and YouTube hangout super excited to be
here with my friend CEO of saged
accounting software that I use in my
business mr. Stephen Kelly how you doing
man
hey I’m great Evan great to be here with
everybody as well he is in London I am
in Toronto Canada and today we are
talking about how to write a perfect
business plan but before we get into
that we love Stephens quotes he always
takes us off with a few amazing quotes
that you guys love tuning into so
Stephen what do you got for us this
month you’re gonna love it Evan the
first quote I’ve got loads I’ve got
about nine quotes some of my own and
summer from much more esteemed kind of
leaders but the first quote is the
perfect business plan is an imperfect
business plan there is no such thing as
a perfect business plan second quote one
of my own and we know this one fail to
plan plan to fail yeah next one and if
you come from a marketing world or you
do a kind of masters they’ll teach this
in terms of marketing but it’s the four
piece poor planning equals poor
performance and then this is what I mine
and this is so true and we use this
particularly high-growth companies so
true you know I’m a class planning and B
class execution is always inferior to be
class planning and strategy and a class
execution where magic happens is they’re
totally connected and then a couple of
ones from esteemed individuals this one
from Anton de sans exuberant a French
kind of philosopher a goal without a
plan is just a wish and one you’ve
probably heard not so before again is a
plan without execution is simply
hallucination and then we’re gonna
finish with a couple of good ones which
is minor we’ll get onto this is always
start a plan with the end in mind and
then a great one for Mom JFK is efforts
encourage are not enough without purpose
and direction in a plan there you go
Evan what I wanna start nine nine good
ones so I think you know where do you
start with this
everybody needs a plan but so we should
talk about some of the things about why
it was important how to get it just good
enough how to get into execution how to
do course correction what’s the format
all these sort of things so there’s
loads it’s a really rich topic and
obviously if you’ve got a plan that says
you’re going on a journey when you’re an
entrepreneur you’re going on an
adventure and if you set out without
some idea of where the direction of the
destination is or the top of the
mountain that you’re gonna climb you got
probably gonna fail but obviously you
need flexibility because the weather
changes the consumer you serve in you
get hit by competitors you get loads of
different things you run into adversity
and that’s why we love you guys as
entrepreneurs overcoming that adversity
but you kind of know where you want to
get to so Evan what are your thoughts so
I want to get into the specifics of a
plan and give people some this is a more
tactical one I’m liking this topic but
but before kind of diving in this is a
great question that came in from Lilly
and I think is worth addressing which is
do I need to have a business plan if I’m
not going for a bank loan and so being
able to distinguish between a business
plan for yourself to guide your company
forward and then a business plan for
somebody else a banker and investor
potentially even a supplier or going for
government grants or loans like there’s
different kinds of business plans that
we need to write what’s your advice
between writing one for yourself versus
our specific purpose of getting an
investment are going for an award Wow
hey that is such a great question Lilly
and I think there’s there’s different
strands of business plan but they’ve got
to be interconnected so the most
important business plan is is your own
business plan you can kind of look at
yourself in the mirror and say you know
in three years time this is my dream so
then you how did you translate that
dream to this year’s reality this
month’s reality this week’s reality and
what are you going to do today
and then actually if you go and you’re
at stage of raising money I would always
advocate you want to have kind of I
guess let layers within the plan so
definitely if you’re gonna raise money
the plan you present is obviously going
to be talking more about the market
t-paint gonna get a market the product
or services you know and the idea and
why it’s different and the value
proposition all that sort of stuff
and if you really kind of go through
them we talked about this on the
previous one if you’re gonna venture
capitalists they’ll obviously back you
as an individual or the management team
going with you but they’ll base a lot of
it on the idea and the business plan and
the capability to execute now if that’s
the case the way I’ve always advised
entrepreneurs and I did this when I ran
startups and invested in companies is I
have my own plan which is ambitious but
realistic and then the plan I’d present
to investors is less ambitious because
what you don’t want to do is present to
anybody financing your business a plan
that’s up here and then like six months
later deliver down here you’ve got to
knock the ball out the park because if
you want to raise further money the way
you do that is kind of beat your plan so
so but the goal is I think most
importantly for your business is your
own business plan that you’re going to
drive forward and we’ll come on to the
details of what that looks like
but I’d say you start with the end in
mind it’s so important and there’s so
much there’s so much research done if
you actually start the plan at the end
of the journey and what is the dream you
have and then kind of work backwards
number one you’ve got a bigger chance of
succeeding in terms of executing that
plan and that’s just the way of
psychology works and we can explain that
but secondly it really gives you a kind
of a route map with waypoints on the
journey of how you’re gonna exceed your
goals and what are the metrics that
really matter to you and your customers
so and what’s your view you know Evan
you’ve started businesses you’re funded
businesses you’ve done you’ve seen all
sorts of plans yeah I think especially
from a venture capital or investment
point of view they’re gonna look at the
executive summary first that’s your one
to three page at the beginning that just
lays out everything if you can’t get
them within the executive summary your
plan gets deleted they don’t care about
anything else
next typically we go to the financials
to see how much money is this gonna make
like if you’re bringing an investor in
they’re looking at how much is this
going to make me
is it worthwhile puttin investment into
am I going to get my returns next to
look at the team who’s behind this are
they credible do they have a you know
the dentists before they know pure
startups do they have anybody under
board of advisors or anybody kind of
helping them giving them some some
support and then if all that makes sense
then they dive into the rest of it then
they’re looking at the product and
they’re looking at the market and you
look at the operations they look at
everything else that’s kind of the
sequence at least that we would go
through in the VC world executive
summary then financials and management
team and then everything else for
yourself and this is where it’s not as
formal like if you’re giving it to a VC
or an investor banker it’s a pretty
formal standard business plan and you
got to hit those main points for
yourself though it doesn’t have to be as
formal doesn’t you need to don’t need to
have an executive summary at least I
don’t think for yourself but you need to
have a general guideline of where you’re
going and what opportunities see that
are that are ahead and the Stevens point
like the plain will change like as soon
as soon as the ink dries on your playing
it’s wrong something else is gonna
change in the market though you have to
adjust see what do you think about what
kind of plan should people have for
themselves so that’s that’s we need for
investors for yourself like entrepreneur
whether they’re just getting started
they’re running a small company what
kind of plan should they have for
themselves
yeah I think um and I’ve seen this work
and I’ve actually done it myself in a
start-up in California is is I always
advocate you start with the end in mind
you know and and there’s you can check
it out on the web there’s loads of stuff
techniques around end result planning or
what’s also called back-to-front
planning or sort of destination planning
so why is this so important you know
when you’re an entrepreneur you’re an
optimist you overcome adversity but if
you start with where we are today and
look forward it’s really hard to see how
do you navigate on that journey and and
also when you get knocks you can become
you know you can become kind of bit
deflated whereas it’s all my I will use
Mountaineer and I’m not a mountaineer
but I’ll give you the same example if
Evan and I stood at the base camp of
Everest and looked up there at Everest
we think oh my god as
long way away and there’s ice caps and
there’s snow and there’s storms and
there’s wind now if we actually stood on
the summit of Everest town together and
this sunshine and we look back down at
base camp I don’t even know if you can
see base camp from the summit so I’m
kind of making this up but you look back
down you think wow we did it we puff our
chests out we we did this we created
this great company we’ve got a million
customers we’ve done it and then when
you look back down you think what are
the things I had to overcome when I hit
a storm when I hit a nice black when you
know maybe I kind of broke an arm on the
way up or what what did I do to overcome
the adversity and when you’re looking
back on things it’s a whole lot easier
so for your planning start with the end
in mind start what is it your dream and
what would your dream look like and and
this is a great great and I always
encourage my team to this yeah as a
leader you have to live in the future
you have to change the world because
you’ve got your idea and if you’re
successful with the idea you know what
sort of dream would your imagination let
you run wild with and when you’ve cut
that capture it put a time stamp on it
and then work backwards to you know
three years one year one quarter one
month and then actually I think you can
sketch it down Evan on one page almost a
skeleton of what’s the destination you
know who you serving what’s your
audience what’s the value proposition
what is the idea obviously what
investment you need to make it happen
and then actually the first step was we
talked about Martin Luther King when you
join climb that giant staircase what’s
the first step you take so what are you
gonna do tomorrow who you’re gonna
recruit which customer you’re going to
attract all those things and it’s
actually that power of connecting the
dream with the plan with what you’re
going to do tomorrow that allows you to
have a really strong level of confidence
you’re gonna be successful and then to
Evans point you know when you’re here
adversity you know obviously if you’re
attracting a head of your business plan
so with this you put metrics and
milestones whatever you want to call
them
all kind of points kpi’s for 30 days 60
days 90 days if you’re tracking ahead of
them scale up go faster if you’re not
hitting all the balls out the part
what’s going well what’s going wrong
what do you need to change what do you
need to course-correct
maybe you know you look at your website
it’s not actually delivering either the
traffic or the conversion and then you
kind of blend you know maybe better SEO
optimization it’s all these sort of
things where as an entrepreneur you’ve
constantly challenged yourself and
you’re never satisfied in terms of touch
in your dreams but if it is going well
you want to scale up and go faster so I
think and a visual that I’ve got one of
the companies where I turned up a CEO
and I inherited quite a established
company but I actually this is pretty
crazy of them just to give you a few for
this we I got the kind of top six
leaders together
and I said let’s have that dream and we
defined it of what we wanted to become
to be the great company we aspire to be
and I said well what would it look like
in three years time let’s live in the
future let’s project ourselves into the
future and then look back on where we
are today
and again there’s loads of techniques
you can do that check out this some
technique called grow which is around
goals reality options and kind of wrap
up to build a plan so check all these
things out on the web but it’s really
powerful one is actually this is a great
technique using counseling all these
sort of things where it works it’s just
proven to work so we lived in the future
we define what we wanted to be in three
by three and actually sorry oh we came
up with a phrase we wanted to triple the
revenue of the company in three years
and that was the man turn everyone in
the company you when when we stopped him
in the corridor what are we here to do
we’re here to triple to three by three
deliver 3 by 3 3 by 3 and how we gonna
do that it’s gonna be about customer
obsession it’s about delighting
customers so we had not only the the
destination the mountain the summit
three by three but we knew how we’re
gonna do that and then we actually
within the team just said well you’re in
customer services you’re in sales you’re
in marketing what do you need to do to
make that happen and we connect to this
fully integrated plan and even as a
single entrepreneur you can do the same
sort of things you know the great thing
about being
it’s a day of amazing highs and lows but
one day a year the marketing director
the next day or the sales director the
next day year the product development
director the day after you’ve got a
customer fire burning so you become the
customer services director you live in
the shoes of all these different roles
but all the same techniques in terms of
plan and apply with you honestly or a
company of 20 people five people or 200
people and that’s how you keep it alive
make it real I love that I love the
example and I love the I mean you’re
always passionate in general but I love
the passion the extra passion that comes
out when you’re thinking about where
we’re going to be in three years triple
the revenue it ties into a question that
came in if do you believe in one-page
business plans or the long one and I
think it just just depends to your point
on the audience if you’re gonna be
pitching to investors or bankers they
need to see the whole thing but for
yourself you need to have something
that’s easy to be able to relate to on a
consistent basis and yes you did all the
research and you understand how the
markets working but to look at something
on a daily basis you’re not gonna flip
through this 50 page business plan you
got to remember three by three or
whatever the thing is that is keeping
you going I’m a daily basis whatever
your goals are to Stevens point about
keeping the end in mind because I think
it’s easy as an entrepreneur to get lost
in the day to day we got lost in in the
trees and we forget that there’s a
forest and we forget this is the bigger
picture and so a constant reminder of
here’s what we’re trying to do here’s
where we’re trying to go having it on
one sheet people look at your goals and
know this is our objective so that you
don’t get kind of lost in the grind I
find that really helpful
it sounds like Steve when you’re doing
something similar 3×3 as as soon as
people understand it is a clear goal
it’s easy to remember and easy to align
your focus as opposed to having to flip
through you know a 50 page business plan
which people are going to do every day
yeah I think you know you’re absolutely
on the money there Evan and the power of
business plans is when you make it real
and you live it every day there’s no
point having a business plan you know
you spend ages developing analysis
paralysis and then you don’t bring into
the daily life of what you’re doing
every day the business plan defines how
do I spend my time today what are the
priorities that are going to move the
needle
and keep it simple simplify everything
Connor you know you’ve obviously got a
passion you’ve got a dream you’ve got
great big ideas if you over complicate
them then you know normally those sort
of companies struggle to succeed if you
simplify them and make them real you
know I could imagine if you have a
compelling business plan you can explain
on a page you take some Wiest but we
space and you’d have it up you know in
when people come in and this is what we
are it’s on one page it really captures
the essence of what your dreams are from
and makes them real and then also you
know you’re trying to hire your second
or third employee or you’re trying to
pitch to a partner or you’re pitching it
to a customer year you’re putting the
value prop on the website all these
things have to be aligned and authentic
and based on the essence of the one-page
business plan and that kind of skeleton
business plan to make it real to bring
it to life and that’s you know if you go
for a coffee and you’re trying to hire
your first employee what are you gonna
pitch you’re gonna pitch the business
plan you’re gonna pitch your dream
you’re gonna say and how we’re gonna
make it real this year if we’re
successful will exceed this revenue will
exceed these number of new customers you
really bring it to life in everything
and you’re very clear about one of the
three or four metrics you have to
measure and make sure a real and you’re
gonna drive for your prioritization and
investment and time allocation around to
really ensure you’re on track and then
what I would say we’ll come on to this
maybe is how often you review it
probably every month probably every
month because you probably set yourself
some milestones every month you want to
track and it is probably as an
entrepreneur you know what it’s like
Evan you always gravitate towards the
operations they’re doing the rolling up
your sleeves
I would definitely advocate every one of
our audience out there spends a bit of
time every month reflecting where do we
go how do we do are we tracking on the
metrics what’s working well what’s not
working what do we need to do in terms
of course correction on the business
plan and if that means you go back to
the one pager and actually say we think
we can go faster we can accelerate we
weren’t ambitious enough then kind of
agile agile and iterative lis
change the plan to reflect their current
reality I love what we’re getting tons
of great feedback in the comments people
saying amazing hooray
thank you for replying thank you for the
answer amazing highs people are loving
the live chat so far so this is great
next time so getting a little more
tactical Shreyas ready then to say what
do you look for in a great executive
summary that’s the great quest after the
questions a great Lily’s questions going
to show you your questions good I think
if it’s an executive summary you’re
gonna bring internally to how you build
your business the most important thing
is know who your audience is and know
how your idea is gonna change their life
and create a compelling value
proposition and then everything that
really defines how fast can we grow how
much revenue can we make and what are
the metrics we start measuring so you
know if it’s a you know I’d always
advocated build build a volunteer army
of great customers and therefore
customer obsession customer advocacy is
a key part of that
so really simple internal kind of
roadmap of what success looks like now
if it’s external I think you you know if
you’re gonna go and pitch for money and
raise money they it needs to be more
structured and to Evans point there’s
got to be an executive summary that’s
compelling there’s got to be a
definition of the market opportunity
that’s significant there’s got to be a
way where you save the product or
service I’m doing will generate this
sort of revenue which will map out on to
the financials and there’s got to be why
are you different why are you gonna
stand out from the crowd and then
obviously parla that’s probably the
management team as well so you know in
that demands you know a level of
formality and you probably find that a
minimum of 20 compelling pages of
narrative the you actually go and pitch
to a potential investor yeah Stephen did
a great job giving you overview the only
other thing I would add there is one of
the things we look for in the venture
capital world was we call it a
grandmother test with with it’s so easy
to understand that your grandmother
could get it because a lot of times
entrepreneurs they write and they talk
jargon where the other people on your
team and the other people who you might
be pitching to may not understand it and
so if somebody’s looking at that and
they can’t understand it they’re gonna
throw it away and they can’t take action
on it
especially if you’re looking at an
investor and so I’d be looking at does
it pass the grandmother test is it so
easy to understand that somebody from
outside your industry can make sense of
it so don’t use all these short form
terms don’t get super technical into the
jargon make sure that it’s written in
plain English that anybody can pick up
and I would actually suggest running to
by people if you’re trying to go for
investment eventually run it by people
who are not who have no familiarity with
your business and see if they get it and
if they’re like scratching their head
not quite understanding what it’s about
it you might need to retool some of the
words make it easier to understand yeah
and on that Evan I think there’s nothing
you know if you look at a pitch from
someone one of the questions you’ll ask
is have you actually tested it with
anyone else so if you could have a
mentor who’s done what you want to do
done it a couple of times and you know
cast their eye over your business plan
and just said actually you know my
experience suggests you need to look at
these areas if you can reference them
that’s powerful the other thing that I
love when I kind of if I reviewed a
business plan have you tested this on
potential customers you know you know
what’s your not like kind of formal
focus groups but there’s ways ways on
social media you can test drive all
these sort of things in real time get
real-time feedback and again that’s
pretty compelling if you’ve actually
tested this on a sample of customers
then that is very powerful but for
potential investors I love it I think
that it ties in well to the next
question is from each top music what are
some good ways to analyze a market so
once we get now like market analysis can
be part of any business plan how do you
actually break down and analyze a market
yeah that’s great question h top music
and i think amazing rich tools out there
through the web where you can kind of do
loads of really rich segmentation
obviously you can buy data but i think
in the world of where we are 2017
there’s so much rich data that you
should start
with and it’s all free data if you want
to look at markets most of it is kept
it’s just amazing what the government
publish as well
it’s amazing what industry Institute’s
whether it’s in the music industry with
the hospitality industry the amount of
rich available information out there
this cut by state by you know region is
just so rich so I have to start there I
look at external data and then also if
you really wanted to create communities
that’s a really powerful way to kind of
get rich data as well
so on social media you could create
community you know look what Evans done
he’s got you know he’s a rockstar hero
he’s got a community I bet if Evan
wanted to test drive some ideas he could
find at least a thousand people within
his community within his network groups
on Twitter on social media that would be
very happy to test drive stuff with him
and that is so powerful if you go if
you’ve got people particularly in your
audience marketplace who give you great
feedback on your idea your business plan
there’s nothing more compelling than
that yeah I agree and I think it ties in
to the last question to where you’re
talking about getting customers it’s
it’s not that difficult to get the high
level general market data of where the
industry is going and you know if you’re
pitching to banks or investors they also
kind of know where the industry is going
if you’re talking about you know FinTech
it’s going up if you’re talking about
certain a horse-and-buggy business that
may not be on the rise right now like
people have a general understanding of
what’s what’s doing well what’s missing
in most business plans that at least I
see a lot of is specific information
from potential customers most people
haven’t done the work to actually talk
to customers and if you have just one
customer you’re already ahead of 99% of
the business plans that are being
pitched just one customer or beta
customers or people on a trial like you
want to get some specific feedback
around what you’re building and why it’s
special and different than everything
else on the market why people want to
sign up for it it just separates you a
can’t I can’t push that enough how much
it separates you
from every other business plane coming
in that you actually have somebody who’s
using your thing and if he paid you a
little bit of money because if
somebody’s if one person’s page you then
100 people pay you and a thousand people
pay you you continue to expand up from
there but if you haven’t gotten a single
person to pay you if you haven’t gotten
any beta tests or information from
potential customers then it’s really
really hard you you’re only relying on
the high-level data and you’re kind of
lost in the sea of business plans that
are being thrown around so I love
Stephens idea whether it’s reaching out
to influencers whether it’s reaching out
to your network of people that you know
whether it’s friends and family with us
going to trade shows and just trying to
get ten people to try out what you’re
doing getting that kind of data is super
super super important it’s not going to
be like tens of thousands of data points
but having a little bit of data that
shows that people are willing to use
what you’re selling makes a huge
difference
hey Evan how would you feel if you
reviewed a business plan right up front
in the executive summary you just
clicked on a link and it had a video of
the first three customers 30 seconds
saying wow I looked around couldn’t find
stuff found this product or this service
or this idea I’m now a customer of you
know I’m giving this company revenue and
it’s changed my life yeah that’d be
great
like I haven’t I never really got that
many video submissions and video can be
dangerous because you know people like
to skip through quickly like if I season
people who go through business plans
they know what they’re looking for and
with the video you’re kind of forced to
watch according to what the person
submitted but if you’re leaving with
customers coming in saying right here’s
how great this company is and how I use
them every day and it solves a real
problem for me it’s great you stand out
nobody does that yeah I would say on
that no one that I’m not seeing any
business plans that lead with a customer
who’s one of your customers in 30 second
the great thing is it costs nothing and
your customers would do it for you and
just say you know hey you don’t need
fancy film crews just do send me you
know on my iPhone the video testimonial
and these are the sort of things I’d
love you to talk about boom happy days
yeah very
very compelling and and unique and it’s
and it’s easy right to the point like
that should get it done to have somebody
just go on their own phone and film what
are you sure with their place and film
it you don’t need to come with the film
crew and spend thousands of dollars of
doing it right just a few minutes of
time both your sides to get it done it’s
a great idea yeah and Evan I tell you
what if supplies the sage asked me to do
we all are all our supply chain is small
and medium businesses so if anybody says
to me we want you to give kind of a
customer’s test manner why wouldn’t I
yeah I love it
happy to do it just film the self quick
video boom send it off to them on
whatsapp or whatever and that they’re
good to go awesome next question coming
in from Joanne please ask Steven what
makes a successful marketing strategy
thank you
I think that’s a great question Joanne I
think what makes the marketing strategy
is again first of all really connected
with the business strategy so you know
if the marketing strategy is just
connected then we’ve got no chance but
where is tightly connected with the
business strategy it’s very powerful
second thing I think that really is
important is to have again the
destination but within marketing
strategy you know what is the right
marketing mix and I think today it’s
going to be most marketing strategies
are going to be dominated by sort of
digital media and kind of again
attracting the question there you go
always get asked on our marketing is
where’s the audience why is the idea
compelling what’s the value proposition
and then given we know where the
audience is what’s the best way of
reaching the audience and you need to do
that really succinctly and then within
marketing particularly when you’re
starting a business you need to be very
kind of agile and start some things and
test-drive things would be prepared to
fail on some things so if you want to
start running campaigns that’s really
cool but I think it needs to be kind of
integrating the business adept and agile
so that you’re very clear but again very
clearly based around what are the
outcomes we want what it you know was
the traffic we want to drive to our
website what’s the level of from verb
all that sort of stuff so done a pretty
granular level so you know whether
you’ve been successful and on the
campaigns you’re running or you know
whether it’s SEO optimization or Google
Ads or whatever you’re doing around the
you know kind of elements of the
marketing mix I think you need to be
thoughtful to try a few new things and
scale up what works and kind of shut
down what doesn’t I I think it really
depends on as well if you’re doing it
for yourself or doing a four again like
a lot of these questions depends on you
versus pitching due to an investor
somebody else I think for yourself
there’s a lot of different ways to grow
business there’s a lot of toys to market
yourself to Stevens Point
you know you have to be where your
audience is you have to pitch them in a
way that you know resonates with them
there’s still tons of device that you
can do it and it depends on what your
style is gonna be when I took over
Toronto then salsa I gave Alex who helps
me run the business ten different ways
like here are ten different ways we can
grow this business from a marketing
perspective ten different ways one of
them has to be thought leadership like
you are a thought leader you need to
create content you need to be at the
front cuz I only want to work with
thought leaders so that’s that’s a
non-negotiable from the other ten pick
one that you really want to focus on
because we can’t do all ten well if we
try to do all ten as a small business
you’re gonna be unfocused and you’re not
gonna get results so pick one from the
other what nine and that’s what we’re
gonna focus on so we pick two and we’re
running with it if you’re pitching to an
investor banker back to the last point
I’d make sure that you get some kind of
traction off of it don’t tell me how
YouTube is gonna explode your business
don’t tell me how like pay-per-click
advertising is going to explode your
business you got to show me like show me
that it worked for you even on a small
scale like you ran this campaign and
here’s the results of the game and so if
I get twenty thousand now there’s more I
can go blow up my campaign right like
give me some results has too often it’s
just there’s just these ideas and you
have no tracks you no background no
history with it and there’s no
credibility with it so people won’t
believe that it’s gonna work out so I
think for yourself you want to look at
the different options see what fits best
with your personality as well as where
the artist is going to be but then if
when you’re pitching to investors you
want to make sure that you’ve actually
tested some of these things out and
you’re able to scale it yeah
again obviously that you know the basics
of the marketing plan I’ve got a a just
the sort of four piece you know which is
product pricing packaging and place you
know where the audience is the other
actually fifth P I’d put in there is
partners because if you have partners
you can go faster you can go at scale
you can go you can potentially go global
and you can really accelerate the growth
of your business
but again to Evans point the more
substance you get around what you’ve
test-driven and proof points the more
powerful you know the marketing plan
becomes I like that I like that v P you
should you should go back and rewrite
all the books and marketing now v P the
five P is going to Stephen Kelly I like
it
Amanda’s reading in basically asking
about the the planning and the
projections so she feels she has a great
idea and wants to start but doesn’t know
how to project forward what that
business is gonna look like and what
device do we have I think what I’d say
Amanda is you know the the essence is to
start with the end of mind
so and that could be that you dream in
terms of what could it look like in
Twitter and this is where you got a sort
of be realistic so we had dumb Chad
Hurley who is a founder actually YouTube
on the stage of me at Sage summit and he
dreamt of in the early days I think it’s
thirty thousand videos a year you know
can you believe that that was a way went
way back when they started and now
you’ve got it’s probably billions posted
on to YouTube
in terms of videos it’s a very different
world but but he had a very clear dream
the ambition that probably they started
with was very low relative to the
success of YouTube today and I think
there’s some lessons we can learn from
that so I think you have it again a
destination of what the outlook looks
like but to project forward a really
good way is to start with the end in
mind maybe it’s just a year you take and
say the destination we want to get to
into the new customers in terms of
revenue is X and number of customers and
all those sort of things and then you
want to break that down to so what would
you know break it down to quarters and
then break it down to months
and he can break it down two weeks
because to Evans point if you drive in a
lot of it around digital you can you can
almost do marketing by science and you
can get very scientific about what works
to what doesn’t how you get a qualified
lead and all that sort of stuff and what
the cost per lead is and all these sort
of metrics that you can build into your
sort of marketing plan and your cockpit
of business dashboards you know almost
like school boards though it’s all real
time and then you know bottom line is I
think once you start test driving the
execution of the marketing campaigns and
you get some success and get some
customers then what you want to do is
you know I used to work
course-correction but it’s either ramp
up the level of ambition if it’s going
really well and and kind of accelerate
that or if it’s not going well
understand why it’s not and well do the
course correction to get it back on plan
so I think um and all these sort of
things are predicated by just taking
that first step if you’ve got a
framework of where you want to get to
where the end result is then the most
important thing is how does that happens
that affect your behavior and how you
spend your time tomorrow what are you
going to do differently tomorrow that
allows you to be successful against your
plan yeah a lot of the projections it’s
a shot in the dark you know a shot in
the dark here you’re trying to figure it
out you know like you don’t know how
it’s gonna work out exactly but it does
speak to your ambition and what you’re
trying to do like are you trying to
build a hundred thousand dollar business
and then just supports you and you know
and your family and that’s a great
little small business or are you trying
to build a hundred million dollar
company right and then if you want to
build a hundred million dollar company
one of the steps that you need to take
to get there because it’s not going to
be you on on your own we’re 100 K you
could do it all by yourself
right 100 million it’s not gonna happen
you need to build a team you need to
scale up and so it helps you kind of map
your ambition where do you see this big
company or a small company yours going
there’s no right or wrong answer it’s
just really for you the kind of business
that you want to build and then it’s
really to Stevens point of the future
like what’s the end right think about
the end in mind and go back there and
then backtrack it to what your you’re
doing right now today and try to plan
for it and so you know when I’m looking
to bring on people into some of the
programs I have this
nothing wrong with someone who has a
$50,000 business I may not be a fit for
what I’m doing I want somebody who wants
to change the world and have a big
impact but your plan will have to map to
your ambition just make sure that that
happens I wouldn’t get so caught up and
having the perfect projection that then
you don’t do anything to the paralysis
analysis point we made earlier a lot of
times this is where entrepreneurs fall
short and they get stuck and then they
just stop right like it won’t be a
perfect number you have to kind of just
have general assumptions of what you
think it’s gonna go that map to your
ambition and don’t let that prevent you
from actually creating your plan yeh
Amanda there’s a couple of things I
think ever touch to me you’ve got to
understand what is it I want to do for
the business is it a lifestyle business
and that might be fine or is it a
business like Evan and I love sort of
creating where you’re reaching for the
stars and you know you’re creating with
you in your case that makes Google or
whatever or is it a business you want to
build to a point and then have an exit
point and actually sell it and go on to
the next one as a sort of serial
entrepreneur that could be all a valid
and then I think the most important
thing is Evan brought this out but the
perfect plan
absolutely acknowledges there is no
perfect plan every plan is imperfect but
the most important thing is what are you
gonna do different tomorrow there’s
gonna allow you to have a great chance
of reaching your destination I love it
kid Equinox is talking about
partnerships in the plan how do you not
partnerships with like other companies
but if there’s multiple owners in the
business how do you decide the equity
split between the partners and the
management team I think the key thing
you know the reality is again if you
start with the end in mind what you
don’t want to have is and it happens so
often is people fall out and people feel
really bitter and that creates a lot of
conflict so I think you need to go into
partnership conversations with your eyes
open and obviously you know how do you
actually assess what these kind of
equity split is it is by what what value
is each individual part of ring you know
are they bringing are they bringing cash
to the business are they bringing
expertise are they bringing you know
their time when I whenever
I’ve started business I’ve always always
kind of insisted all the kind of core
early stage executives sort of take a
haircut and salary and get more equity
and some of them have actually worked
for free for a period of time if they
can do so I you know I love and I’m sure
you love Kitty in terms of people having
a lot of skin in the game but you want
to want to have the right level of
expertise you want to have the right
level a lot of the guys I know and I’ll
advocate is you really want to you want
to be making money before you raise
money so a great way to do that is get
the founding sort of guys the partners
to actually get equity shares but take
no cash out the business and use the
cash we’re really managed to invest in
product investing customer service
investing marketing campaigns to win in
the market and get customers so it
depends but I think the obvious thing is
you’ve got to look at the natural things
that people bring a value to the
business and then allocate fairly the
equity relationship based on what their
value is also the other thing you should
ask them is how long they want to be
around so some people are great founders
where you get to a stage of 20 30 people
and they just run out of steam because
you know maybe they are the guys with a
brilliant idea but they actually can’t
communicate to anybody or share their
vision so people kind of not only have
different I guess equity stakes but
different equity stakes at different
stages of the businesses you grow and
become more successful and as you grow
and become more successful you need
different skills and different
experience to scale your business to the
next level because otherwise you just
hit a roadblock and you can’t bounce him
back and you kind of flatline the
business and that’s no good yeah there’s
no one way to answer this question
there’s no one perfect way to structure
every single deal I think a lot of
people default to 50/50 just because it
sounds fair but what ends up happening
is somebody puts in a lot more work than
somebody else and and you end up getting
screwed over it happened so often in
companies what I would recommend is
making sure that you date before you get
married I would make sure that you know
this person that you have worked with
them before that you start on some small
project together to see how
you work together see if you’re both
putting in the same amount of hustle and
drive and you both believe in a vision
just as much as the other person to see
if it’s going to work out because I
think a lot of times people look at it
on paper it’s like well you’re great at
sales and you’re great at operations so
let’s combine our skills and we’re gonna
have a great company it looks perfect on
paper but then when you actually get the
work in you realize things fall apart
you different values you’ve different
vision different work ethic
just like when you’re University on
those on those group projects you know
somebody always ends up carrying
everybody else right like you need you
need your partner to pull their their
load as well right you need to both be
doing as much work and so find some
project to start off with – to date
before you get married make sure you
guys are aligned because you’ll end up
spending just as much time with this
person as your your husband or wife so
you got to make sure you invest in some
good time into it and then you just need
to find something that’s fair like how
do you balance who’s bringing more
experience or who’s putting in more
money or who has more contacts or you
know it just has to feel fair for both
of you if somebody is going into it
feeling like it’s not fair I guarantee
you it’s not gonna get any better if you
start off feeling like you got screwed
over on the deal you’re not gonna feel
later on that that was better and
telling him to cause a rift seemed to
really make sure upfront that no matter
what the percentage breakdown is that
that you both feel that it’s fair yeah
you know this is maybe the way Evan is
probably the same way I’d always
advocate never be greedy never look to
screw people over and obviously 100
percent equity
valued at nothing is meaningless if you
can have 40% equity valued at you know
six million dollars so be generous with
these things would be fair but but also
I think the key things sort of Evans
highlighted and explicitly have the
conversations upfront at the star never
go into these conversations with stuff
that’s festering and be honest about
you’ve what you bring to the party Evan
started put it on the table most people
start with two people one’s really good
at operations back off it’s all that
sort of stuff
one person is really good at sales and
marketing and that’s good but you bring
different things and therefore what’s of
both equity split and over time when you
start taking an income out the business
was some reasonable fair and equitable
return for each of you and as you take
on the next employee and scale up you
know what makes sense in terms of
dilution and it’s the more you can have
these conversations upfront and the
fewer surprises happen the better you
get on the more trust you build it’s all
about building that trust and being fair
with each other the worst thing that can
happen is when you get surprises you
kind of obviously on either side if it’s
just the two of you or the five of you
you start getting bitterness and where
you get that you get division and you
start pulling apart and you might as
well say goodbye to your dream at that
point and it’s no fancy you know being
on trial should be fun you should love
it and you should love the the guys that
you’ll see go spending 60 head of the
week talking to trying to create your
dreams together it’s got to be a bit of
fun I love it
so we’ve talked about a lot of the main
sections of a business plan we covered
the executive summary what to look for
we talked about creating a product and
services how to do market analysis
figuring out your marketing strategy
this part a little bit about the team
and how to compensate we’ve talked about
financial projections so these are all
the kind of the main areas of a business
plan that you want to have for yourself
as well as when you’re going for an
investor the the question kind of bring
me brings some of this together is
coming from Gaurav who’s saying he has
an idea for a service based business but
now it’s trying to figure out how do you
how do I actually execute my strategy
how do I take this idea how do I think
this plan that you start doing the work
on it get into the operations what do
you think I think that’s what it’s all
about and it’s kind of a class plan
would be class execution will always
fail against a class execution and be
class plan and the other thing anybody
anybody on the in the audience today
wants loads of detail around what Evans
talked about around the executive
summary the financial plan the value
prop there’s a ton of advice we’ve got
on our website we’ll called actually
sage advice on wwe.com slash blog and
we’ll put this up for you Evan
so if anybody wants to go to the kind of
materials that we’re talking about there
to help building a business plan that we
can suggest which all available on our
website and everybody’s available to
jump on that and it’s all free because
we love you to be successful then on
better you know governor’s plan about
how do we execute it I think what the
plan should do is outline what are the
metrics you know this year
this quarter this month this week and
then it’s all about execution and with
with these other things it’s really
important the plan should guide and
provide a compass for how I spend my
time as an entrepreneur and what’s
important to me and you know it might be
safe A’s one of the business plan is
establish your idea build the product or
create the website or build a network or
get the partnership whatever that is
should be the guiding light the North
Star as to how I spend my time tomorrow
and once you’ve done that you move on to
the next thing once you’ve done that
move on to the next thing so you
constantly kind of execute and spending
your time because the most valuable
you’ve got you know this everybody is
it’s not necessarily the money and the
financing the most valuable thing you
have is your time so how do you spend
your time to actually deliver the first
step phase one in the business plan
phase 2 phase 3 and see that revenue
kind of accelerating as you get more
customers you get more customer
satisfaction you get more referrals you
build a great presence in a band and
that’s what it’s all about so I think
it’s connecting the most powerful thing
with a business plan is when you connect
it with the daily reality of how you run
your business ahead shell just finish
off even with what I do in this company
it’s obviously a big company big public
company but I write every year it’s
called I call it V sgm other great
companies like Salesforce do this sort
of stuff as well Marc Benioff there so I
I write something called V s G M stands
for vision goals strategies and metrics
and then I cascade that across all our
13,000 colleagues I’ve met probably
10,000 the collies go M rounds of San
Paulo in Brazil Atlanta where I stand up
and I present to them my my biz
his plan for the company it’s on one
page nothing in my business plan is one
page every your grandmother could read
it and understand it ever and it just
talks it you know it’s all about this
year it’s about the year of the sage
business cloud it’s about customer
obsession we’ve got loads of metrics
around customer advocacy to bring it to
life we’ve got them cascaded so
everybody in the organization is aligned
and they write their own objectives for
what they’re going to do tomorrow based
on my vs GMI my kind of business plan
one pager and that’s how you get kind of
incredible alignment and consistency and
also you really create it is so obvious
you know it’s almost like you love the
Blue Jays if you had defense thinking
they’re offensive players and you know
all these sort of confusions and there’s
ambiguity in the team and there’s some
guys who are playing on the pitch and
they think they’re going to go and play
you know NFL then there’s some people
who golf to play hockey and you know no
we’re playing one game this is the game
this is the one page of our business
plan this defines what we’re going to do
this year everybody’s on the team sales
know what they’re doing marketing know
what they’re doing customer services
whether they’re in product know what
they’re doing finance know what they do
every HR know you know everybody knows
what they’re doing and it’s all totally
interlocked to deliver you know the the
summit of the mountain then it becomes
very powerful so I’d say the most
compelling thing you can do is write it
down in one page and when you go and you
talk about your first employee you’re
gonna hire make sure they really
understand it drink the kool-aid get the
excitement get your vision and then get
everybody consistently doing that in the
company and it’s a really effective
process where it means you can take your
business plan and bring it to life and
the power of great companies it’s so
true
it’s where you get that amazing
interlock between the business planning
and what happens in the operation where
I’ve seen bad companies operate
particularly as they grow in scale and
they start getting governance and stuff
like that it’s where they’ve become
disconnected and the business plan is
done in a kind of room once a year and
then it doesn’t make the light of day
where it’s really powerful
is where it affects you know every kind
of executive behavior the entrepreneur
the founder and they really capture
their dreams and they encapsulate them
in in terms of what every one of your
employees does every day of their life
yeah a business plan is useless if
you’re not going to do anything with it
and and the point of it is to give you
clarity over what you should be doing so
you’re spending your time you’re
planning your researching you’re talking
to customers you’re figuring out what
your strategy is gonna be and then that
should give you the game plan right that
gives you the roadmap of what you need
to be spending your time on so once
you’re done with your plan and the
Stevens Point way back about like hey
maybe you have to revisit your plan once
a month and see like you adjust it’s
never going to just be this fixed thing
but that should give you confidence and
clarity on what your next step needs to
be so if you know where you want to be
in 30 days you know what you want to
have accomplished in 30 days then you go
out and you start doing that thing that
you said you’re gonna do so that you hit
that goal in 30 days right if you if you
finish writing your business plan and
then you don’t know what you should be
doing next you didn’t write a great
business plan yeah right you didn’t do
in proper preparation right so after
you’ve written your great business fine
and like we’ve talked about most of the
points that go into a good plan now you
should have your goals for what you want
to be going out and actually executing
right because I think a lot of people
they plan too much and it don’t do
enough the planners need to do more and
sometimes the doers need to plan more
because just doing without a direction
doesn’t help either
but if you’re that kind of person just
planes and planes and planes it wants a
perfect plan like you will never get the
perfect perfect perfect plan you gotta
have to start executing start doing and
don’t worry about taking like the
absolute perfect first step just start
start doing it those five marketing
ideas that you had great like trial then
let’s go let’s start them and see if
you’re getting results and then hone and
refine and improve your first step will
be a tiny a tiny step forward and
probably a stumble down okay great get
back up and then do another step and so
if you’ve done your plan then I’m
looking at okay how much time I spend in
a week on my business and then
allocating my time to say I’m going that
and what I said I was gonna do my plane
I’m actually gonna go out and start
doing yes I think you and I ever love
sport as well there’s so many read
across on this with the sporting world
so if if you want to get to the World
Series in your
business what do you do you don’t kind
of just dream all day and you you end up
at the World Series you have to say
right let’s bring that back to you know
what do we need to do what are we going
to be different how we you do the
analysis of every one of your
competitive teams and every game you go
into you’ve got a different game plan
about how you’re gonna kind of dominate
possession then it comes down to the
details about diet you have different
types of coach and you have you know
loads of stuff around psychology all
these things it doesn’t happen by
accident when teams turn up at the World
Series they have had a plan that they’ve
executed with awesome flawless precision
and and it’s exactly the same in
business – Evans point yeah you have a
game plan of where you want to get to
within a year you want to hit the ball
out apart and get to the World Series so
wow you have what are you gonna do this
week that’s gonna deliver that every
game and and you know who you’re gonna
kind of sign up as customers who are
your competitors you’re looking to take
out everything has to be almost clinical
and flawlessly executed yeah I spend
about five percent of my time dreaming
and 95% of the time executing that dream
correct it’s like if you wake up every
day you don’t know what to do and you’re
just thinking about this beautiful world
that you’re going to build and nothing
ever happens like you never you know
we’re gonna create that like most of
your time should be spent actually
executing and then doing a monthly gut
check to say hey am i working on the
right things or not am i still aligned
with everything that I wanted to do or
not and you tweak and adjust but you got
to be spending most your time actually
doing the work yeah and and all the
great entrepreneurs have been hugely
successful probably around that balance
95% times executing and then 5%
reflection time well luminar
double-oh-seven
is writing in Steve and talked about
finding a mentor how easy is it to find
a mentor those willing to help you is
there a list of mentors out there
somewhere how do I get started yeah
there are again there’s loads of stuff
out there on the web what I’ll advocate
is go and find someone who’s probably
who’s been on your journey before who’s
who’s had your dream 10-15 years ago
and done it
and there could be some crazy ways you
can meet these mentors so you know I
don’t know if there’s if you’re in
Toronto and you go to a conference and
there’s an amazing speaker there who’s
done what you’ve done honestly if you
hang around at the end of the talk and
just grab them on the way out the whole
way you cannot believe how people are so
generous with their time and everybody
wants to help the next generation of
entrepreneurs and again social media you
know I’ve had people come up to me on
social media either through DM z– or
whatever and I’ve given them my time
because they’ve got an idea they’ve got
passion they got energy and I think
everybody who’s made it in terms of
entrepreneurship and kind of climb that
summit wants to give back and make a
difference so I think the only thing you
need to do double-oh-seven is be bold be
bold have no fear the worst thing you
can do again is sit in Starbucks or
whatever or you know just sit down and
fear that who’s out there there’s lots
of people out there who can help you the
best thing you can do is reach out and
say again again in a very simple way in
a compelling way in two sentences what
is it you do and how can this person
help you if you say that to them very
few people say no if you’re picking the
name like double-oh-seven you got to
live up to your name you got to go out
and be bold and take the big chances and
and it’s not gonna I mean we’ve talked
about mentorship before on previous
hangouts to you know not everybody’s
gonna say yes
don’t get discouraged just because you
go you if you have one ask and that
person doesn’t respond to you don’t feel
like that’s it I can never find a mentor
right I mean you want to approach with
humbleness you want to approach with the
feeling like you’re actually gonna do
the work and let that energy and
enthusiasm come through because they see
themselves in you right they see like a
young version of themselves and that’s
what they want to help but if you don’t
get it the first time it’s okay like
keep reaching out keep trying other
people there’s lots of people can
potential help you and live up to your
double-oh-seven name I like it Felicia’s
writing in to say what’s the difference
between a business plan and a business
strategy that’s pretty good and actually
Felicia yeah
I have known companies who kind of spend
years discussion things like vision
statements and mission statements and
strategy statements and just stuff that
just gets nowhere you know back to so
business strategy you know I think is a
strategy as a way to execute you plan
the plan sets out what the destination
is the milestones to do that then part
of that is well what’s the business
strategy for getting there it’s almost
like you know we want to climb to the
top of Everest Evan and I are going on
team how’re we going to do that well the
strategy is we’re going to get a flight
into you know wherever it’s Kathmandu
you go and then we’re going to get a
mini plane to take us up to as far as we
can get and then we’re actually the next
bit of the strategy is we need to do
some altitude training because it’s
pretty mighty high up there and we need
to have a strategy to handle altitude
and ultimately we need to have a
strategy that we’re gonna we’re going to
have to have oxygen and stuff like so so
the strategy kind of gives you how we’re
gonna get every waypoint
maxed out and the strategy could be you
know bring it to life is it could be
you’re gonna do digital marketing you’re
gonna do how you gonna get your
customers where’s your audience so
what’s the strategy you’re gonna get
there so the strategy tells you the how
the business plan tells you the wall
I like it it’s good we’ve covered a lot
of the points have we missed anything
from a business plan executive summary
negative summary I think the the
emphasis actually probably when we
talked about it but there’s a massive
difference and this is important because
you’ve got to set it yourself up for
success so if you’re gonna pitch for
money or you can do an external
businessman do what everything the
structure but also make sure it’s less
ambitious than what you know you can do
because the worst thing you want to do
when you pitch for money is go back six
months later and not be hitting your
hitting your milestones in terms of
revenues and goals on your business plan
so that means you need to have you know
almost probably two levels of plan once
the internal plan where you know you’re
gonna knock the ball out of the park and
then beneath that you’d want to have
probably a less ambitious planner you
wanna go and taik to investors now the
reality is I know when you go to
potential investors the temptation is to
do the opposite to try and sell and
pitch that this is gonna you know solve
world hunger and therefore it’s gonna be
you’re gonna be the next Google but if
you do that you can get into yourself
you know basically you can set wild
expectations that can’t be achieved so I
think you know the graduation of
different plans in your head and what it
looks like is quite powerful but I think
Evan you probably captured most of the
key points and I said there’s people can
go to the sage comm blog and if they
want to have all these elements of the
business plan kind of mapped out you
know it’s all free material go to sage
advice and you can get it I love it well
it’s crazy how quickly an hour flies by
Stephen what’s the final message you
want to kind of wrap this all up with
some inspiration for the entrepreneurs
watching that they’re gonna take carry
until our next session I’m gonna borrow
some of yours Evan so you know start
with the end in mind when you do
business planning but most important
tomorrow just do it JD I we say just do
it just do it and stocks Akutan it’s all
about execution let’s not delude
ourselves great companies are awesome
execution machines that can kind of turn
on a dime and do course correction where
they’re clear of the destination but
most of all clear that their JD I just
doing it and it’s all about everything
is underpinned by hashtag believe follow
follow Evan and you’re gonna be always
Almighty I love it thank you guys for
watching and tuning in Thank You Steven
for spending your time with us continue
to believe everyone and we’ll see you
soon
great job thanks guys
here with my friend CEO of saged
accounting software that I use in my
business mr. Stephen Kelly how you doing
man
hey I’m great Evan great to be here with
everybody as well he is in London I am
in Toronto Canada and today we are
talking about how to write a perfect
business plan but before we get into
that we love Stephens quotes he always
takes us off with a few amazing quotes
that you guys love tuning into so
Stephen what do you got for us this
month you’re gonna love it Evan the
first quote I’ve got loads I’ve got
about nine quotes some of my own and
summer from much more esteemed kind of
leaders but the first quote is the
perfect business plan is an imperfect
business plan there is no such thing as
a perfect business plan second quote one
of my own and we know this one fail to
plan plan to fail yeah next one and if
you come from a marketing world or you
do a kind of masters they’ll teach this
in terms of marketing but it’s the four
piece poor planning equals poor
performance and then this is what I mine
and this is so true and we use this
particularly high-growth companies so
true you know I’m a class planning and B
class execution is always inferior to be
class planning and strategy and a class
execution where magic happens is they’re
totally connected and then a couple of
ones from esteemed individuals this one
from Anton de sans exuberant a French
kind of philosopher a goal without a
plan is just a wish and one you’ve
probably heard not so before again is a
plan without execution is simply
hallucination and then we’re gonna
finish with a couple of good ones which
is minor we’ll get onto this is always
start a plan with the end in mind and
then a great one for Mom JFK is efforts
encourage are not enough without purpose
and direction in a plan there you go
Evan what I wanna start nine nine good
ones so I think you know where do you
start with this
everybody needs a plan but so we should
talk about some of the things about why
it was important how to get it just good
enough how to get into execution how to
do course correction what’s the format
all these sort of things so there’s
loads it’s a really rich topic and
obviously if you’ve got a plan that says
you’re going on a journey when you’re an
entrepreneur you’re going on an
adventure and if you set out without
some idea of where the direction of the
destination is or the top of the
mountain that you’re gonna climb you got
probably gonna fail but obviously you
need flexibility because the weather
changes the consumer you serve in you
get hit by competitors you get loads of
different things you run into adversity
and that’s why we love you guys as
entrepreneurs overcoming that adversity
but you kind of know where you want to
get to so Evan what are your thoughts so
I want to get into the specifics of a
plan and give people some this is a more
tactical one I’m liking this topic but
but before kind of diving in this is a
great question that came in from Lilly
and I think is worth addressing which is
do I need to have a business plan if I’m
not going for a bank loan and so being
able to distinguish between a business
plan for yourself to guide your company
forward and then a business plan for
somebody else a banker and investor
potentially even a supplier or going for
government grants or loans like there’s
different kinds of business plans that
we need to write what’s your advice
between writing one for yourself versus
our specific purpose of getting an
investment are going for an award Wow
hey that is such a great question Lilly
and I think there’s there’s different
strands of business plan but they’ve got
to be interconnected so the most
important business plan is is your own
business plan you can kind of look at
yourself in the mirror and say you know
in three years time this is my dream so
then you how did you translate that
dream to this year’s reality this
month’s reality this week’s reality and
what are you going to do today
and then actually if you go and you’re
at stage of raising money I would always
advocate you want to have kind of I
guess let layers within the plan so
definitely if you’re gonna raise money
the plan you present is obviously going
to be talking more about the market
t-paint gonna get a market the product
or services you know and the idea and
why it’s different and the value
proposition all that sort of stuff
and if you really kind of go through
them we talked about this on the
previous one if you’re gonna venture
capitalists they’ll obviously back you
as an individual or the management team
going with you but they’ll base a lot of
it on the idea and the business plan and
the capability to execute now if that’s
the case the way I’ve always advised
entrepreneurs and I did this when I ran
startups and invested in companies is I
have my own plan which is ambitious but
realistic and then the plan I’d present
to investors is less ambitious because
what you don’t want to do is present to
anybody financing your business a plan
that’s up here and then like six months
later deliver down here you’ve got to
knock the ball out the park because if
you want to raise further money the way
you do that is kind of beat your plan so
so but the goal is I think most
importantly for your business is your
own business plan that you’re going to
drive forward and we’ll come on to the
details of what that looks like
but I’d say you start with the end in
mind it’s so important and there’s so
much there’s so much research done if
you actually start the plan at the end
of the journey and what is the dream you
have and then kind of work backwards
number one you’ve got a bigger chance of
succeeding in terms of executing that
plan and that’s just the way of
psychology works and we can explain that
but secondly it really gives you a kind
of a route map with waypoints on the
journey of how you’re gonna exceed your
goals and what are the metrics that
really matter to you and your customers
so and what’s your view you know Evan
you’ve started businesses you’re funded
businesses you’ve done you’ve seen all
sorts of plans yeah I think especially
from a venture capital or investment
point of view they’re gonna look at the
executive summary first that’s your one
to three page at the beginning that just
lays out everything if you can’t get
them within the executive summary your
plan gets deleted they don’t care about
anything else
next typically we go to the financials
to see how much money is this gonna make
like if you’re bringing an investor in
they’re looking at how much is this
going to make me
is it worthwhile puttin investment into
am I going to get my returns next to
look at the team who’s behind this are
they credible do they have a you know
the dentists before they know pure
startups do they have anybody under
board of advisors or anybody kind of
helping them giving them some some
support and then if all that makes sense
then they dive into the rest of it then
they’re looking at the product and
they’re looking at the market and you
look at the operations they look at
everything else that’s kind of the
sequence at least that we would go
through in the VC world executive
summary then financials and management
team and then everything else for
yourself and this is where it’s not as
formal like if you’re giving it to a VC
or an investor banker it’s a pretty
formal standard business plan and you
got to hit those main points for
yourself though it doesn’t have to be as
formal doesn’t you need to don’t need to
have an executive summary at least I
don’t think for yourself but you need to
have a general guideline of where you’re
going and what opportunities see that
are that are ahead and the Stevens point
like the plain will change like as soon
as soon as the ink dries on your playing
it’s wrong something else is gonna
change in the market though you have to
adjust see what do you think about what
kind of plan should people have for
themselves so that’s that’s we need for
investors for yourself like entrepreneur
whether they’re just getting started
they’re running a small company what
kind of plan should they have for
themselves
yeah I think um and I’ve seen this work
and I’ve actually done it myself in a
start-up in California is is I always
advocate you start with the end in mind
you know and and there’s you can check
it out on the web there’s loads of stuff
techniques around end result planning or
what’s also called back-to-front
planning or sort of destination planning
so why is this so important you know
when you’re an entrepreneur you’re an
optimist you overcome adversity but if
you start with where we are today and
look forward it’s really hard to see how
do you navigate on that journey and and
also when you get knocks you can become
you know you can become kind of bit
deflated whereas it’s all my I will use
Mountaineer and I’m not a mountaineer
but I’ll give you the same example if
Evan and I stood at the base camp of
Everest and looked up there at Everest
we think oh my god as
long way away and there’s ice caps and
there’s snow and there’s storms and
there’s wind now if we actually stood on
the summit of Everest town together and
this sunshine and we look back down at
base camp I don’t even know if you can
see base camp from the summit so I’m
kind of making this up but you look back
down you think wow we did it we puff our
chests out we we did this we created
this great company we’ve got a million
customers we’ve done it and then when
you look back down you think what are
the things I had to overcome when I hit
a storm when I hit a nice black when you
know maybe I kind of broke an arm on the
way up or what what did I do to overcome
the adversity and when you’re looking
back on things it’s a whole lot easier
so for your planning start with the end
in mind start what is it your dream and
what would your dream look like and and
this is a great great and I always
encourage my team to this yeah as a
leader you have to live in the future
you have to change the world because
you’ve got your idea and if you’re
successful with the idea you know what
sort of dream would your imagination let
you run wild with and when you’ve cut
that capture it put a time stamp on it
and then work backwards to you know
three years one year one quarter one
month and then actually I think you can
sketch it down Evan on one page almost a
skeleton of what’s the destination you
know who you serving what’s your
audience what’s the value proposition
what is the idea obviously what
investment you need to make it happen
and then actually the first step was we
talked about Martin Luther King when you
join climb that giant staircase what’s
the first step you take so what are you
gonna do tomorrow who you’re gonna
recruit which customer you’re going to
attract all those things and it’s
actually that power of connecting the
dream with the plan with what you’re
going to do tomorrow that allows you to
have a really strong level of confidence
you’re gonna be successful and then to
Evans point you know when you’re here
adversity you know obviously if you’re
attracting a head of your business plan
so with this you put metrics and
milestones whatever you want to call
them
all kind of points kpi’s for 30 days 60
days 90 days if you’re tracking ahead of
them scale up go faster if you’re not
hitting all the balls out the part
what’s going well what’s going wrong
what do you need to change what do you
need to course-correct
maybe you know you look at your website
it’s not actually delivering either the
traffic or the conversion and then you
kind of blend you know maybe better SEO
optimization it’s all these sort of
things where as an entrepreneur you’ve
constantly challenged yourself and
you’re never satisfied in terms of touch
in your dreams but if it is going well
you want to scale up and go faster so I
think and a visual that I’ve got one of
the companies where I turned up a CEO
and I inherited quite a established
company but I actually this is pretty
crazy of them just to give you a few for
this we I got the kind of top six
leaders together
and I said let’s have that dream and we
defined it of what we wanted to become
to be the great company we aspire to be
and I said well what would it look like
in three years time let’s live in the
future let’s project ourselves into the
future and then look back on where we
are today
and again there’s loads of techniques
you can do that check out this some
technique called grow which is around
goals reality options and kind of wrap
up to build a plan so check all these
things out on the web but it’s really
powerful one is actually this is a great
technique using counseling all these
sort of things where it works it’s just
proven to work so we lived in the future
we define what we wanted to be in three
by three and actually sorry oh we came
up with a phrase we wanted to triple the
revenue of the company in three years
and that was the man turn everyone in
the company you when when we stopped him
in the corridor what are we here to do
we’re here to triple to three by three
deliver 3 by 3 3 by 3 and how we gonna
do that it’s gonna be about customer
obsession it’s about delighting
customers so we had not only the the
destination the mountain the summit
three by three but we knew how we’re
gonna do that and then we actually
within the team just said well you’re in
customer services you’re in sales you’re
in marketing what do you need to do to
make that happen and we connect to this
fully integrated plan and even as a
single entrepreneur you can do the same
sort of things you know the great thing
about being
it’s a day of amazing highs and lows but
one day a year the marketing director
the next day or the sales director the
next day year the product development
director the day after you’ve got a
customer fire burning so you become the
customer services director you live in
the shoes of all these different roles
but all the same techniques in terms of
plan and apply with you honestly or a
company of 20 people five people or 200
people and that’s how you keep it alive
make it real I love that I love the
example and I love the I mean you’re
always passionate in general but I love
the passion the extra passion that comes
out when you’re thinking about where
we’re going to be in three years triple
the revenue it ties into a question that
came in if do you believe in one-page
business plans or the long one and I
think it just just depends to your point
on the audience if you’re gonna be
pitching to investors or bankers they
need to see the whole thing but for
yourself you need to have something
that’s easy to be able to relate to on a
consistent basis and yes you did all the
research and you understand how the
markets working but to look at something
on a daily basis you’re not gonna flip
through this 50 page business plan you
got to remember three by three or
whatever the thing is that is keeping
you going I’m a daily basis whatever
your goals are to Stevens point about
keeping the end in mind because I think
it’s easy as an entrepreneur to get lost
in the day to day we got lost in in the
trees and we forget that there’s a
forest and we forget this is the bigger
picture and so a constant reminder of
here’s what we’re trying to do here’s
where we’re trying to go having it on
one sheet people look at your goals and
know this is our objective so that you
don’t get kind of lost in the grind I
find that really helpful
it sounds like Steve when you’re doing
something similar 3×3 as as soon as
people understand it is a clear goal
it’s easy to remember and easy to align
your focus as opposed to having to flip
through you know a 50 page business plan
which people are going to do every day
yeah I think you know you’re absolutely
on the money there Evan and the power of
business plans is when you make it real
and you live it every day there’s no
point having a business plan you know
you spend ages developing analysis
paralysis and then you don’t bring into
the daily life of what you’re doing
every day the business plan defines how
do I spend my time today what are the
priorities that are going to move the
needle
and keep it simple simplify everything
Connor you know you’ve obviously got a
passion you’ve got a dream you’ve got
great big ideas if you over complicate
them then you know normally those sort
of companies struggle to succeed if you
simplify them and make them real you
know I could imagine if you have a
compelling business plan you can explain
on a page you take some Wiest but we
space and you’d have it up you know in
when people come in and this is what we
are it’s on one page it really captures
the essence of what your dreams are from
and makes them real and then also you
know you’re trying to hire your second
or third employee or you’re trying to
pitch to a partner or you’re pitching it
to a customer year you’re putting the
value prop on the website all these
things have to be aligned and authentic
and based on the essence of the one-page
business plan and that kind of skeleton
business plan to make it real to bring
it to life and that’s you know if you go
for a coffee and you’re trying to hire
your first employee what are you gonna
pitch you’re gonna pitch the business
plan you’re gonna pitch your dream
you’re gonna say and how we’re gonna
make it real this year if we’re
successful will exceed this revenue will
exceed these number of new customers you
really bring it to life in everything
and you’re very clear about one of the
three or four metrics you have to
measure and make sure a real and you’re
gonna drive for your prioritization and
investment and time allocation around to
really ensure you’re on track and then
what I would say we’ll come on to this
maybe is how often you review it
probably every month probably every
month because you probably set yourself
some milestones every month you want to
track and it is probably as an
entrepreneur you know what it’s like
Evan you always gravitate towards the
operations they’re doing the rolling up
your sleeves
I would definitely advocate every one of
our audience out there spends a bit of
time every month reflecting where do we
go how do we do are we tracking on the
metrics what’s working well what’s not
working what do we need to do in terms
of course correction on the business
plan and if that means you go back to
the one pager and actually say we think
we can go faster we can accelerate we
weren’t ambitious enough then kind of
agile agile and iterative lis
change the plan to reflect their current
reality I love what we’re getting tons
of great feedback in the comments people
saying amazing hooray
thank you for replying thank you for the
answer amazing highs people are loving
the live chat so far so this is great
next time so getting a little more
tactical Shreyas ready then to say what
do you look for in a great executive
summary that’s the great quest after the
questions a great Lily’s questions going
to show you your questions good I think
if it’s an executive summary you’re
gonna bring internally to how you build
your business the most important thing
is know who your audience is and know
how your idea is gonna change their life
and create a compelling value
proposition and then everything that
really defines how fast can we grow how
much revenue can we make and what are
the metrics we start measuring so you
know if it’s a you know I’d always
advocated build build a volunteer army
of great customers and therefore
customer obsession customer advocacy is
a key part of that
so really simple internal kind of
roadmap of what success looks like now
if it’s external I think you you know if
you’re gonna go and pitch for money and
raise money they it needs to be more
structured and to Evans point there’s
got to be an executive summary that’s
compelling there’s got to be a
definition of the market opportunity
that’s significant there’s got to be a
way where you save the product or
service I’m doing will generate this
sort of revenue which will map out on to
the financials and there’s got to be why
are you different why are you gonna
stand out from the crowd and then
obviously parla that’s probably the
management team as well so you know in
that demands you know a level of
formality and you probably find that a
minimum of 20 compelling pages of
narrative the you actually go and pitch
to a potential investor yeah Stephen did
a great job giving you overview the only
other thing I would add there is one of
the things we look for in the venture
capital world was we call it a
grandmother test with with it’s so easy
to understand that your grandmother
could get it because a lot of times
entrepreneurs they write and they talk
jargon where the other people on your
team and the other people who you might
be pitching to may not understand it and
so if somebody’s looking at that and
they can’t understand it they’re gonna
throw it away and they can’t take action
on it
especially if you’re looking at an
investor and so I’d be looking at does
it pass the grandmother test is it so
easy to understand that somebody from
outside your industry can make sense of
it so don’t use all these short form
terms don’t get super technical into the
jargon make sure that it’s written in
plain English that anybody can pick up
and I would actually suggest running to
by people if you’re trying to go for
investment eventually run it by people
who are not who have no familiarity with
your business and see if they get it and
if they’re like scratching their head
not quite understanding what it’s about
it you might need to retool some of the
words make it easier to understand yeah
and on that Evan I think there’s nothing
you know if you look at a pitch from
someone one of the questions you’ll ask
is have you actually tested it with
anyone else so if you could have a
mentor who’s done what you want to do
done it a couple of times and you know
cast their eye over your business plan
and just said actually you know my
experience suggests you need to look at
these areas if you can reference them
that’s powerful the other thing that I
love when I kind of if I reviewed a
business plan have you tested this on
potential customers you know you know
what’s your not like kind of formal
focus groups but there’s ways ways on
social media you can test drive all
these sort of things in real time get
real-time feedback and again that’s
pretty compelling if you’ve actually
tested this on a sample of customers
then that is very powerful but for
potential investors I love it I think
that it ties in well to the next
question is from each top music what are
some good ways to analyze a market so
once we get now like market analysis can
be part of any business plan how do you
actually break down and analyze a market
yeah that’s great question h top music
and i think amazing rich tools out there
through the web where you can kind of do
loads of really rich segmentation
obviously you can buy data but i think
in the world of where we are 2017
there’s so much rich data that you
should start
with and it’s all free data if you want
to look at markets most of it is kept
it’s just amazing what the government
publish as well
it’s amazing what industry Institute’s
whether it’s in the music industry with
the hospitality industry the amount of
rich available information out there
this cut by state by you know region is
just so rich so I have to start there I
look at external data and then also if
you really wanted to create communities
that’s a really powerful way to kind of
get rich data as well
so on social media you could create
community you know look what Evans done
he’s got you know he’s a rockstar hero
he’s got a community I bet if Evan
wanted to test drive some ideas he could
find at least a thousand people within
his community within his network groups
on Twitter on social media that would be
very happy to test drive stuff with him
and that is so powerful if you go if
you’ve got people particularly in your
audience marketplace who give you great
feedback on your idea your business plan
there’s nothing more compelling than
that yeah I agree and I think it ties in
to the last question to where you’re
talking about getting customers it’s
it’s not that difficult to get the high
level general market data of where the
industry is going and you know if you’re
pitching to banks or investors they also
kind of know where the industry is going
if you’re talking about you know FinTech
it’s going up if you’re talking about
certain a horse-and-buggy business that
may not be on the rise right now like
people have a general understanding of
what’s what’s doing well what’s missing
in most business plans that at least I
see a lot of is specific information
from potential customers most people
haven’t done the work to actually talk
to customers and if you have just one
customer you’re already ahead of 99% of
the business plans that are being
pitched just one customer or beta
customers or people on a trial like you
want to get some specific feedback
around what you’re building and why it’s
special and different than everything
else on the market why people want to
sign up for it it just separates you a
can’t I can’t push that enough how much
it separates you
from every other business plane coming
in that you actually have somebody who’s
using your thing and if he paid you a
little bit of money because if
somebody’s if one person’s page you then
100 people pay you and a thousand people
pay you you continue to expand up from
there but if you haven’t gotten a single
person to pay you if you haven’t gotten
any beta tests or information from
potential customers then it’s really
really hard you you’re only relying on
the high-level data and you’re kind of
lost in the sea of business plans that
are being thrown around so I love
Stephens idea whether it’s reaching out
to influencers whether it’s reaching out
to your network of people that you know
whether it’s friends and family with us
going to trade shows and just trying to
get ten people to try out what you’re
doing getting that kind of data is super
super super important it’s not going to
be like tens of thousands of data points
but having a little bit of data that
shows that people are willing to use
what you’re selling makes a huge
difference
hey Evan how would you feel if you
reviewed a business plan right up front
in the executive summary you just
clicked on a link and it had a video of
the first three customers 30 seconds
saying wow I looked around couldn’t find
stuff found this product or this service
or this idea I’m now a customer of you
know I’m giving this company revenue and
it’s changed my life yeah that’d be
great
like I haven’t I never really got that
many video submissions and video can be
dangerous because you know people like
to skip through quickly like if I season
people who go through business plans
they know what they’re looking for and
with the video you’re kind of forced to
watch according to what the person
submitted but if you’re leaving with
customers coming in saying right here’s
how great this company is and how I use
them every day and it solves a real
problem for me it’s great you stand out
nobody does that yeah I would say on
that no one that I’m not seeing any
business plans that lead with a customer
who’s one of your customers in 30 second
the great thing is it costs nothing and
your customers would do it for you and
just say you know hey you don’t need
fancy film crews just do send me you
know on my iPhone the video testimonial
and these are the sort of things I’d
love you to talk about boom happy days
yeah very
very compelling and and unique and it’s
and it’s easy right to the point like
that should get it done to have somebody
just go on their own phone and film what
are you sure with their place and film
it you don’t need to come with the film
crew and spend thousands of dollars of
doing it right just a few minutes of
time both your sides to get it done it’s
a great idea yeah and Evan I tell you
what if supplies the sage asked me to do
we all are all our supply chain is small
and medium businesses so if anybody says
to me we want you to give kind of a
customer’s test manner why wouldn’t I
yeah I love it
happy to do it just film the self quick
video boom send it off to them on
whatsapp or whatever and that they’re
good to go awesome next question coming
in from Joanne please ask Steven what
makes a successful marketing strategy
thank you
I think that’s a great question Joanne I
think what makes the marketing strategy
is again first of all really connected
with the business strategy so you know
if the marketing strategy is just
connected then we’ve got no chance but
where is tightly connected with the
business strategy it’s very powerful
second thing I think that really is
important is to have again the
destination but within marketing
strategy you know what is the right
marketing mix and I think today it’s
going to be most marketing strategies
are going to be dominated by sort of
digital media and kind of again
attracting the question there you go
always get asked on our marketing is
where’s the audience why is the idea
compelling what’s the value proposition
and then given we know where the
audience is what’s the best way of
reaching the audience and you need to do
that really succinctly and then within
marketing particularly when you’re
starting a business you need to be very
kind of agile and start some things and
test-drive things would be prepared to
fail on some things so if you want to
start running campaigns that’s really
cool but I think it needs to be kind of
integrating the business adept and agile
so that you’re very clear but again very
clearly based around what are the
outcomes we want what it you know was
the traffic we want to drive to our
website what’s the level of from verb
all that sort of stuff so done a pretty
granular level so you know whether
you’ve been successful and on the
campaigns you’re running or you know
whether it’s SEO optimization or Google
Ads or whatever you’re doing around the
you know kind of elements of the
marketing mix I think you need to be
thoughtful to try a few new things and
scale up what works and kind of shut
down what doesn’t I I think it really
depends on as well if you’re doing it
for yourself or doing a four again like
a lot of these questions depends on you
versus pitching due to an investor
somebody else I think for yourself
there’s a lot of different ways to grow
business there’s a lot of toys to market
yourself to Stevens Point
you know you have to be where your
audience is you have to pitch them in a
way that you know resonates with them
there’s still tons of device that you
can do it and it depends on what your
style is gonna be when I took over
Toronto then salsa I gave Alex who helps
me run the business ten different ways
like here are ten different ways we can
grow this business from a marketing
perspective ten different ways one of
them has to be thought leadership like
you are a thought leader you need to
create content you need to be at the
front cuz I only want to work with
thought leaders so that’s that’s a
non-negotiable from the other ten pick
one that you really want to focus on
because we can’t do all ten well if we
try to do all ten as a small business
you’re gonna be unfocused and you’re not
gonna get results so pick one from the
other what nine and that’s what we’re
gonna focus on so we pick two and we’re
running with it if you’re pitching to an
investor banker back to the last point
I’d make sure that you get some kind of
traction off of it don’t tell me how
YouTube is gonna explode your business
don’t tell me how like pay-per-click
advertising is going to explode your
business you got to show me like show me
that it worked for you even on a small
scale like you ran this campaign and
here’s the results of the game and so if
I get twenty thousand now there’s more I
can go blow up my campaign right like
give me some results has too often it’s
just there’s just these ideas and you
have no tracks you no background no
history with it and there’s no
credibility with it so people won’t
believe that it’s gonna work out so I
think for yourself you want to look at
the different options see what fits best
with your personality as well as where
the artist is going to be but then if
when you’re pitching to investors you
want to make sure that you’ve actually
tested some of these things out and
you’re able to scale it yeah
again obviously that you know the basics
of the marketing plan I’ve got a a just
the sort of four piece you know which is
product pricing packaging and place you
know where the audience is the other
actually fifth P I’d put in there is
partners because if you have partners
you can go faster you can go at scale
you can go you can potentially go global
and you can really accelerate the growth
of your business
but again to Evans point the more
substance you get around what you’ve
test-driven and proof points the more
powerful you know the marketing plan
becomes I like that I like that v P you
should you should go back and rewrite
all the books and marketing now v P the
five P is going to Stephen Kelly I like
it
Amanda’s reading in basically asking
about the the planning and the
projections so she feels she has a great
idea and wants to start but doesn’t know
how to project forward what that
business is gonna look like and what
device do we have I think what I’d say
Amanda is you know the the essence is to
start with the end of mind
so and that could be that you dream in
terms of what could it look like in
Twitter and this is where you got a sort
of be realistic so we had dumb Chad
Hurley who is a founder actually YouTube
on the stage of me at Sage summit and he
dreamt of in the early days I think it’s
thirty thousand videos a year you know
can you believe that that was a way went
way back when they started and now
you’ve got it’s probably billions posted
on to YouTube
in terms of videos it’s a very different
world but but he had a very clear dream
the ambition that probably they started
with was very low relative to the
success of YouTube today and I think
there’s some lessons we can learn from
that so I think you have it again a
destination of what the outlook looks
like but to project forward a really
good way is to start with the end in
mind maybe it’s just a year you take and
say the destination we want to get to
into the new customers in terms of
revenue is X and number of customers and
all those sort of things and then you
want to break that down to so what would
you know break it down to quarters and
then break it down to months
and he can break it down two weeks
because to Evans point if you drive in a
lot of it around digital you can you can
almost do marketing by science and you
can get very scientific about what works
to what doesn’t how you get a qualified
lead and all that sort of stuff and what
the cost per lead is and all these sort
of metrics that you can build into your
sort of marketing plan and your cockpit
of business dashboards you know almost
like school boards though it’s all real
time and then you know bottom line is I
think once you start test driving the
execution of the marketing campaigns and
you get some success and get some
customers then what you want to do is
you know I used to work
course-correction but it’s either ramp
up the level of ambition if it’s going
really well and and kind of accelerate
that or if it’s not going well
understand why it’s not and well do the
course correction to get it back on plan
so I think um and all these sort of
things are predicated by just taking
that first step if you’ve got a
framework of where you want to get to
where the end result is then the most
important thing is how does that happens
that affect your behavior and how you
spend your time tomorrow what are you
going to do differently tomorrow that
allows you to be successful against your
plan yeah a lot of the projections it’s
a shot in the dark you know a shot in
the dark here you’re trying to figure it
out you know like you don’t know how
it’s gonna work out exactly but it does
speak to your ambition and what you’re
trying to do like are you trying to
build a hundred thousand dollar business
and then just supports you and you know
and your family and that’s a great
little small business or are you trying
to build a hundred million dollar
company right and then if you want to
build a hundred million dollar company
one of the steps that you need to take
to get there because it’s not going to
be you on on your own we’re 100 K you
could do it all by yourself
right 100 million it’s not gonna happen
you need to build a team you need to
scale up and so it helps you kind of map
your ambition where do you see this big
company or a small company yours going
there’s no right or wrong answer it’s
just really for you the kind of business
that you want to build and then it’s
really to Stevens point of the future
like what’s the end right think about
the end in mind and go back there and
then backtrack it to what your you’re
doing right now today and try to plan
for it and so you know when I’m looking
to bring on people into some of the
programs I have this
nothing wrong with someone who has a
$50,000 business I may not be a fit for
what I’m doing I want somebody who wants
to change the world and have a big
impact but your plan will have to map to
your ambition just make sure that that
happens I wouldn’t get so caught up and
having the perfect projection that then
you don’t do anything to the paralysis
analysis point we made earlier a lot of
times this is where entrepreneurs fall
short and they get stuck and then they
just stop right like it won’t be a
perfect number you have to kind of just
have general assumptions of what you
think it’s gonna go that map to your
ambition and don’t let that prevent you
from actually creating your plan yeh
Amanda there’s a couple of things I
think ever touch to me you’ve got to
understand what is it I want to do for
the business is it a lifestyle business
and that might be fine or is it a
business like Evan and I love sort of
creating where you’re reaching for the
stars and you know you’re creating with
you in your case that makes Google or
whatever or is it a business you want to
build to a point and then have an exit
point and actually sell it and go on to
the next one as a sort of serial
entrepreneur that could be all a valid
and then I think the most important
thing is Evan brought this out but the
perfect plan
absolutely acknowledges there is no
perfect plan every plan is imperfect but
the most important thing is what are you
gonna do different tomorrow there’s
gonna allow you to have a great chance
of reaching your destination I love it
kid Equinox is talking about
partnerships in the plan how do you not
partnerships with like other companies
but if there’s multiple owners in the
business how do you decide the equity
split between the partners and the
management team I think the key thing
you know the reality is again if you
start with the end in mind what you
don’t want to have is and it happens so
often is people fall out and people feel
really bitter and that creates a lot of
conflict so I think you need to go into
partnership conversations with your eyes
open and obviously you know how do you
actually assess what these kind of
equity split is it is by what what value
is each individual part of ring you know
are they bringing are they bringing cash
to the business are they bringing
expertise are they bringing you know
their time when I whenever
I’ve started business I’ve always always
kind of insisted all the kind of core
early stage executives sort of take a
haircut and salary and get more equity
and some of them have actually worked
for free for a period of time if they
can do so I you know I love and I’m sure
you love Kitty in terms of people having
a lot of skin in the game but you want
to want to have the right level of
expertise you want to have the right
level a lot of the guys I know and I’ll
advocate is you really want to you want
to be making money before you raise
money so a great way to do that is get
the founding sort of guys the partners
to actually get equity shares but take
no cash out the business and use the
cash we’re really managed to invest in
product investing customer service
investing marketing campaigns to win in
the market and get customers so it
depends but I think the obvious thing is
you’ve got to look at the natural things
that people bring a value to the
business and then allocate fairly the
equity relationship based on what their
value is also the other thing you should
ask them is how long they want to be
around so some people are great founders
where you get to a stage of 20 30 people
and they just run out of steam because
you know maybe they are the guys with a
brilliant idea but they actually can’t
communicate to anybody or share their
vision so people kind of not only have
different I guess equity stakes but
different equity stakes at different
stages of the businesses you grow and
become more successful and as you grow
and become more successful you need
different skills and different
experience to scale your business to the
next level because otherwise you just
hit a roadblock and you can’t bounce him
back and you kind of flatline the
business and that’s no good yeah there’s
no one way to answer this question
there’s no one perfect way to structure
every single deal I think a lot of
people default to 50/50 just because it
sounds fair but what ends up happening
is somebody puts in a lot more work than
somebody else and and you end up getting
screwed over it happened so often in
companies what I would recommend is
making sure that you date before you get
married I would make sure that you know
this person that you have worked with
them before that you start on some small
project together to see how
you work together see if you’re both
putting in the same amount of hustle and
drive and you both believe in a vision
just as much as the other person to see
if it’s going to work out because I
think a lot of times people look at it
on paper it’s like well you’re great at
sales and you’re great at operations so
let’s combine our skills and we’re gonna
have a great company it looks perfect on
paper but then when you actually get the
work in you realize things fall apart
you different values you’ve different
vision different work ethic
just like when you’re University on
those on those group projects you know
somebody always ends up carrying
everybody else right like you need you
need your partner to pull their their
load as well right you need to both be
doing as much work and so find some
project to start off with – to date
before you get married make sure you
guys are aligned because you’ll end up
spending just as much time with this
person as your your husband or wife so
you got to make sure you invest in some
good time into it and then you just need
to find something that’s fair like how
do you balance who’s bringing more
experience or who’s putting in more
money or who has more contacts or you
know it just has to feel fair for both
of you if somebody is going into it
feeling like it’s not fair I guarantee
you it’s not gonna get any better if you
start off feeling like you got screwed
over on the deal you’re not gonna feel
later on that that was better and
telling him to cause a rift seemed to
really make sure upfront that no matter
what the percentage breakdown is that
that you both feel that it’s fair yeah
you know this is maybe the way Evan is
probably the same way I’d always
advocate never be greedy never look to
screw people over and obviously 100
percent equity
valued at nothing is meaningless if you
can have 40% equity valued at you know
six million dollars so be generous with
these things would be fair but but also
I think the key things sort of Evans
highlighted and explicitly have the
conversations upfront at the star never
go into these conversations with stuff
that’s festering and be honest about
you’ve what you bring to the party Evan
started put it on the table most people
start with two people one’s really good
at operations back off it’s all that
sort of stuff
one person is really good at sales and
marketing and that’s good but you bring
different things and therefore what’s of
both equity split and over time when you
start taking an income out the business
was some reasonable fair and equitable
return for each of you and as you take
on the next employee and scale up you
know what makes sense in terms of
dilution and it’s the more you can have
these conversations upfront and the
fewer surprises happen the better you
get on the more trust you build it’s all
about building that trust and being fair
with each other the worst thing that can
happen is when you get surprises you
kind of obviously on either side if it’s
just the two of you or the five of you
you start getting bitterness and where
you get that you get division and you
start pulling apart and you might as
well say goodbye to your dream at that
point and it’s no fancy you know being
on trial should be fun you should love
it and you should love the the guys that
you’ll see go spending 60 head of the
week talking to trying to create your
dreams together it’s got to be a bit of
fun I love it
so we’ve talked about a lot of the main
sections of a business plan we covered
the executive summary what to look for
we talked about creating a product and
services how to do market analysis
figuring out your marketing strategy
this part a little bit about the team
and how to compensate we’ve talked about
financial projections so these are all
the kind of the main areas of a business
plan that you want to have for yourself
as well as when you’re going for an
investor the the question kind of bring
me brings some of this together is
coming from Gaurav who’s saying he has
an idea for a service based business but
now it’s trying to figure out how do you
how do I actually execute my strategy
how do I take this idea how do I think
this plan that you start doing the work
on it get into the operations what do
you think I think that’s what it’s all
about and it’s kind of a class plan
would be class execution will always
fail against a class execution and be
class plan and the other thing anybody
anybody on the in the audience today
wants loads of detail around what Evans
talked about around the executive
summary the financial plan the value
prop there’s a ton of advice we’ve got
on our website we’ll called actually
sage advice on wwe.com slash blog and
we’ll put this up for you Evan
so if anybody wants to go to the kind of
materials that we’re talking about there
to help building a business plan that we
can suggest which all available on our
website and everybody’s available to
jump on that and it’s all free because
we love you to be successful then on
better you know governor’s plan about
how do we execute it I think what the
plan should do is outline what are the
metrics you know this year
this quarter this month this week and
then it’s all about execution and with
with these other things it’s really
important the plan should guide and
provide a compass for how I spend my
time as an entrepreneur and what’s
important to me and you know it might be
safe A’s one of the business plan is
establish your idea build the product or
create the website or build a network or
get the partnership whatever that is
should be the guiding light the North
Star as to how I spend my time tomorrow
and once you’ve done that you move on to
the next thing once you’ve done that
move on to the next thing so you
constantly kind of execute and spending
your time because the most valuable
you’ve got you know this everybody is
it’s not necessarily the money and the
financing the most valuable thing you
have is your time so how do you spend
your time to actually deliver the first
step phase one in the business plan
phase 2 phase 3 and see that revenue
kind of accelerating as you get more
customers you get more customer
satisfaction you get more referrals you
build a great presence in a band and
that’s what it’s all about so I think
it’s connecting the most powerful thing
with a business plan is when you connect
it with the daily reality of how you run
your business ahead shell just finish
off even with what I do in this company
it’s obviously a big company big public
company but I write every year it’s
called I call it V sgm other great
companies like Salesforce do this sort
of stuff as well Marc Benioff there so I
I write something called V s G M stands
for vision goals strategies and metrics
and then I cascade that across all our
13,000 colleagues I’ve met probably
10,000 the collies go M rounds of San
Paulo in Brazil Atlanta where I stand up
and I present to them my my biz
his plan for the company it’s on one
page nothing in my business plan is one
page every your grandmother could read
it and understand it ever and it just
talks it you know it’s all about this
year it’s about the year of the sage
business cloud it’s about customer
obsession we’ve got loads of metrics
around customer advocacy to bring it to
life we’ve got them cascaded so
everybody in the organization is aligned
and they write their own objectives for
what they’re going to do tomorrow based
on my vs GMI my kind of business plan
one pager and that’s how you get kind of
incredible alignment and consistency and
also you really create it is so obvious
you know it’s almost like you love the
Blue Jays if you had defense thinking
they’re offensive players and you know
all these sort of confusions and there’s
ambiguity in the team and there’s some
guys who are playing on the pitch and
they think they’re going to go and play
you know NFL then there’s some people
who golf to play hockey and you know no
we’re playing one game this is the game
this is the one page of our business
plan this defines what we’re going to do
this year everybody’s on the team sales
know what they’re doing marketing know
what they’re doing customer services
whether they’re in product know what
they’re doing finance know what they do
every HR know you know everybody knows
what they’re doing and it’s all totally
interlocked to deliver you know the the
summit of the mountain then it becomes
very powerful so I’d say the most
compelling thing you can do is write it
down in one page and when you go and you
talk about your first employee you’re
gonna hire make sure they really
understand it drink the kool-aid get the
excitement get your vision and then get
everybody consistently doing that in the
company and it’s a really effective
process where it means you can take your
business plan and bring it to life and
the power of great companies it’s so
true
it’s where you get that amazing
interlock between the business planning
and what happens in the operation where
I’ve seen bad companies operate
particularly as they grow in scale and
they start getting governance and stuff
like that it’s where they’ve become
disconnected and the business plan is
done in a kind of room once a year and
then it doesn’t make the light of day
where it’s really powerful
is where it affects you know every kind
of executive behavior the entrepreneur
the founder and they really capture
their dreams and they encapsulate them
in in terms of what every one of your
employees does every day of their life
yeah a business plan is useless if
you’re not going to do anything with it
and and the point of it is to give you
clarity over what you should be doing so
you’re spending your time you’re
planning your researching you’re talking
to customers you’re figuring out what
your strategy is gonna be and then that
should give you the game plan right that
gives you the roadmap of what you need
to be spending your time on so once
you’re done with your plan and the
Stevens Point way back about like hey
maybe you have to revisit your plan once
a month and see like you adjust it’s
never going to just be this fixed thing
but that should give you confidence and
clarity on what your next step needs to
be so if you know where you want to be
in 30 days you know what you want to
have accomplished in 30 days then you go
out and you start doing that thing that
you said you’re gonna do so that you hit
that goal in 30 days right if you if you
finish writing your business plan and
then you don’t know what you should be
doing next you didn’t write a great
business plan yeah right you didn’t do
in proper preparation right so after
you’ve written your great business fine
and like we’ve talked about most of the
points that go into a good plan now you
should have your goals for what you want
to be going out and actually executing
right because I think a lot of people
they plan too much and it don’t do
enough the planners need to do more and
sometimes the doers need to plan more
because just doing without a direction
doesn’t help either
but if you’re that kind of person just
planes and planes and planes it wants a
perfect plan like you will never get the
perfect perfect perfect plan you gotta
have to start executing start doing and
don’t worry about taking like the
absolute perfect first step just start
start doing it those five marketing
ideas that you had great like trial then
let’s go let’s start them and see if
you’re getting results and then hone and
refine and improve your first step will
be a tiny a tiny step forward and
probably a stumble down okay great get
back up and then do another step and so
if you’ve done your plan then I’m
looking at okay how much time I spend in
a week on my business and then
allocating my time to say I’m going that
and what I said I was gonna do my plane
I’m actually gonna go out and start
doing yes I think you and I ever love
sport as well there’s so many read
across on this with the sporting world
so if if you want to get to the World
Series in your
business what do you do you don’t kind
of just dream all day and you you end up
at the World Series you have to say
right let’s bring that back to you know
what do we need to do what are we going
to be different how we you do the
analysis of every one of your
competitive teams and every game you go
into you’ve got a different game plan
about how you’re gonna kind of dominate
possession then it comes down to the
details about diet you have different
types of coach and you have you know
loads of stuff around psychology all
these things it doesn’t happen by
accident when teams turn up at the World
Series they have had a plan that they’ve
executed with awesome flawless precision
and and it’s exactly the same in
business – Evans point yeah you have a
game plan of where you want to get to
within a year you want to hit the ball
out apart and get to the World Series so
wow you have what are you gonna do this
week that’s gonna deliver that every
game and and you know who you’re gonna
kind of sign up as customers who are
your competitors you’re looking to take
out everything has to be almost clinical
and flawlessly executed yeah I spend
about five percent of my time dreaming
and 95% of the time executing that dream
correct it’s like if you wake up every
day you don’t know what to do and you’re
just thinking about this beautiful world
that you’re going to build and nothing
ever happens like you never you know
we’re gonna create that like most of
your time should be spent actually
executing and then doing a monthly gut
check to say hey am i working on the
right things or not am i still aligned
with everything that I wanted to do or
not and you tweak and adjust but you got
to be spending most your time actually
doing the work yeah and and all the
great entrepreneurs have been hugely
successful probably around that balance
95% times executing and then 5%
reflection time well luminar
double-oh-seven
is writing in Steve and talked about
finding a mentor how easy is it to find
a mentor those willing to help you is
there a list of mentors out there
somewhere how do I get started yeah
there are again there’s loads of stuff
out there on the web what I’ll advocate
is go and find someone who’s probably
who’s been on your journey before who’s
who’s had your dream 10-15 years ago
and done it
and there could be some crazy ways you
can meet these mentors so you know I
don’t know if there’s if you’re in
Toronto and you go to a conference and
there’s an amazing speaker there who’s
done what you’ve done honestly if you
hang around at the end of the talk and
just grab them on the way out the whole
way you cannot believe how people are so
generous with their time and everybody
wants to help the next generation of
entrepreneurs and again social media you
know I’ve had people come up to me on
social media either through DM z– or
whatever and I’ve given them my time
because they’ve got an idea they’ve got
passion they got energy and I think
everybody who’s made it in terms of
entrepreneurship and kind of climb that
summit wants to give back and make a
difference so I think the only thing you
need to do double-oh-seven is be bold be
bold have no fear the worst thing you
can do again is sit in Starbucks or
whatever or you know just sit down and
fear that who’s out there there’s lots
of people out there who can help you the
best thing you can do is reach out and
say again again in a very simple way in
a compelling way in two sentences what
is it you do and how can this person
help you if you say that to them very
few people say no if you’re picking the
name like double-oh-seven you got to
live up to your name you got to go out
and be bold and take the big chances and
and it’s not gonna I mean we’ve talked
about mentorship before on previous
hangouts to you know not everybody’s
gonna say yes
don’t get discouraged just because you
go you if you have one ask and that
person doesn’t respond to you don’t feel
like that’s it I can never find a mentor
right I mean you want to approach with
humbleness you want to approach with the
feeling like you’re actually gonna do
the work and let that energy and
enthusiasm come through because they see
themselves in you right they see like a
young version of themselves and that’s
what they want to help but if you don’t
get it the first time it’s okay like
keep reaching out keep trying other
people there’s lots of people can
potential help you and live up to your
double-oh-seven name I like it Felicia’s
writing in to say what’s the difference
between a business plan and a business
strategy that’s pretty good and actually
Felicia yeah
I have known companies who kind of spend
years discussion things like vision
statements and mission statements and
strategy statements and just stuff that
just gets nowhere you know back to so
business strategy you know I think is a
strategy as a way to execute you plan
the plan sets out what the destination
is the milestones to do that then part
of that is well what’s the business
strategy for getting there it’s almost
like you know we want to climb to the
top of Everest Evan and I are going on
team how’re we going to do that well the
strategy is we’re going to get a flight
into you know wherever it’s Kathmandu
you go and then we’re going to get a
mini plane to take us up to as far as we
can get and then we’re actually the next
bit of the strategy is we need to do
some altitude training because it’s
pretty mighty high up there and we need
to have a strategy to handle altitude
and ultimately we need to have a
strategy that we’re gonna we’re going to
have to have oxygen and stuff like so so
the strategy kind of gives you how we’re
gonna get every waypoint
maxed out and the strategy could be you
know bring it to life is it could be
you’re gonna do digital marketing you’re
gonna do how you gonna get your
customers where’s your audience so
what’s the strategy you’re gonna get
there so the strategy tells you the how
the business plan tells you the wall
I like it it’s good we’ve covered a lot
of the points have we missed anything
from a business plan executive summary
negative summary I think the the
emphasis actually probably when we
talked about it but there’s a massive
difference and this is important because
you’ve got to set it yourself up for
success so if you’re gonna pitch for
money or you can do an external
businessman do what everything the
structure but also make sure it’s less
ambitious than what you know you can do
because the worst thing you want to do
when you pitch for money is go back six
months later and not be hitting your
hitting your milestones in terms of
revenues and goals on your business plan
so that means you need to have you know
almost probably two levels of plan once
the internal plan where you know you’re
gonna knock the ball out of the park and
then beneath that you’d want to have
probably a less ambitious planner you
wanna go and taik to investors now the
reality is I know when you go to
potential investors the temptation is to
do the opposite to try and sell and
pitch that this is gonna you know solve
world hunger and therefore it’s gonna be
you’re gonna be the next Google but if
you do that you can get into yourself
you know basically you can set wild
expectations that can’t be achieved so I
think you know the graduation of
different plans in your head and what it
looks like is quite powerful but I think
Evan you probably captured most of the
key points and I said there’s people can
go to the sage comm blog and if they
want to have all these elements of the
business plan kind of mapped out you
know it’s all free material go to sage
advice and you can get it I love it well
it’s crazy how quickly an hour flies by
Stephen what’s the final message you
want to kind of wrap this all up with
some inspiration for the entrepreneurs
watching that they’re gonna take carry
until our next session I’m gonna borrow
some of yours Evan so you know start
with the end in mind when you do
business planning but most important
tomorrow just do it JD I we say just do
it just do it and stocks Akutan it’s all
about execution let’s not delude
ourselves great companies are awesome
execution machines that can kind of turn
on a dime and do course correction where
they’re clear of the destination but
most of all clear that their JD I just
doing it and it’s all about everything
is underpinned by hashtag believe follow
follow Evan and you’re gonna be always
Almighty I love it thank you guys for
watching and tuning in Thank You Steven
for spending your time with us continue
to believe everyone and we’ll see you
soon
great job thanks guys
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