Should You Make Your Business Plan Alone or Be Accompanied?
Should you write your business plan by yourself or with someone else? What is the best choice? Here are the pros and cons of of each:
Summary:
The advantages and disadvantages of doing your business plan alone
The advantages and disadvantages of getting support for your business plan
For the drafting of the business plan of his project, the entrepreneur has two choices: to make his business plan alone or accompanied. For each of these two options, there are advantages and disadvantages.
For any creation project, the business plan makes up a roadmap, a document on which to rely throughout the creation process, and even once the company has been launched. It also makes it possible to validate the feasibility of the project. In view of the importance of the document, the question of the realization alone or accompanied by the latter arises legitimately.
THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF DOING YOUR BUSINESS PLAN ALONE
Advantages of doing your own business plan have several advantages. One of the major advantages of carrying out a business plan alone is the structuring that the production of this document requires: the project leader must be able to write his entire concept, from the presentation of the project, to the financial feasibility, including the Business Model. Going from the idea to writing allows you to realize the feasibility and viability of your project. This also requires organizing the ideas, making them clear and concise, the business plan also having a role in presenting the project to potential partners.
The fact of carrying out his business plan alone also obliges the project leader to consider in a concrete and in-depth way the financial part of his project, by the realization of the various forecasts.
The project leader inserts:
Description of the product/service
The presentation of the offer
The presentation of the team
Another major and obvious advantage of carrying out your business plan alone is the savings made. If it is possible to be accompanied on the realization of its business plan, this accompaniment has a price which varies according to the accompaniment.
Among the support that can be requested, we can mention the chartered accountant, the most classic support, but we can also mention online business plan platforms. These platforms allow you to get a basic business plan that you then just need to fill in with information about your business. Depending on the platform for which you will opt, the business plans can be more or less adapted to the sector of activity, and more or less complete.
Disadvantages:
When the project leader makes his business plan alone, he risks making mistakes.
The project leader will have to make several crucial choices when carrying out his business plan:
The legal form
The tax system
The social security system
The project leader must consider the characteristics of the project to be implemented for each of these choices to be made. The risk is that the project leader shows his choices in the business plan without being able to really check that these are coherent and adapted to his project, and thus rush headlong into a wall.
The fact of carrying it out on your own business plan involves another risk, which is the lack of height and objective gaze of the creator. A project leader works intensely on his project, and as a result, it is practically impossible for him to bring a neutral and objective look to it. His understanding of the project may be too technical for outside understanding.
If you write your business plan alone, and to overcome the drawbacks that we have just mentioned, do not hesitate to present your document to people outside the project, and preferably also outside the business sector of your project. This checks the understanding of your business plan for a person new to the sector. They present this document to people outside your field.
THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF GETTING SUPPORT FOR YOUR BUSINESS PLAN
Advantages
The professional will provide an external and objective look. The professional will bring you an external and objective look at your project, while providing you with advice drawn from his experience.
In terms of support for writing a business plan, we can cite:
A chartered accountant
From a consultant
From a lawyer
The advantages of an accompaniment by an expert are the counterpart of the disadvantages of writing its business plan alone. Being followed by an expert makes it possible to verify the consistency of the information inserted into the business plan as it goes along, and also makes it possible to ensure that an external and objective eye clearly understands the meaning of the project, and that the information provided is fairly clear and concise.
Because of the choices to be made, their implications, and depending on your creative project, the support of an expert may be recommended or even strongly advised. The need for support will not be the same depending on the legal form you create, whether you are creating a micro-enterprise or an SAS.
To choose its legal status and the tax system, the best advisers are the lawyer and the accountant. For the rest of your project, these two professionals will then be able to carry out the steps and formalities necessary for your registration.
An accountant can help ensure the accuracy of your business plan;
Disadvantages:
Getting support for your business plan is a choice that can be costly. Indeed, whether you opt for the support of an accountant or a lawyer, the services of these professionals are expensive.
You will still need to do a lot of work even if you hire a professional to write your business plan.. It will take time to make the professional understand your project and do the writing work for the written part of your business plan. The professional intervening mainly on the encrypted part.
The expert develops and writes the document with you in mind.
Ultimately, the choice to make his business plan alone or accompanied has advantages and limits that the project leader must consider.