Since 1999, Growthink has developed more than 4,000 business plans for clients in a wide variety of industries. From this vast experience, we have developed a proprietary engagement methodology that ensures high-quality, fully customized business plans for every client.
Our process consists of seven distinct phases, designed to maximize quality and client satisfaction.
- Management Interviews: Here, we collect and document your “verbal” growth plan, including your vision, key accomplishments to date, mission-critical challenges and opportunities, key objectives and goals, and growth strategies. In this phase, we also identify and refine key research questions, and work to define and communicate an effective “story” for the business plan.
- Strategic Market Research: In this phase, we size the relevant market place, analyze competitors, profile existing and prospective customer groups, and assess the business opportunity. Growthink also conducts “benchmarking research” during this phase of its engagement process. This involves identifying other companies that have succeeded and/or failed with similar businesses and/or initiatives.
- Checkpoint Document: At this stage, we deliver a “checkpoint” document to confirm that we are in agreement with you regarding the strategic direction of the plan, the business plan’s focus, and the tone and language of the plan. (The checkpoint document is delivered either as a business plan outline or a draft of an executive summary).
- Additional Research and Strategy Work: After incorporating your feedback from the “checkpoint” document, we begin additional research regarding your business strategy (roll-out, financials, marketing, operations, etc.) and communication strategy (how best to articulate your unique opportunity to existing and potential stakeholders and investors).
- Draft Plan: Next, we provide a draft of the deliverables, which typically include an Executive Summary, Integrated Financials (historical and projected), and a complete business plan (company analysis; customer and market analyses; industry and competitive analyses; marketing, operations, and development plans; management team; appendices).
- Review and Revise: In this phase, we review the draft plan with you and and discuss the focus, wording, and flow of the document. We incorporate any necessary revisions and refinements, and prepare the revised plan.
- Package and Finalize: The final stage involves creating a clean, professional document, with graphical enhancements, that is copy-edited, formatted, and ready to be presented to stakeholders and investors.
