Consulting Planning Business Plan: the Ultimate Guide for 2024
Last Updated: 12/17/2023
Are you an aspiring consultant looking to start your own business? Then you’ll need a well-crafted consulting planning business plan to outline your vision and set you up for success. A good plan can help keep you organized, focused, and prepared to overcome any challenges. In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to develop a comprehensive consulting planning business plan for 2023. We’ll cover key topics like identifying your target market, defining your services and pricing, creating a financial plan, and more. With the right guidance, you’ll have the framework in place to get your consulting business off the ground.
Why You Need a Consulting Planning Business Plan
A consulting planning business plan is crucial for any new consultant. It lays out your business goals, strategies, and action plans to achieve success. It’s also useful for established consulting firms to review and refresh their plans regularly. A good consulting plan should detail your services, target market, competition, and financials. It acts as a roadmap to launch and grow your business. By crafting a thoughtful plan, you can ensure you’re making the best decisions possible to maximize your success.
Need a Consulting Planning Business Plan?
Create a custom business plan with financial projections and market research in minutes with ProAI’s business plan generator.
How to Develop a Consulting Planning Business Plan
An effective business plan will vary depending on factors like your services, target market, location, and more. If you’re new to consulting planning, creating a full business plan can feel daunting. To help you get started, here are the key sections you’ll want to include:
Executive Summary
The executive summary comes first and is the most important part of your plan. It should briefly introduce your business and provide an overview of the main elements of your plan. An effective exec summary includes:
•A quick description of your business and services
•Your mission statement
•Your target market and customer base
•An overview of the competitive landscape
•A summary of your proposed services
•A description of your team and qualifications
•A budget outline and expected returns
The executive summary makes the first impression for potential investors. Make sure it’s comprehensive and well-written to convey your vision and win their support.
Company Description
This section fully introduces your company. Start with your consultancy’s name, location, contact info, and ownership details. Include a brief bio of the owner’s experience.
Discuss your consultancy’s legal structure and short/long-term goals. Show you understand consulting industry trends and why you’ll succeed by including a brief market study.
Market Analysis
Your market analysis has three parts:
Industry Analysis: Discuss current conditions, opportunities, challenges, and competitive advantages.
Competitive Analysis: Research other firms, their specialties, and differences from your offerings. Show how you’ll stand out.
Target Market Analysis: Discuss regional factors, demographics, and strategies to effectively reach your target market. Explain your plan to capture it.
Services
Clearly outline your consulting services, industries/clients served, and pricing. Discuss additional services like training or consulting packages and associated fees. Highlight any specialties that set you apart.
Employees
Discuss the types of employees you need, their skills/experience, roles, and qualifications. If hiring, include salary, benefits, incentives. If outsourcing, list contractors, services, rates, and how they fit your strategy. Discuss any employee training/development plans.
Consultant Model
Your consultant model determines time required, charges, clients, services, pricing, location, experience, expertise, business structure, and marketing strategies. Discuss your options and decisions for each component.
Location
Choose a space considering parking, transportation, nearby businesses, and target customers. Check zoning, regulations, and costs like rent/lease, insurance, utilities, and renovations. Get proper permits and licenses.
Market Overview
Discuss industry size, scope, growth, trends in services and revenue. Identify potential markets/customers and evaluate competition. Understand relevant laws, regulations, and licensing. Assess risks and opportunities.
Marketing
Outline marketing timeline, tactics, target audience, messaging, and channels. Use a mix like print, digital, social, email, and content marketing. Measure ROI and adjust as needed. Have a budget and allocation plan. Track and respond to feedback.
External Help
Consider if you need help from experts in areas like software engineering, web development, accounting, law, or other specialties relevant to your plan. Seek mentors or advisors if you can’t hire help. Consider resources like market research, industry reports, customer surveys, etc. to strengthen your plan.
Financial Analysis
Provide a financial analysis of startup costs, revenue, expenses, and potential profits. List initial investments like equipment, office space, materials, legal/admin fees. Project ongoing costs such as payroll, advertising, technology. Estimate revenue from fees and services. Determine potential profits/losses over the next few years. Your analysis should give investors a clear picture of your financial standing and projections.
Need a Consulting Planning Business Plan?
Create a custom business plan with financial projections and market research in minutes with ProAI’s business plan generator.
Consulting Planning Financial Forecasts
Startup Expenses
Monthly Operating Expenses
Revenue Forecast
FAQ
How long should my consulting planning business plan be?
For new consultants, a consulting business plan should typically be 10 to 15 pages long, not including appendices and attachments. The level of detail should be thorough enough to convey your vision and strategies clearly but concise enough to keep readers engaged.
Should I include financial projections?
Yes, including 2 to 3 years of financial projections is advised. Provide income statements with your estimates for revenue, cost of services, salaries, and operating expenses. Also include cash flow projections, balance sheets, and key metrics/ratios you’ll use to measure financial health and growth. Conservative, well-researched projections instill confidence in investors and lenders.
What if parts of my plan change?
It’s common for new details and opportunities to emerge that impact your initial consulting planning business plan. Review and revise your plan regularly — at least annually or semi-annually. Make revisions to sections like your market and competitive analyses, marketing and employee strategies, and financial projections based on actual performance and new conditions. See if your mission and long-term vision statements still align with the changes. Make revisions transparent for key stakeholders like employees and investors.
What else should I consider?
Other useful items to incorporate in your consulting planning business plan include:
•Risk analysis — Discuss internal and external risks and how you’ll mitigate them.
•Growth strategies — Outline how you’ll scale your business over time through strategies like expanding into new markets or developing new service lines.
•Recession contingency — Explain how your business can remain sustainable during economic downturns. Discuss alternative strategies and reduced expense options.
•SWOT analysis — Evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that exist for your consulting business. Address how you’ll leverage the strengths and opportunities while overcoming challenges.
- Applicable appendices — Include items like personal resumes, market research data, etc. that provide additional context and support for the strategies and decisions outlined in your plan.
