Consulting Business Plan

Are you an expert? Looking to start your own consulting business? This IS a business, but it is a different type of business. And like any business you need to create a business plan to guide your business to big bucks. But you are working by yourself, and you need to create a specific consulting business plan to stay on track while working independently.

A consultant is a business, often a business of one employee. You will wear several hats running a consulting business. So organization is going to be crucial to run the business--keeping the right balls in the air at the right time. How will you take payment? How will you manage your time? How will you keep track of potential clients?

How better to get organized than with a plan? When you create your business plan for consulting, you will have an outline of how you will go about building, running, and growing your business.

A consulting business plan does not have to be super detailed or a massive undertaking. After all, it’s probably just you right now. You just want to set up some structure for your consultancy will run--a guide if you will. This will help you get things done easily. When starting out, you want to at least plan these four areas in your business plan:

1. your services
2. marketing plans
3. managing your operations
4. finances

Your Services
You need to define exactly what you do--what results you bring--for others and what exactly what services you offer (and don’t offer, if you want). DO NOT try be all things to all people. You are a specialist.Besides, one of the services you offer as a consultant is being able to refer clients to other experts in those areas you are not expert in (because you have built a network of experts). When your service offerings are focused you will have a better time at getting the clients your want and delivering results without a hassle for you..

Marketing Plans
Having clients is what brings money in. Who are your clients? You need to define your market, who they are and where you can find them. You may have a little change here because you are marketing your services to people who may not even be aware that they need those services. This is why knowing who your market is can save you from wasted efforts. When you know who your potential clients are, you can design a marketing strategy that is effective.

Your marketing strategy may be a combination of mailing campaigns, networking and online marketing. You need to decide what you are going to do so you know what tools you will create for your arsenal. Your print material may consist of a brochure, business cards, newsletters, letters, demo CDs and more. Your networking efforts might include cold-calling, public speaking, and memberships to professional organizations. Your online campaign may include building a Web site, sending emails or recording podcasts.

Planning your marketing a bit will help control your budget. Just as importantly, you can put yourself on a schedule of regular marketing activities and just work them until you are too busy with clients.

Management

You need to organize the management and administration of your business. How will your business run: what are your hours, where will you work? Many of these tasks might be one-time or infrequent, such as registering your business, getting necessary certifications, and outfitting your office space. But these are important activities for getting things done, so a little planning here in the beginning can help if confusion arises later.

Finances

Now that you are opening your consulting business, you really need to think about and evaluate how much money you will charge your clients. If you charge too little, your business will go under. If you charge too much, you won't get any clients.

Before setting your fees, you want to look at a couple of things: the competitive going rates for your services, and what your expenses are for completing projects. When setting your rates, you have several options, including hourly rates, project fees and working on a retainer basis and you’ll need to plan which works better for the type of work you do.  

In the beginning, planning your cash-flow is much more important than figuring your income and expenses (profit statement). How much cash do you have now, when is cash coming in, and when do expenses need to go out? Many businesses with positive income and high revenues have closed because the money wasn’t in the bank account at the time the bills needed to come out.

Don’t worry that this needs to be a complete document before you get started--it DOES NOT. You want to get enough down on paper to have a clear picture of how you will get started and how you will run. A business plan actually grows over time as you discover and create more organization for your business. And working as an in dependant, the consulting business plan may not be extremely formal, but it can be extremely powerful and a key to your success!