Benefits of A Business Plan

David Brown (https://www.linkedin.com/in/businessplananswerman) is our special guest on today's episode of Traffic and Leads Podcast. David Brown is better known as the Business Plan Answer Man (https://businessplananswerman.com/), he is a professional business planner who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners create business plans based on methods he used in the past. By side skirting around the trial and error process, David brings people success by helping them build a solid foundation, and today, he shares some of that amazing wisdom with us. Let’s get started!

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

* How David got started in this business! He’d been working for an insurance company for years, and an assignment that involved the employees to write up a business plan had a few people in a frenzy. Going to David for help, their issues were quickly resolved, and after telling him that he should do it professionally, he took their advice and took a leap! Now, David works as a business plan professional, walking people through the process and telling them how to make the best business plan.

* David explains the hardest part for most people when it comes to business plans, stating that they don’t know where they need to start when it comes to crafting one. David’s been in that position, so he knows how to steer people in the right direction, and understands that sometimes, doing a copious amount of research harms rather than helps. Since writing his first book—From the Bottom Up The Ultimate Guide for Business Planning to Profitability—David has learned more about the process, and is working on releasing the second edition very soon!

* David explains his process a bit, stating that a business plan starts with the key components—a mission, and a vision. You want to know what your values are, who’s on your team, who is your management, and who are your advisors. On the other side, you also want to look at your marketing to see if you have a viable product. In this process, you’re figuring out who your market is, and who your ideal customer is.

* David also explains that you need a plan to market your business (because the people helping you want to know how they’ll get paid back), and you need a 3-year projection of your financials to see how you can turn a profit and be successful. It's about asking yourself what kind of money has to be spent at a minimum for you to do your business.

* David then goes onto explain that it’s important to share this information with his staff in order to get proper input and feedback and build something together. You need to know the number of the product you need to sell in order to put the key in the lock, so to speak, and you can’t throw money at Facebook and SEO until you have that number. So, you need to use this plan to guide you through the weeks, and you need to share this plan in order to have something to keep the business moving forward.

* David explains that he usually updates his business plan every year unless there’s a need for major changes. The more work they do, the more changes they make, and most of the time it’s minor adjustments (changing marketing base, changing directions, building up a referral base, etc.).

* David also explains the importance of looking at who your ideal customer is because you might be surprised that you’re going about it all wrong. If everyone is your customer, then your business is going to be short-lived. David can help make templates for people if they don’t know what to do, or how to do it, and encourages people to get in touch with him via email in order to set something up. He loves imparting his wisdom to those who will take it!