Who Should Write Your Business Plan?
Some of you might not like our answer here, but we have
developed a strong sense of direction in this area...
It is your business... investors / lenders / customers
are relying on you to deliver the performance,
managers and employees rely upon your leadership,
as do your family members...
So, we feel strongly that you must take ownership of
your business plan. Are we suggesting you do it all
by yourself? Absolutely not! In fact, we think that within
reason, the more help you get the better. If yor business isn't
big enough to have a marketing management team, by all
means get help from specialists to do the research. Same for
the financials. And certainly get help with the word-crafting.
"But", you say, "I'm a visionary, and anyway I'm too busy
running this place... and I'm not good with words..."
Who better to convey the
vision and mission
than the leader?
In whose belly will the fire burn stronger than in yours? [Need
we state the obvious - that if there really is someone there
who has the fire burning more brightly than you, your
succession plan should be near completion to have that
person leading the company!]
As for the words themselves - they are really not as important
as the message. Convey your message clearly and
passionately, make sure that what you are saying is relevant
to your reader, and the words will take care of themselves.
And you can get lots of help in this area.
The larger your organization, the more help you will have
internally, so the more you can delegate. But, we feel that
you should retain ownership and champion the
project even if most of it is delegated to others.
If you are larger, and have a specialized transaction coming up
such as bringing in a Venture Capital firm or are going to be
doing an IPO, then there is a strong case to use the guidance
of their specialized services to prepare the business plan. But they are going to have to build it from the basic
information that you have - they can't create it "out of the
blue".
During our research, we encountered an article that we highly
recommend to you. It is written by an angel investor but
provides much valuable insight into business plans.
Click here to view it.
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