Business

Who Should Write Your Business Plan?

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A continuation of our ‘Start your Own Business’ series, In an extract from his book in Sunday Business Post 25/4/2010, Starting a Business in Ireland, Brian O’Kane continues on with advice on writing your business plan.

Very simply: you.

No one else. You may receive offers from consultants, many of them highly reputable and professional in their work, to write your business plan for you.

They will quote their extensive experience of business, of raising business start-up capital, of presenting financial information – all valid points and, in many cases, true.

However, whatever experience consultants may have of business in general – and drafting business plans in particular – they lack one essential ingredient: your intimate relationship with your business.

You are the one who has spent your waking hours – and many of your sleeping ones, too – dreaming, planning and guiding your tender and frail creation to this point.

You know what makes you tick, what makes your team tick and what will and won’t work for you.

Only you can assemble these thoughts. Therefore, the first draft of the business plan is your responsibility. Do it yourself because you must have a business plan which is personalized to your needs. Refine and redraft it – again, and again, if necessary – until it’s finished. Then – and only then – should you entrust it to someone who can put the right gloss on it. But let them do only that. Don’t let them put their words on your pages.

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