Did you write your own business plan?

JobYouDeserve

Or did you pay a professional to write one for you?
 

calvinjr

I wrote mine and re-wrote mine all by myself. But I had several experiences business men and bankers review it and tell me how sorry it was. But seriously, they reviewed it and told me what to fix. C. 

Meitzi

Kristen, glad you brought this up.  I am thinking about hiring someone to put my draft together in a more professional manner, proper grammer, and so on.
I put an ad in Craigslist.org this afternoon and already received 12+ resume I guess I will spend some time tomorrow to go through the ones who attached their work. 
I`d love to hear some advice you have for people who are outsourcing the writing task!

Nuevolution

I wrote it myself with the help of business plan pro software. Although, hiring someone is always a good idea. It is not always the best practice.. If one can`t write their own business plan, you are in trouble. Think of it as your passion... How can someone put your passion down on writting other than yourself? ust a thought,

Nuevolution

Well, that is why you are doing your business plan, Investors don`t bother reading the whole business Plan, What I was told at SBA is, Make sure you can capture your investors interest in your Executive Summary, If you can`t convince then in the summary, they will not look past that. I think instead of paying someone, get an SBA coach or a SCORE mentor and have them proof-read it for you. They will work with you until  you polish that Business Plan down to what the investors are seeking. As for the profit, and investors knowing how much you make... yes that`s what they want to know.

JobYouDeserve

Thanks, guys!  I`m actually asking because my husband is thinking of starting a side business writing business plans.
I shared your input with him.  I didn`t know there was business plan software.  Thanks again!

DOLAPO

I am still in the process of completing mine. I started with an outline to organize my ideas. And I have well seasoned persons from various industries coaching me along the way.

Crystalguy

It is good to write your own and have it reviewed by others to get it just right. Everytime we try a new way to get funding I rewrite the plan so it fits what we are doing. This would get very pricy to pay some one else to do each time, plus because of this I can almost resite my plan by memory. When I do a presentation of my plan for some one they know I know my business because I know my plan of action.

jdwilliams19

You have to be careful if you`re going to hire someone to write your business plan.  Definitely look around a bit and don`t jump on the first person you find.  I started to write my plan, then decided to hand it over to a "professional" that my partner found on the web.  She basically took exactly what I had written, added a few paragraphs, and sent it back to us with a bill for $750.  Since then, I`ve rewritten the whole thing myself using Business Plan Pro, and it is ten times better than what we paid for.  Business plan software is the way to go.  It prompts you for all of the pertinent information about your proposal, and if you have trouble getting through the wizard, then you probably need to do some more research anyway.

Crystalguy

Biz Plan Pro is the way to go. Gives a professional plan and can be exported as a word doc, Pdf and online. Best $100 I ever spent. You could use it to write some one elses plan and charge them $750 and break even on the deal (LOL)

DesignCaddy

I write my own.  I am a big fan of using the free templates that SCORE privides as a starting point.  They are thorough and free.
http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html</A>
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Mike
http://clubhouse.designcaddy.net</A>