Pricing Strategic Business Plans | Women In Sales

One consistent variable is how much time the executive team is willing to devote to this process. A solid strategic business plan is very much research driven unless of course the plan is a stop gap measure because of past failure to put a plan in place.

by Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Imagine you receive a voice mail from someone who is seeking information as to the cost of strategic business planning. Oh, and he already has someone he has identified to perform the professional services and that is not you.

First, would you return the call? If so, what would be your response?

Let?s say for discussion sakes you return the phone call because of your values and ask for some additional information to gain greater clarity before you provide your answer. You learn that the strategic business plan is for bank financing or a small business loan (federally guaranteed) for a new, start up business.

The marketing, sales and financial research had already been undertaken with an estimated 50 hours or more of time. From this information, general goal statements had been constructed. All of these actions had resulted in the existing consultant receiving $8,000 for his work. So now it was time to put all the puzzles pieces together.

Of course there were some missing pieces such as Executive Business or Organizational Summary and the Marketing Executive Summary. The final missing piece was synthesizing all of this information into a cohesive format that would support the request for financing.

Now armed with this information what would be your response? Given that this was a start-up, my suggestion would be an additional investment of between $3,000 and $4,000 to complete the strategic plan. If the customer wanted some follow-up and assistance in execution, that would be additional based upon the projected hours.

Coaching Tip: Research and facilitating the necessary knowledge from this data collection usually comprises 70% to 80% of the total time involved.

Pricing a strategic business plan is difficult because of the numerous variables. Many professional service providers based their fees on the organization?s current revenue while others look at the number of employees and some look to receiving a percentage of growth.

One consistent variable is how much time the executive team is willing to devote to this process. A solid strategic business plan is very much research driven unless of course the plan is a stop gap measure because of past failure to put a plan in place. When those within the organization undertake the majority of research, then the consultant has less time invested into the project.

Whatever the cost of the plan, not having a plan is far more costly. Just ask many of those businesses that failed in the first few years.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Leanne is the author of be the Red Jacket in a Sea of Gray Suits.? Leanne Hoagland-Smith has over 25 years in sales. Her true joy is selling and helping clients unlock the results that they want. She holds a core belief that the majority of answers are within each individual or organization and, sometimes, people just need an outside perspective to help them discover those answers. Leanne has written more than 1000 articles on sales and process improvement. Learn more about Leanne at www.processspecialist.com

Source: http://www.salesgravy.com/women-in-sales/pricing-strategic-business-plans/

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