business plans jobs

Business Plan Consultant Job Description Template

A business plan consultant provides a financial, marketing, and operational roadmap to align stakeholders and help your business achieve its goals.

Trusted by leading brands and startups

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Business plans are the North Star for early-stage businesses, used as a reference point when making major business decisions, collateral when securing a new fundraising round, and as an introduction to the business and its goals when recruiting new key hires.

While business plan templates can be found online, these ready-made guides can drive entrepreneurs and their businesses away from what they actually need to achieve. A top business plan consultant will construct a custom plan that takes into account the specifics of your business, or review and pressure-test an existing plan while taking into account the latest industry trends.

Business Plan Consultant - Job Description and Ad Template

Copy this template, and modify it as your own:

Company Introduction

{{Write a short and catchy paragraph about your company. Provide information about the company’s culture, perks, and benefits. Mention office hours, remote working possibilities, and anything else that makes your company interesting.}}

Job Description

A business plan consultant provides strategic direction by {{creating or methodically pressure-testing and refining}} a company’s business plan, using an understanding of the company’s core operations, competitive advantages, and goals to provide direction on how to structure, run, and grow the business.

The ideal candidate will have some experience in running or advising early stage businesses, combining the analytical abilities of a CFA charterholder with the broad vision of a CEO to provide a roadmap to growth.

Responsibilities

• Develop an understanding of the existing business (including products/services, customers, competitors, the overall market and trends) through careful research and analysis
• Understand how major stakeholders are thinking about near-term growth, generally and in reference to specific growth initiatives, through interviews with these stakeholders
• Build a detailed financial analysis showing all of the assumptions, drivers, and financial statements for the next 3 - 5 years, accounting for a conservative, base, and aggressive case
• Conduct a total addressable market analysis for the business’ core market, assess major industry trends affecting the business, and describe what impact these trends may have on the business
• Review research reports and conduct primary research to hone in on ideal buyer type and assess customer demand for the company’s existing products and services
• Map out direct and indirect competitors, including potential future competitors, for existing and potential revenue channels
• Define a go-to-market strategy, including testing out potential marketing channels (if applicable)
• Review compensation plans and organizational structure to align incentives and ensure the health of the organization in the long-run

Skills and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, operations, research, statistics, math, economics, or related analytical discipline preferred
• Financial management experience with planning, forecasting, and business analysis; prior experience as an advisor to or executive at an early-stage company a plus
• Advanced Excel proficiency. 3+ years of practical experience of using Excel for building and maintaining financial models
• Proficiency with analytical and presentation tools {{(Excel pivot tables, SQL queries, graphing, PowerPoint)}}
• Experience within {{preferred industry}}
• A natural curiosity and a “big picture” mentality
• Experience conducting market research, including analyzing and synthesizing research reports and conducting primary research
• An understanding of marketing channels and go-to-market strategies
• Excellent spoken and written communication; comfort reaching out to and interviewing the company’s management, employees, and customer base

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Business Plan Consultants: Who They Are and How They Create Value

How to hire business plan consultants.

Business plan consultants have the industry knowledge and expertise to develop a business plan that maximizes your company’s potential and attracts investors. This guide to hiring business plan experts offers insight into best practices, skill requirements, job description tips, and interview questions and answers to help you identify the best candidate for your needs.

Hire a Top Business Plan Consultant Now

Toptal is a marketplace for top business plan consultants and experts. Top companies and startups hire freelance business plan consultants from Toptal for their mission critical projects.

Trevor Davis

Trevor is an experienced entrepreneur and banker with a background in business plan development, financial modeling, M&A, capital raising, and business valuation. He has worked and advised clients across many industries. Trevor has worked on over $5 billion of M&A and financing transactions and has advised clients ranging from early-stage startups to multi-billion dollar businesses.

Andon Baltakov

Andon is a fractional CFO and a fundraising expert for clients of Toptal. Most recently, he devised a novel business plan and a financial model for a sports information company. He also provided advisory services to launch a new social, digital business. Currently, he is working with the CFO of an entertainment enterprise to structure a business model and expand a side video project into a multimillion-dollar film business. Andon is a seasoned strategy executive who worked at the AP, CNN.

Aaleem Jiwa

As a Deloitte consulting manager, Aaleem led the creation of a business plan and financial model for a city-owned real estate firm that enabled them to develop 50 properties in 10 years. He has helped owners of small companies and executive teams at multi-billion dollar entities optimize their businesses through financial analysis. Aaleem travels extensively, and freelancing allows him to deliver value to companies from any city in the world.

Discover More Business Plan Consultants in the Toptal Network

Toptal Connects the Top 3% of Freelance Talent All Over The World.

Join the Toptal community.

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Business Planning Job Description

Business planning duties & responsibilities.

To write an effective business planning job description, begin by listing detailed duties, responsibilities and expectations. We have included business planning job description templates that you can modify and use.

Sample responsibilities for this position include:

Business Planning Qualifications

Qualifications for a job description may include education, certification, and experience.

Licensing or Certifications for Business Planning

List any licenses or certifications required by the position: APICS, CPIM, PMP, CSCP, COO, CE, SAP, CSCMP, CPA, APIC

Education for Business Planning

Typically a job would require a certain level of education.

Employers hiring for the business planning job most commonly would prefer for their future employee to have a relevant degree such as Bachelor's and University Degree in Finance, Business, MBA, Accounting, Engineering, Economics, Business/Administration, Marketing, Communication, Management

Skills for Business Planning

Desired skills for business planning include:

Desired experience for business planning includes:

Business Planning Examples

• Microsoft Word (.docx) .DOCX
• PDF Document (.pdf) .PDF
• Image File (.png) .PNG
• Support other legal entity and business planning work streams as needed
• Business decision support for key management reporting & business planning cycles (month-end, forecast, long range plan, & budget)
• Accrual management experience should include supporting business partners to ensure a sound internal control environment
• Maintaining organization budgets/forecasts, tracking monthly actuals
• Assisting with month-to-month, forecast-to-forecast, & full year variance performance reporting for management
• Providing budget process information to supervisors to ensure forecasts are realistic, expenses are calendarized properly and plans are within forecasted levels
• Tracking of system allocations and subsequent interaction between the Sales, Customer Marketing, Marketing, and Forecasting Team
• Work closely with Sales Teams to ensure timely updates to allocations are provided, orders are placed and in line with projections, or providing direction for changes to stay within the program allocation limits
• Data Sync coordination between the Sales teams and 3rd party
• EPIC Analysis including root cause reports identifying what errors were corrected and presenting the information to Sales Operation Management
• Ability to extract large amounts of data (database mining skills) from Genesys and summarize that data into useful trend information
• Familiar with MS tools and other finance application SAP
• Extremely strong analytical skill set
• Passion for consumer technology & execution
• Commitment to excellence and sense of humor
• Building Value-Based Relationships (Proficient)
• Work to ensure expectations and demands are met working while balancing resources and working through logistical and technical obstacles
• The Business Planning Editor will work closely with our business teams in the U.S. and EMEA to make sure that we are collaborating as one global business unit, in addition to working with our Business Correspondents
• Dealing with the coverage planning, responding quickly to priorities to coordinate coverage desires to meet the newsgathering needs, both live and in taped form
• Ensuring coverage plans are well defined and full details are outlined in documented fashion (via iNews, email, coverage notes), including planned packages and anticipated live coverage
• Providing full support in regard to essential coordination and logistical planning decisions as needed by newsgathering and programming needs
• Staying fiscally responsible, and planning coverage that is within budget constraints
• Work on confirming emerging stories for reporting on our air, and looking for elements to help visually enhance the story telling
• Look to service our digital platforms, namely the CNN Money vertical, to which TV is closely aligned
• Full knowledge of Company policies and practices and their effective oversight are also part of the duties
• Build budget models for expenses and capital for assigned business unit, and once reviewed load into corporate budget application
• Experience in developing, maintaining and delivering metrics
• Ability to develop and implement detailed work plans that support key deliverables
• Experience with Microsoft Office suite and Adobe
• Experience analyzing business operations and identifying areas for financial performance (based on return on investment (ROI), compounded annual growth rates, payback, internal rate of return (IRR), pretax and after tax earnings, targeted profit margins, FCF, present value)
• Openness to tackling projects of varying size and complexity with evolving requirements
• Undergraduate degree is required and Post Graduate degree is an asset
• Provide business case, ROI and payback analysis (e.g., total cost of ownership, lease vs
• Manage the processing and scheduling of customer orders
• Scheduling and procurement of materials
• Manage and control of WIP / finished goods inventory
• Arrange for shipment of orders
• Interact with salary and union-represented personnel
• Orchestrate impact analysis and recommendations across business strategy, engineering, legal, research, finance, sales teams
• Track progress of the operating plan against the targets (operational scorecards) on a weekly basis, communicate gaps and impacts to the leadership & recommend approach for getting back on track gap
• Orchestrate the Planning Playbooks (value prop, brand, product experience, channel strategy, customer experience) for large program launches
• Key team member on business strategic projects
• Bachelor’s Degree and up to 2 years (or MBA) of business experience, Sales, Category Management
• Manager, Business Planning
• Demand Planning Team
• A minimum of 5 years in an editorial and business newsgathering environment Full knowledge of TV news logistics, technical requirements
• Ability to handle multiple tasks under stressful contentions
• Organized, exceptional interest in world news with strong communication skills
• Support projects and programs with relevant information and data
• Track the implementation of New Product Introduction (NPI’s)
• Work across business operations functions to optimize order and shipment management
• End to end responsibility for specific projects and programs
• Define project/ program KPI’s
• Follow up with channel, region, country and GBU teams on the implementation
• Define in- country needs for support
• Support the countries with the required help to achieve their business objectives
• Assisting with business cases
• Coordinate and manage “(HIAMS)AM OD meeting” with other department members (mainly DE and/or S&M) which involves many other corporate department of the organization (Executive management, DE, S&M, Procurement, F&A, PM, PE) and manufacturing locations in Americas region
• Prior newsgathering and field experience desired
• Be willing to work unpredictable hours and quick to adapt to changes that affect each show, and be ready to travel with short notice
• Pricing Schemes & Trade Spend o Analyse and review actual net pricing against approved scheme on monthly basis
• Preferably Degree-educated in Finance, Economics or Business Administration
• Some professional experience in an analytics role preferred
• Excellent communication, presentational and partnering skills
• Monitor and update any change in regards to company standards and rules where applicable
• Support various management meetings by coordinating the meeting schedule, creating required documents and presentations including analyzing the information and/or data, and issuing the meeting note and follow up open items
• Create and maintain database which will be utilized for analysis
• Support to establish regional business strategy by preparing Regional Business Plan documents with cooperation of other related corporate department of organization
• Perform BPC System support such as researching, documenting or updating basic functionality such as input schedules, master data, data flow and calculation logic
• Support development, implementation and testing of BPC system enhancements
• Coordinate and analyze the data and assumptions that drive forecast/plan results
• Create/Maintain presentations, spreadsheets, reports, or other metric-driven tools
• Communicate and support the forecast/planning process analytical results effectively in both verbal and written form to Planning leadership and other functional teams
• Role may be globally-focused, or oriented
• Bachelors’ or Masters’ degree or equivalent in business or finance
• Bachelor's degree in business administration or a quantitative field
• Previous experience with planning tools, Anaplan, Hyperion Planning, is preferred
• Experience in relational database systems/data warehousing systems such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Redshift, Oracle, MySQL preferred
• Work experience in electronic repair/ depot services /reverse logistics services
• Customer negotiations and pricing

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Fact-Checking Biden’s and Trump’s Claims About the Economy

We fact-checked claims about inflation, jobs and tax policy from both presidential candidates.

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By Linda Qiu

Reporting from Washington

Consumer sentiment about the state of the economy could be pivotal in shaping the 2024 presidential election.

President Biden is still grappling with how to address one of his biggest weaknesses : inflation, which has recently cooled but soared in his first years in office. Former President Donald J. Trump’s frequent economic boasts are undermined by the mass job losses and supply chain disruptions wrought by the pandemic.

Here’s a fact check of some of their more recent claims about the economy.

Both candidates misrepresented inflation.

What Was Said

“They had inflation of — the real number, if you really get into the real number, it’s probably 40 percent or 50 percent when you add things up, when you don’t just put in the numbers that they want to hear.” — Mr. Trump at a campaign event in Detroit in June

“I think it could be as high as 50 percent if you add everything in, when you start adding energy prices in, when you start adding interest rates.” — Mr. Trump in a June interview on Fox News

This is misleading. Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, cited a 41 percent increase in energy prices since January 2021, and prices for specific energy costs like gasoline rising more than 50 percent during that time.

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