and Human Resources Consideration
- Equipment and Resources
3. Product/Service Analysis
After understanding your competitors and target market, you now have the knowledge to form your services and pricing structures. This includes:
- Product Analysis: Describe your product and services, its features and how they benefit your customers.
- Price Structure: Creating a price analysis and structure includes understand the costs involved with manufacturing and operations as well as labour costs.
- Distribution Plan: What sources will you use to distribute your service/product? This could include setting up a store online, creating forms, in-office consultations and more. This section should be around the customer journey and how they receive your service or product from the first encounter to the end.
4. Marketing
Now that you know your business from start to finish, inside and out, it is time to get your customers. Creating a marketing strategy is similar to creating a business plan but defines different goals and objectives. They do play hand-in-hand though so what your business objectives are should ultimately be what your marketing objectives need to achieve. Within this plan you need to include:
- Who your ideal customer is
- What they do and how they spend their time
- How they think and form buying decisions
- Goals, objectives and KPI's
- What channels are you going to marketing through to reach your customers
- What is your budget
- How do you assess the success of your marketing plan? This is be based on the data you have collected throughout your marketing and comparing it to your marketing goals and business goals.
5. Financial Strategy
When starting a brand new or first business, money is always going to be a worry. Creating a financial plan with realistic goals and forecasts will allow your business to stay on track and afloat. This includes:
- Creating Financial Objective. This will include long term objectives such as reducing production costs and short term objectives like increasing revenue.
- Forecasting. This is proven to be an important step in businesses as without the right forecasting you may not have the right budget in place. This will include understanding the growth of the business and future costs that will occur with the growth.
- Start-Up Expenses
- Operation Costs
- Cost of Goods
- Sales
Read, Analysis, Repeat:
Once a business plan is created, it can become irrelevant very quickly depending on the success of a business. It is always best to reassess a business plan for any consulting firm as new procedures or products may change the industry and in effect, your business. By always referring to the business plan you will ensure that your business is staying on track to your goals and objectives. If your business is not going as well as expected, it is also a good resource to look upon to find holes in your plan or operations.
If you would like help with creating a plan for your consulting business, TRConsulting offers business strategy and advisory services. Contact us today to talk to one of our business advisors.
