Building an Army

Step 1: Build the Plan

March 2016

This is the second installment in my spontaneous, journaling journey here on Medium as I share what I’m doing to (and how you can) build a legacy with little or no budget.

For posterity I should probably note that in writing a blog series with a premise of “no budget”, my intended audience has none or little to speak of. If one is financially challenged and wanting to start something special, it stands to reason that they have little or no professional experience in this arena either.

I do.

So I’m freely sharing my knowledge with the “newbie” in mind

…though over the last 20 years what I thought was common knowledge (regarding marketing, business systems & processes, and digital communications) wasn’t so common …even among the executives I was paid to counsel.

If you missed the intro to this series, you can catch up here:

Building an Army (Intro)

Without further delay …In this journal entry I’m going to share what I know (and what I am actively doing) as a first step in my plot to take over the planet: building the business plan.

You’ve likely heard the saying:

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Reminder: Successful connection, engagement, conversion and tribe building in today’s digital, mobile & audience-driven society requires:

1. Knowing who you are. (What’s your story? What’s your passion? What keeps you up at night? What are you really good at?)
2. Knowing why you’re relevant. (What’s in it for them? Be consumer-centric.)
3. Knowing who you need to reach. (It’s often not who you think, and “everyone” is not a valid answer.)
4. Knowing how & where to reach them. (Online & offline.)
5. Knowing what to say when you do. (Talk to, not at …conversationally & relationally in their language not yours. Use the 20% rule for selling: 80% should be about them, not you.)

If you don’t have the answers to 1–3 memorized, written down and ready to share quickly at a moment’s notice (You know, like in the time it takes to ride an elevator…i.e. Elevator pitch) then don’t do anything else until you do.

*We’ll tackle numbers 4 & 5 later.

Here’s the pitch for my legacy venture:

“We’re a Benefit Corporation providing education & entertainment media to build an army that’s dedicated to freeing slaves 24/7.”

Who we are? Check.

A Benefit Corp & media company. (Don’t know what a Benefit Corp is? Well then we have something to chat about now, don’t we?)

Why we’re relevant? Check.

Education & entertainment are relevant to almost everyone on the planet. Media is used by billions daily.

Knowing who we want to reach? Check.

People who want education, like entertainment, and think the idea of ending slavery is a good thing.

(In our case this means our primary target-audience demographic is Adults: 18–49.)

…don’t worry about target demos just yet. We’ll get to that later too.

Get your pitch in order first. It’s the North Star you’ll need for building your formal business plan.

Now you may already be thinking you’ll skip ahead. (A lot of would-be ____’s do.)

Writing a business plan is not sexy. It’s the dirty work that needs to be done and there’s no up front money in building it. You’re going to write, scrap, rewrite, scrap again, rinse and repeat until you get it right …and even once you do, you’ll still doubt yourself.

(Isn’t building a legacy glamorous?)

Unless you’re one of those sick individuals who love math, crave calculus, and pine for projections & forecasting …I’m not going to lie, your head is going to hurt before this part is over.

(Nothin but love and respect to my math geeks by the way. I couldn’t make it without you!)

You may think you’ll never want or need money from an angel investor or venture capitalist, and that’s ok. (I’m still not certain if I will seek funding …and you should be cautious about bringing investors in too soon, if at all. …More on that later too.)

The #1 reason you should write a business plan is that statistics clearly show that you more than double your chances of ever starting your business when you invest the time & effort to write your plan first.

Do the time. Write the plan.

When you do, you’ll have more than an idea, dream or goal …you’ll have action that moves you closer to making your legacy a reality.

So here’s how you do it…

As a start up of any kind, keep it simple. You can expand your legalese and financials in cadence with increased interest and investment possibility.

This first draft is for you.

Many successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders have shared their insights on building a proper plan and I encourage you to Google this topic for yourself to find what works for you.

This is simply what I’ve done.

Use Word (PC/Mac), Docs (Mac), Notes/Notepad (IOS/Droid), your favorite word processor or even a blank piece of paper and pen…(We’re writing, so find something to write on!)

1. Write a 1-page summary.
2. Company overview.
3. Product/service overview.
4. Financial overview.
5. Takeaways/Facts bullet list.

In the next installment we’ll dive into the first order of business on the list: The Executive Summary

Before I go, it just so happens I stumbled upon a great article on writing a business plan in my morning feed reading today. (See what I did there? …if not, Google the italics. …It was clever. Trust me.)

Thanks for joining me on this journey. If you’re finding this helpful and haven’t already, you’re welcome to follow along. If you know any other aspiring game changers, they’re always welcome too!

See you next round.