So unfortunately launching a business isn't as simple as picking a product,
setting a price, and posting on social media. So as we dive into this,
um,
the first couple of things are just going to be kind of some basics if you're
not familiar with, you know,
creating a business plan or how to start thinking about planning your business.
So as we dive in here, starting point,
this is gonna look kind of like a modified SWAT analysis.
If you maybe did one of those in school at some point,
first thing we always need to look at is what are our strengths?
What skills do we have, uh, characteristics if you will. You're very organized,
you're good at communicating to people, you're very detail oriented.
What are those things that kind of make you, you right?
Because we're gonna look at how we can leverage those as we go forward.
Having you be a part of your business, right? Because it's not just,
you don't want to just be the business,
especially if we're looking at eventually scaling it to a certain degree,
you're probably going to need to bring other people in.
So we need to figure out where's the most efficient use of your time and
efficiency is going to be a big thing that we focus on during these upcoming
units. Other things, what topics are you really knowledgeable in,
right? Where do you have a lot of experience?
Where is the value that you bring to your business that you can leverage and
make use of?
Whether that's creating a product for specific niches or specific types of
customers. We need to be able to focus our efforts, um,
so that we can obviously provide a very high quality product or service because
there's a lot of competition out there.
We need to find what makes us unique and then how do we leverage that.
So the next thing and the less fun thing sometimes is where
are we not good? What are we not good at? What do we not like enjoying? Or what,
what do we not like doing? So we need to be a little bit self-aware, of course.
Um, you know, maybe it's hard to, you know,
sit and down and plot things on a spreadsheet or whatever,
but you're great at coming up with creative ideas. Excellent.
We know where your strength lies,
but we also know where maybe we need to partner with someone higher outsource,
um, to kind of bring that to reality in the most efficient ways possible.
It's absolutely fine to not be good at everything,
and it's probably better to just be really good at a few things than kind of
okay at a lot of things as we move forward.
Similar to your strengths, what are you interested in?
What are you excited about? You can be good at something but not enjoy doing it.
Trust me, I do accounting. Um, so what are you excited about doing?
Do you like working one-on-one with people? Do you enjoy that interaction?
Would you rather sit down and just, you know, write articles, create videos, um,
what are the things you look forward to doing in your day-to-day business so
that we can figure out, okay, what are the things that we can again,
maybe find someone else to work on that's maybe less efficient use of your
time, right? Because the more
Passionate, the more you enjoy doing something,
typically the more effort we put into it, right?
We all probably have those exercises that we do in training that you're like,
Hmm, I don't really want to do it,
but I know I should or I have to for whatever reason.
Probably don't put the same level of effort and intensity in some of those
things compared to the exercises that we actually have fun with and like doing.
So again,
leveraging and focusing your where your interests lie is going to help you be
more effective, efficient, and ultimately,
ultimately probably put a little bit better quality product or service out
there.
The next thing we look at before we get to actually planning our business is
what are the goals? What are we trying to accomplish with it?
What is the purpose of our business in the industry? What is,
what problems does our product or our service solve for people?
So we need to know what we're actually aiming at before we can start kind of
laying the groundwork. So why are we starting this business? Uh,
and that comes back to kind of maybe you've heard the three why's exercise.
So always ask yourself why three times if we're really trying to get specific
about something. Uh, so for example, a coaching client says, uh, you know,
I want to lose body fat. And you ask them why? It's like, well,
because I want to be leaner. Okay, well, why do you want to be leaner? Um,
because I want to have, you know, more energy during the day. Okay,
well why do you have want to have more energy during the day? Oh,
cause I wanna be able to spend time with my family and kids and not be
completely exhausted, right?
So we ask that question to jive down and find out what's the true value or
what's the underlying motive? Because now if we know, oh,
they really want to be, you know, healthy for their family,
that gives us a certain way we can kind of approach that customer and explain
maybe the benefits of what we are offering them. And we'll talk more about that,
uh, as we get later on into communicating with customers or clients.
And the next one is the perfect scenario writing exercise.
So this comes back to what is the goal of the business, right?
If you know everything went perfect, what would your life,
or what would your business look like in the end, let's say, right?
So what are all those details? And the more specific you can be with this,
the better because the second step is what are the things that need to take
place or occur in order for that, you know,
perfect reality to actually happen, right?
So we can kinda start working backwards as we're planning our business,
figuring out, well, I wanna have more time. So it's like, well,
if you want to have more free time with your family or more lifestyle and
income,
you're probably gonna have to hire people to do all of the little day-to-day
things that you don't wanna manage. Okay?
So now we know we're gonna have to hire people for this, that,
and the other thing. Okay? Well,
we're gonna have to have money to hire those people from the start before they
actually start. We actually start realizing the benefit or the, uh,
the return on that investment. So we need to have x number of dollars saved up,
okay? Now I know that's the goal, so now I need to start budgeting for that,
right? So you can see all these things kind of stack on top of one another.
And again,
these are all things we'll talk about in a little more detail as we get into the
financial modules and budgeting and so on.
So continuing on the goals similar to that, um,
perfect day scenario or perfect life scenario.
What do we need to do long, medium, and short term to work towards that?
And again, this is not something you can do in five minutes, right? Expect to,
you know, block off a chunk of your time,
maybe take an hour and we'll get to that in a sec.
Is writing down specific things that will give you kind of the roadmap to
building your business plan. So that could be financial goals, lifestyle goals,
um, education.
Are there things you need or want to learn to be able to get your business to a
certain level, right?
Because we don't wanna stop investing in ourselves if we're gonna be the primary
ones running and managing and driving this business forward.
And business development, which could be, you know,
continued education for your employees,
the more value equal you can make those employees,
the less likely it is you're gonna have to hire someone else to do a different
job If you know someone is more efficient at doing one thing.
And then of course, the perfect day scenario also kind of plays into that,
you know, age old question, what's your five year plan, right? So do,
do you enjoy doing the online coaching portion?
Is that something you want to keep doing in five years?
Do you like creating the content or would you rather have someone else do it for
you and you focus on something else, right?
Do you want to manage the day-to-day little things or are there things that
we're gonna need to eventually outsource to other people or delegate that
responsibility?
So those are things we'll need to look at in our kind of long-term business
plan. So the mini homework assignment,
or suggested homework assignment for this unit is, like I said,
take about an hour and we'll do some brainstorming. I'd spend, you know,
10 minutes, I'd say on average on looking at the strengths areas, improvements,
interests and goals, just to get an idea for yourself.
And then do that perfect scenario exercise for about 15 minutes. Uh,
and hopefully that will give you a couple of things that you can keep in the
back of your mind as we're writing our, or or designing our business plan,
which we'll talk about, uh, in the upcoming units.