A complete description of product or services offered by you should be outlined in detail. A description of overall market for your product or service, along with details of your customer base is essential. The investors need to know reach and kind of customers your product / service is catering to.

Marketing Plan

One of most important sections of your business plan is your marketing plan. This section will outline your sustainable competitive advantage to your investors. In a way assure them why you will succeed where others have failed. This section is where you include a definitive description of your customers, market size, demographics, characteristics, growth prospects, trends and sales potential per product / service category.

Here is where pricing strategies are outlined and how they can directly influence growth potential of each product /service. It is also important to include future growth, market share and trend influences.

Barriers to Entry

Along with giving details of what your product / service is and who your customers are, you also have to inform your investors how you will you prevent your competitors from taking away your customers. The barriers to entry section outlines your business strategy to keep your competitors at bay and grow in market. Investors need to feel comfortable about soundness of your strategy before they invest in your venture.

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The Dreaded Financials

This is most difficult part of a startup business plan, as you are making projections and assumptions on products / services that you have not even produced or sold yet! If you are stuck on this section you can hire a business plan consultant to just assist you with completing your projections (income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet). Figuring out cost of goods, delivery costs, and return rates can be simplified by breaking them down into a “light” spreadsheet. Next you need to understand your startup and operating costs – items like electricity, travel, phone expenses, etc. Again just organize these and your consultant can make all fancy charts and graphs. Just make sure you understand all of assumptions – for example if you are opening a retail business, you should not look towards your consultant to “guess” your rent – go out and meet with a realtor and come back with real data. If you work closely with your consultant, financials are a great section to bring in professional help.

Managing Expectations

Now that you know a bit more about when to hire a business plan writer you also need to manage your expectations. You can’t expect a $1,000 business plan to have 20 pages of competitive analysis and a full-blown marketing strategy! If you carefully work through which sections of your business plan need outside help and then manage your consultant closely, your final document will be a success! My next two articles will focus on “How to Find / Hire a Business Plan Consultant” and more importantly “When to Fire your Business Plan Consultant!”

Howard Schwartz is a partner in several business strategy groups, including HJ Ventures International, Inc. Howard has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs worldwide with a focus on writing business plans for companies interested in raising capital from Venture Funds and Angel Investors. Howard’s business plans have secured several million dollars in funding.