A well-crafted business plan is an essential tool for any startup founder or entrepreneur looking to secure funding, clarify strategies, and communicate visions to stakeholders. However, writing a comprehensive plan is a remarkably complex undertaking requiring an intersection of business knowledge, financial modeling abilities, market insights, and strong writing skills.
While founders often initially believe they can self-author detailed documentation on their own, most quickly become overwhelmed trying to wear so many hats or lack certain domain expertise critical to develop an effective strategic plan. This is where partnering with a professional business plan writing service pays immense dividends.
Overview of Business Plans Contents and Format
Before weighing the pros and cons of DIY writing vs working with consultants, let’s quickly summarize what comprises a standard investor-grade business plan:
Executive Summary
A high-level overview of the key business details, product/service offerings, objectives, and financial assumptions. It sets the tone and gets readers excited about the opportunity.
Company Overview
Detailed background on the company’s history, ownership structure, physical locations, achievements, team bios, and organizational values.
Products and Services
Explains the company’s offerings and how they uniquely solve customer pain points better than competitors. Positions the value proposition.
Market Analysis and Industry Research
Showcases target market size, customer demographics, buyer behaviors, market share potential, competitor analysis, industry trends and growth forecasts grounded in factual research.
Go-to-Market Plan
Strategic plans detailing sales processes, lead generation tactics, partnership strategies, marketing channels, and distribution models to acquire and retain profitable customers at scale.
Management Team and Organization
How the company structured its leadership team and handles operations focused on productivity and scale. Includes staffing plans, corporate culture pillars and advisor networks.
Financial Plan and Projections
Granular financial modeling projecting income statements, balance sheets, cash flows across 3-5 years. Grounds growth assumptions in market research and benchmarks.
Funding Request
Capital required to fuel growth plans or scale operations. Describes specific funding needs, structure (debt, equity) and plans around securing it.
As you can probably imagine, developing an airtight plan matching investor expectations requires skills and bandwidth well beyond most startup founders’ available time or capabilities while simultaneously running all other aspects of an early-stage company.
Weighing Do It Yourself Business Planning vs Outsourced Writers
Given the myriad complex components encompassing a fully fleshed out plan, founders debate handling the art and science of business plan writing themselves versus delegating to specialists. Comparing pros and cons helps decide the most prudent path.
Do it Yourself Business Plan Writing
Pros
- Complete control and IP ownership
- Aligns fully with knowledge in your head
- Avoids paying external professional fees
Cons
- Extremely time and effort intensive
- Learning curve around financials and presentations
- Difficulty taking an objective viewpoint on your own company’s prospects
Outsourced Business Plan Writers
Pros
- Speeds up the writing process tremendously
- Objective third-party assessment on opportunities and risks
- Experts handle financial modeling aligned with investor expectations
- Highest quality writing and visual presentations
- Frees up founders’ time to run the business
Cons
- Loss of some proprietary control
- Added consulting fees
- Potential communication barriers
While control and confidentiality represent valid cons working with outsourced writers, most founders determine the benefits around time savings, unbiased perspectives, financial rigor and presentation quality provided by business plan writing experts well outweigh the tradeoffs.
Types of Outsourced Business Plan Writing Services
If electing to work with a specialized business plan writer, you still get presented with a myriad of consultant profile options to evaluate. Writers fall into three primary segments, each with unique pros, cons and pricing implications.
Independent Freelance Business Plan Writers
Freelancers represent experienced consultants personally handling end-to-end writing independently as solopreneurs. They offer highly customized services thanks to direct 1-on-1 partnerships. However, limited scale can strain throughput for larger plans.
Pros:
- Personalized services
- Direct access to the actual writer
- Often more affordable
Cons:
- Lack robust support teams to delegate tasks
- Light on visual presentation design capabilities
- Capacity constraints on bigger projects
Cost Range:
$3,000 – $7,500+
Boutique Business Plan Writing Firms
Boutique firms provide an ideal middle ground, leveraging specialized teams with personalized services thanks to lighter client volumes. Strong continuity across engagements.
Pros:
- Still high-touch services
- Quality control across deliverables
- Expert visually designed pitch decks
- Continuity working with the same team
Cons:
- Potentially insufficient niche industry expertise
- Light marketing research capabilities
- Geographical delivery limitations
Cost Range:
$7,500 – $15,000+
Large Management Consulting Firms
Globally recognized multi-billion-dollar management consultancies like McKinsey, Bain and BCG technically offer business plan writing through proprietary methodologies and templates.
Pros:
- Brand credibility carrying heavy influence
- Globally scalable delivery
- Hundreds of cross-functional consultants
Cons:
- Templatized deliverables
- Junior consultant involvement
- Very high price points
Cost Range:
$100,000+ (not a typo!)
While large firms promise brand influence in investor materials, smaller boutique specialists focusing exclusively on startup documentation prove better matched to balance custom insights, flexibility and continuity without extraordinary five and six-figure price tags.
The next section examines key services and evaluation factors more closely when engaging outsourced writing consultants.
Core Services Provided by Business Plan Writers
Beyond creating beautifully formatted deliverables, business plan writing encompasses a spectrum of end-to-end strategic activities executed by seasoned experts that prove difficult for solo founders to replicate independently.
Market Research and Analysis
The market research component fuels every other section of plans. Writers gather primary data through customer interviews, conduct supplier surveys, speak to industry experts, map market sizes using data modeling and derive growth forecasts using financial analysis – arming clients with proprietary insights competitors lack.
Financial Modeling and Projections
Financial projections need granularity across revenue streams, detailed cost assumptions and integrated schedule flows over 3-5 years – difficult for non-finance founders. Writers model scenarios factoring client risk preferences and macro-economic conditions.
Document Writing and Content Creation
Persuasive writing abilities to succinctly explain complex business models, craft logically flowing narratives across sections and tailor messaging to different stakeholder lenses.
Presentation Design and Pitch Decks
Visual exhibit design turns dense numerical data into engaging graphics, schematics and charts. Pitch decks amplify funding messages creativity through expert slide composition and graphical sophistication difficult for founders to produce independently.
Evaluating consultants across those four pillars of market diligence, financial analysis, written content and visual presentation allows founders to shortlist partners strongest in serving their precise needs during fundraising.
Key Evaluation Criteria When Selecting Consultants
Much like any other professional services engagement, finding business plan writers well-matched to your sector, program size, communication styles and pricing preferences ensures high-ROI partnerships.
Industry Specialization
- Niche focus on your targeted vertical maximizes sector insights
- Prior clientele should encompass competitors
Company Stage Experience
- Early, growth or expansion stage consulting expertise
- Prior customer size fit
Location & Communication
Do they allow on-site meetings for alignment? How frequently will calls occur? Availability for investor Q&A?
Thought Leadership & Credibility
Do they speak at industry conferences or publish columns showing mastery? Are they referenced in business journals?
Visual Presentation Skills
Evaluate sample decks and financial exhibits for graphic design sophistication
Vetting plan writers across those aspects provides immense signal on capabilities beyond nice-sounding marketing pitches.
Combining domain expertise, strategic thought leadership and presentation design skills demonstrated through case studies and past work samples helps entrepreneurs select trusted partners best equipped to deliver on their capital raising goals.
Conclusion
Bringing a breakthrough business idea to life demands adeptly balancing visionary leadership, customer focus and operational excellence across simultaneous priorities with limited time available as a founder. The heavy lifting required to research markets, create financial models and craft persuasive documentation critical for unlocking investor funding needs delegation to specialized experts.
While the pros and cons of outsourcing business plan writing vs going the DIY route full of late nights show both can theoretically get you to the finish line, the exponential efficiency gains, unbiased insights and presentation polish provided through reputable writing consultants proves well worth the investment for founders focused on accelerating strategic outcomes.
Much like you hire dedicated creative agencies to handle sophisticated branding and websites to convey positioning, treat business plan creation as another marketing pillar vital to perfect through seasoned strategic experts. The benefits toward faster funding and growth momentum are too substantial to ignore for most savvy entrepreneurs.