Business Plans
Our Process
We use a five-step process to develop your business plan. If you have already undertaken some of this effort - or if you are cash constrained - we adjust the process to complement your situation.
1. Internal Research
The first step in the process is to understand your perspective. You and your team have lived, eaten and breathed all of the challenges and nuances of the marketplace. We start by discovering how you look at the world: How do you define the market? What do you think are the most promising segments? Whom do you see as competitors? And hundreds of other questions that define your outlook.
2. Market Discovery
Once we understand your starting point, we look to external resources: government data, Wall Street analysis, news articles, competitor collateral and white papers, to name just a few. This provides several additional viewpoints on the market and your opportunity.
3. External Research
The next and most important step is to talk to the outside world. As an independent consultant, we can speak to your competitors, your competitors' customers, your own customers and industry experts, never jeopardizing your confidentiality. With the completion of this step, we have a complete perspective to bring to the development of the plan.
4. Development
With internal, market and external perspectives, we will conduct an all-day offsite meeting during which we present our findings and together identify the key elements of your strategy. With that common understanding, we will develop your comprehensive business plan, typically a fifty- to eighty-page document, not including appendices. In addition, we provide the all-important two- to three-page Executive Summary, which serves as your calling card, succinctly describing your business to the outside world.
5. Validation
The last step is to validate the plan. This step involves a close review of the plan with you and your key team members, identifying and correcting disagreements, inconsistencies and gaps.
Capital