[beaufel]

I tried to make my business plan and was having problems, i was wondering if its worth it to outsource, and if so are there any members on this forum that offer that service?

Thanks,
Beau Felder

[rogercbryan]

There are a lot of people on here who will charge you for this service (and a lot willing to do it for free). Did you try going to Google and searching for 'how to write a business plan'? If you want to send me over what you have I'll gladly give you some pointers. This isn't hard to do with a little help.. you have my e-mail so send it over..

Did you have a chance to create the service agreement for my advertisement on your site? I have not seen it come over yet...

[jandmsolution]

Stop, contact your local SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" this people work with the SBA and help you develop your business plan for free. Many are veteran business owners, CFO, CEOs.

[beaufel]

Stop, contact your local SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" this people work with the SBA and help you develop your business plan for free. Many are veteran business owners, CFO, CEOs.

alrighty thanks for the advice contacting them as we speak.

Did you have a chance to create the service agreement for my advertisement on your site? I have not seen it come over yet...

Roger i emailed it an hour or so ago.

[jasaunders]

You should never outsource your business plan. The reason why a business plan is so valuable is that it helps you see things about your business that you might not have otherwise thought of. It helps you come up with new ideas and find problems that you didn't consider.
I would advise getting help on it if necessary. And you may be able to outsource certain aspects of it. For instance, I often times outsource a lot of the market research tasks.

But as a whole, you should not just have someone else write the business plan for you: not only will it not turn out as you had envisioned, it will surely miss key areas that are important to your business.

[Cole Taylor]

Originally Posted by jasaunders

You should never outsource your business plan. The reason why a business plan is so valuable is that it helps you see things about your business that you might not have otherwise thought of. It helps you come up with new ideas and find problems that you didn't consider.
I would advise getting help on it if necessary. And you may be able to outsource certain aspects of it. For instance, I often times outsource a lot of the market research tasks.

But as a whole, you should not just have someone else write the business plan for you: not only will it not turn out as you had envisioned, it will surely miss key areas that are important to your business.

Agreed, however, there are people out there that lack the necessary skill set to not only develop, but execute such a plan. In these scenarios I'd suggest learning to walk before you run. Hire a consultant to assist you with the feasibility portion of your plan.

I agree that the discovery of problems/barriers/issues, etc. during the development of the business plan is really at the center of writing the plan itself. The idea being leaving no stone unturned and making sure everything has been thought through. It's through this process that the majority of plans are scrapped.

Personally I'd rather see an entrepreneur spend $5000 on learning that thier ideas are flawed than spending $500,000 and years of time only to discover that they should have never started.

What I've found not only from entrepreneurs but also business plan writers is that they tend to make the numbers work. There really is no sense in fooling yourself this early in the game. If you do have a feasible plan make sure you hire a consultant that can assist you with the execution. It's absolutely worthless to hire someone to write a business plan if that's their whole job.

[jasaunders]

Agreed. And one thing to add, don't go into writing your business plan with the mindset you are already going to start the business and it will work. It will bias everything you put into the plan. As Cole said, you can always adjust things to make it work. This isn't good for you in the long-term. So go in with the mindset that you have to prove to yourself the idea is feasible, not the other way around.

And hire a consultant if you don't know what you are doing. But don't hire them to write it for you. You should have a first draft when you first see the consultant. The SCORE templates provide amble description on what you should include in them.

[Your_Business_Case]

Hi Beaufel.

If your research to get free help for your business plan do not give you satisfaction, give me a call. I have multiple years of experience in this area and have completed some detailed start-up business plans (for guys like you) that I think are really complete and cover all aspects (market, financing, marketing, competitors, strength of your product vs them, and of course the financial business case, etc). If you can read French, I could give it to you for free, very interesting. Also, I am specialized in financial modeling so if you ever need advice or a very professional financial model, give me a call.
I currently work as a consultant in finance in Ottawa but I am also doing contracts on the side.

David 613.558.3997