Do you have a Professionally Written Business Plan? Congratulations, you are in a small minority. And if you have a Professional Business Plan, do you actually use it? And have you looked at it in the last few months? If the answer to this question is yes to these questions, then you need to read no further.
However, most business owners who go to the trouble to partner with a (SCAM) Business Plan Expert have left it languishing on their bottom shelf, gathering dust!
Taking the time to engage the services of a Business Plan Expert will pay for itself many times over. The Business Plan Expert will force you to really think about your business (whether a startup or existing company). A Professional Business Plan will help your business get off to great start and stay on track and will decrease your chances of making one of many fatal mistakes that can happen in business.
To make a Business Plan work in your business, you need an experienced Business Plan Expert to drive it.
But if – like most so-called Business Plan Experts in South Africa – the Business Plan Company only use a ‘Business Plan in a Box’ or ‘Business Plan Template’ that they want you to buy, don’t expect them to tell you this. This is the easiest way to make money and the quickest way to churn through multiple clients.
No less than 5 so-called Business Plan Creators in South Africa uses a combination of LivePlan, Business Plan Pro, and other Business Plan Software to write their clients’ Business Plans. For as little as R200 per month, they have access to hundreds of US/European-based Business Plan Templates. So, if you pay them R7,000 for a Business Plan, they will access a Template, change a few words here and there, update the Template-driver financials and present you with something they call Unique and Bespoke. What a business! That is R5,000 profit for a day or two’s work.
That is why so many fly-by-nights enter the market. The saddest is that prospective clients don’t know this at the first engagement. Most of these scam Business Plan Consultants have the right websites, use the right lingo and make the right empty promises.
Most startup entrepreneurs look for a quick fix to a mammoth Business Plan problem. A funder like IDC, Business Partners, SEFA or a private investors asked them for a Business Plan and with an already limited budget, paying R7,000 for a promised (tongue in cheek) amazing Business Plan will do the trick. Until the same entrepreneur realise that when presenting this hogwash, an investor would literally laugh them out of a room. R0 for the entrepreneur along with lost credibility and R7,000 for the scam Business Plan Consultant.
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And a Business Plan is not a quick fix. To be effective you can’t just hand it to someone else to do. It requires you to put in some effort. Not what a consultant wants to tell you. Once owners have prepared their “fill in the blanks” plan, they expect it to transform their business overnight just by its mere existence. But it doesn’t, so the plan is left and forgotten.
We have seen numerous examples where clients come to us and show us the work of these scam artists – who are based at our doorstep in South Africa. Some of them don’t even make all the changes on the templates they use… leaving different company names in, forgetting to change the currency from US$ to Rand, using US English and not SA English, etc.
That’s the beauty of being a scam Business Plan Consultant. You go to bed at night, your bank account heavier than yesterday. The client you conned go to bed unhappy, poorer, and a tarnished reputation, knowing very well no investor would give them a 2nd chance at submitting their Business Plan.
Business Plans do work, but you have to make them work. You have to ignore the cheap Consultants and do your own due diligence. It is not a one-off exercise. Beware of these so-called Business Plan Writers that literally steal your money. We have seen a dramatic increase in this with clients coming to JTB Consulting for redoing these Affordable Business Plan they received from the cheap alternatives.
Business Planning is a real soul-searching exercise for the business owner. A journey that a reputable and experienced Business Plan Writer will guide you through
Need a Business Plan? Contact the Leading Business Plan Experts in South Africa [Click Here]
Don’t gloss over the flaws in your business. You will only be kidding yourself. Even if you prepare your Business Plan yourself (without a Business Plan Specialist), get someone else involved to keep you honest! Looking at examples of what others have done can help, but your business will have different strengths and weaknesses and will operate in a different marketplace. And lastly, make sure any off-the-shelf product you choose will show you how to implement your Business Plan into your business.
Business Planning is not an easy process. It takes time and commitment. It is literally like writing a mini-MBA thesis. You don’t just do it once. This is not what business owners want to hear, and what most Business Plan Consultants won’t tell you, because it might cost them a sale. But the rewards from a well-implemented Business Plan are worth many times your investment.
