Are you someone people usually come to to get valuable business advice? Or do you really like sharing valuable business insights to help businesses grow? Well, starting a consultancy business can be one efficient move to monetize your expert skills.
Now, you wouldn’t start a business without solid planning, would you? Well, how about you take the first step and write an actionable management consulting business plan for your business idea?
Writing a business plan can be tough. But we are here to make it easier for you.
This step-by-step guide is here to help you write a forward-thinking, realistic plan in easy actionable ways and offers a free management consulting business plan template to kickstart your writing process. .
So let’s get started.
Key Takeaways
- Craft a remarkable executive summary summarizing the concept, strategies, objectives, financial projections, and mission values of your consulting business plan.
- Conduct in-depth industry analysis and market research identifying emerging trends and shifts that are likely to influence your consultancy business.
- Introduce the services of your consultancy firm along with its pricing plan to give readers a thorough idea of your service offerings.
- Conduct a SWOT analysis of your key competitors and determine your competitive edge over them to strengthen your competitive analysis.
- Lay down a clear organizational chart highlighting the key skills, salaries, and experience of people working in your consulting firm. .
- Create realistic financial projections for sales, revenue, costs, expenses, and cash flow for your consultancy after making room for contingencies and emergencies.
- Draft a detailed operations plan highlighting the processes and procedures for everyday activities at your consultancy.
- Devise a diversified marketing and sales plan to promote your business effectively to your target audience.
Key Elements of a Management Consulting Business Plan
- Executive Summary
- Company Overview
- Competitor and Market Analysis
- Service Offerings
- Marketing Plan
- Management Consulting Team
- Operational Plan
- Financial Outlook
Since we are talking about a consulting business plan, let us walk you through this step-by-step outline to help you write a stellar plan covering all the essential facets.
1. Executive Summary
The executive summary is the first and foremost section of your consulting business plan that will engage your readers and persuade them to dive further into details.
Begin by offering a brief overview of your business idea highlighting what it does. Take reference from the below example written using Upmetrics AI assistant.
Further, paint a picture, briefly highlighting your consulting services, market scenario, competition, USP, marketing and sales strategies, and financial objectives.
Ensure that you adopt a storytelling approach while crafting your executive summary. Ideally, this section of your business plan should concisely summarize your entire business plan in a page or two.
So ensure that you strategically place the information within this section to keep the readers hooked.
Now be smart and revisit this section after you are done writing for every other section of your plan. A thorough understanding of your business plan at that time will enable you to craft a compelling summary easily.
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2. Company Overview
This section of a business plan helps the reader get a thorough understanding of your consulting firm.
The company overview offers a detailed description highlighting what type of consultancy you would run, its physical location, legal structure, mission objectives, history, and all such related information.
Begin by clearly stating the concept and niche of your consulting firm. Further, highlight whether you would be running a sole proprietorship or partnership, and if it’s the latter discuss the profit-sharing ratio.
Don’t forget to mention your business structure and whether or not will you run a Limited Liability Company (LLC).
This section is your chance to introduce your business objectives, core value proposition, and mission objectives. Highlight any milestones you plan to achieve or have already achieved and make this section insightful.
Refer to this example describing the short-term objectives of a consulting firm from an Upmetrics plan.
3. Competitor and Market Analysis
An in-depth analysis of the consulting industry, market, and competitors is essential to build a successful consulting business. This is the most crucial part of your consultancy business plan helping you identify your target market, emerging trends, competitors, and your advantage over them.
Market analysis
The market analysis section of your consultant business plan will help you evaluate the market condition, target market, and business growth opportunities for your consultancy business.
Begin by researching and analyzing the consultancy market size and the serviceable obtainable market of your specific consultancy.
Further, determine your target audience by creating a buyer’s persona of your ideal customer. In this customer analysis section, determine their demographic and psychographic details to get a clear understanding of who your customer would be.
Refer to this buyer’s persona written using Upmetrics AI assistant:
Lastly, identify the emerging market trends within your industry, potential risks, and the shifts in consumer behavior likely to influence your business.
Competitors analysis
In the competitive analysis section of your plan, identify the consulting firms and other businesses that offer direct or indirect competition to your business.
Your direct competitors are other consultants in your local market, while your indirect competitors are in-house experts, software solutions, and an industry-specific business community extending resourceful help.
Conduct a SWOT analysis of your key competitors and analyze them based on their service offerings, target demographics, pricing, and other relevant factors.
Highlight your competitive advantage over these firms, suggesting that there are ample opportunities for you to succeed despite the competition.
Here’s an example of a competitive advantage for a consultancy business using Upmetrics.
4. Service Offerings
Consulting businesses offer a variety of consulting services. In this section of your consulting business plan, you will create a clear list of all the services you will be offering.
The list can include various business consulting services such as:
- Strategy consulting
- Operation consulting
- Human resources consulting
- IT Consulting
- Risk and compliance consulting
Now, elaborate on these services to help your readers understand what it truly entails. Refer to this example of legal and compliance services brief description:
As part of our risk and compliance service, the company will offer:
- Draft, negotiate, and conclude ‘Joint Venture Agreements’, and ‘Memoranda of cases for one of our key clients.
- Legal Advice & Consultation
- Case Litigation & Pleading
- Legal Translation
- Business Start-up Advice
- Management Consultancy
- Representation and Attorney Services
- Legal Compliance
Determine the pricing of these services and place it alongside your service list. Ideally, you should create differential and tiered pricing plans for your services to cater to different target audiences.
All in all, make this section an informative read for your readers helping them understand your unique business offerings.
5. Marketing Plan
A well-defined marketing plan is among the most important components of your consulting firm’s business plan. Well, It’s time to design your marketing strategies using your market research about the target customers and the potential clients.
Multifarious marketing efforts are essential to make your new business visibly famous in the market. Well, here are a few strategies that a successful consultant follows religiously:
Social media marketing
Choose different social media platforms to build your consultancy brand online. LinkedIn can be a good choice for a consultancy business followed by FaceBook and Instagram. Create your marketing plans for different platforms and be consistent with your posting there.
Informative website
Build an informative website for your consulting business and enhance its ranking on search engines by creating a dedicated content marketing program.
Email marketing
A well-defined email marketing program to attract new clients, newsletters for subscribed customers, and promotional services offer to convert a potential customer base.
Targeted advertising
Running a paid ads program to reach targeted small businesses and potential clients.
Refer to this example of marketing and promotion programs for your consultancy from Upmetrics.
In this section of your consulting business plan, also highlight your marketing budget and its allocation to different marketing activities.
6. Management Consulting Team
Introduce your managerial team in this section of your consultant business plan by showing how you have the right people to run a successful consultancy.
Begin by introducing the people at top managerial positions and offer a brief description depicting their skills, expertise, and experience in offering specific consulting services.
Refer to this example introducing the managing director of a consulting agency.
Mr. Ashton will serve as the Managing Director of CCI. A highly motivated and dynamic individual, Thomas boasts vast experience in the field of aesthetics having spent a career spanning 14 years essaying various white-collar roles for aesthetic companies across America. His ability to multi-task and expertly weave through operational pitfalls equips him with exceptional management and administrative skills. The US operations include sourcing, interacting, and building client relations across the industry value chain involving professional salons and end-user clientele. Mr. Ashton’s expert management and industry-specific skills will play an instrumental role in achieving the parent company’s goal of establishing a sustainable and reliable aesthetic brand in the US.
Don’t limit this section to the introduction of owners and managers. Instead, introduce every person who’s an asset to your business and can contribute significantly to your business goals.
In this section, you will also highlight the organizational design to offer a clear understanding of the hierarchy in your consulting firm. And lastly, don’t forget to add the salaries and wages of these people alongside their roles while creating your management plan.
7. Operational Plan
The operations plan shows that you don’t only have the means but also the knack to operate the consulting business efficiently.
This section of your business plan highlights the processes and procedures essential to run the everyday operations of your consulting business and the milestones you wish to achieve.
Confused what should you include in your operations plan? Let’s check this out:
Hiring plan
Mention the number of project managers, analysts, BD, administrative, and support workers needed for your business. Briefly describe the qualifications, skill sets, and experience for these roles and lay your hiring plan to hire employees.
Refer to this example of a hiring plan for a consultancy by Upmetrics.
Operational processes
Briefly explain the different processes and procedures of your business in the consulting industry. This includes processes for client acquisition, service delivery, project management process, quality assessment, and client retention.
Tools and equipment
Mention all the equipment you will require to deliver quality consulting services to the clients. Also, include the pricing of these equipment and how you plan to source them from the market.
Overall, think of smaller nuances and make this section as brief and detailed as possible. Consider it as a guidebook that will answer all the operational queries that arise while running the business.
8. Financial Outlook
A comprehensive financial plan is the most crucial component of your business plan and sometimes it is the only section investors or readers might be interested in.
So work on putting together a well-detailed financial plan with realistic financial forecasts to increase the weight of your consulting plan.
The projections in a financial plan are important because they help the readers gauge the financial viability of your business idea. They offer a clear picture of the profitability, growth potential, and cash-generating capacity of your consulting business.
To create a befitting plan, begin by offering a detailed insight into your startup costs, revenue streams, profit margins, operational costs, and cash flow projections. Gather these projections to work on your key reports.
Refer to different business plans to see what more could you add to your financial section apart from these key essentials:
- Balance sheet
- Profit and loss statement/ Income statement
- Cash flow statement
- Break-even analysis
- Investment plan
While making a financial plan, ensure that you figure out the calculations for the next 3-5 years. And yes, we agree that calculating all these financial projections from scratch can get overwhelming. However, with this financial forecasting tool from Upmetrics, the entire task of creating a detailed plan will get much easier and more effective.
Simply enter the details in the tab and let the tool undertake all the manual calculations and create engaging visual reports to add to your plan.
Get Your Free Management Consulting Business Plan
Need help writing the contents of your management consulting business plan? Well, here you go. Download our management consulting business plan pdf and start writing.
Our intuitive and modern consulting business plan template offers a step-by-step guide with relevant examples to speed up your process of writing an effective business plan. It will get your actionable plan ready while ensuring that you add all the crucial details to it.
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And here we are. Now that you are aware of how to write an effective business plan using our consulting business plan template, you are one step closer to starting your business with a bang.
But that’s not it. What if we tell you that your business planning process can be made easier and more efficient with a few cutting-edge tools? Well, the Upmetrics business planning app is here at your service.
With an AI assistant to speed up your writing process, financial forecasting tools to help you with projections, and thousands of free educational guides to help you set up the business- we think you get it all with Upmetrics.
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