Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.
—Thomas Edison
My family and friends sometimes tease me about the way I like to build a sermon around fresh interpretations of Scripture using surprising metaphors or unexpected examples. They know I like a challenge and that I want my preaching, teaching, and speaking to be as relevant, engaging, powerful, and transformative to my audience as possible. In other words, I don’t want people falling sleep while I’m talking!
Many people compliment me on both my content and my style of delivery, telling me how natural, even effortless, I make it look to speak in front of thousands of people. I share this with you not to brag about my ability or blow my own horn, because God certainly gets all the glory for inspiring my messages and using them in people’s lives. It would be erroneous, however, for you to assume that I don’t prepare, read, research, pray, and organize my thoughts ahead of time.
You see, I’m convinced preparation facilitates liberation. My mind is naturally curious so I find myself reading, meditating, making notes, and researching far longer than you might expect. I’ve never been to seminary, but I’ve studied the Bible since I was a boy. And as corny as it may sound, I really enjoy being a student of human nature and a keen observer of the world around me. Learning stimulates me and serves as a catalyst for the opportunities when I am blessed to share what I’ve learned with others.
While preparation is crucial for me, I also want the freedom to customize my message extemporaneously for the specific audience hearing it and the context in which they are receiving it. Never wanting to sound scripted or contrived, I discovered early in my pastoral career that the key to keep it real and sound natural is to do all the work ahead of time and commit it to paper. In order to improvise or adjust my points on the fly, I need to have adequate preparation and support beneath the surface of my delivery. I need to have my main point in mind—my destination, where I want to take my audience—and how I’m going to get us there—my transportation, the examples and ideas supporting my main point.
The same is true for any journey, whether it’s physical, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional—and it’s absolutely essential to launch a successful business. Whether getting from point A to point B in a sermon or in the Sahara, you need a flight plan!
Up in the Air
Rarely does anyone ride in an airplane just for the experience of flying. As amazing as the view is or as tasty as those peanuts and pretzels might be, virtually no one buys a plane ticket for those benefits. No; passengers pay money for a seat on an airplane to get to a specific destination. When I hop on a flight at DFW Airport, I’m going somewhere for a specific purpose—to shoot a show in Los Angeles, to speak in Atlanta, to meet with new partners in New York. I don’t fly just to count the clouds for two or three hours, and neither do you!
Similarly, you are launching a new venture to get somewhere, and your destination is what we typically call success. So don’t be afraid to admit that you want to succeed! You surely don’t want to pour all your heart, soul, sweat, and tears—not to mention your dollars—into a venture just for the fun of seeing what it will do. Your business is your baby, something you’ve dreamed about and created. Like a good parent, you want your infant venture to grow and mature and become a vibrant, healthy business.
Scripture reminds us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Prov. 13:12). You don’t want to plant something only to watch it wither and die before it bears fruit. You want a strong sapling that grows into your sturdy tree of life. You don’t want your flying machine to hover just above the tree line—you want to reach 30,000 feet.
Obviously, anyone who starts a business wants the business to be a viable source of economic empowerment and profitability. But profitability isn’t accomplished by watching the bottom line alone. It’s equally important that one of your barometric indicators require that the consumer has had the best experience possible with the process and with product quality. Both marketing cost and sustainability are more easily achieved when the customer’s needs are very high in your priority list. If that goal is achieved, the business by virtue of quality experiences will sell itself!
Keep in mind, however, that your destination is not just about dollars. Success is not merely defined by your profit margin, although your profitability will likely determine your sustainability, which is also an essential part of success. Most people want to create a business that they can either sell for a considerable profit or leave as a legacy for their heirs. You want to make a contribution to your own future as well as the future of younger generations coming along behind you.
With success as your destination, you’re finally ready to draft a flight plan for the nuts and bolts of your new venture. You’ve already studied weather patterns and wind speeds and learned about the environment where your business will live. You’ve identified your problem to solve and know something about who you want to target as your customers. Now you need to put all your insight, inspiration, and information into one document that can serve as your master plan.
Before you build a viable business in your life, you must build it in your head. And because lots of other ideas and distractions will compete for space in your brain, you must commit your flight plan to writing. When you first begin this process, it will be like thinking out loud on paper or on your device’s screen—adding, changing, erasing, revising, refining. Business plans not only tell others—as well as yourself, which is often more valuable than you realize when you’re putting it together—what your plane looks like and where it’s going, but they also tell how you’re going to get there.
I’m always shocked at the number of entrepreneurs wanting my advice or an investment in their venture who look at me funny when I ask to see their business plan. Most of them tell me it’s all in their head, which I can appreciate but cannot see! While I know that sometimes events happen quickly and you begin your business before you intended to, or for some fortunate few the business seems to fall in your lap, you still need to establish some kind of business plan if you want to reach your destination: success, defined as both profitability and sustainability over time.
Think of the job of an architect. She doesn’t begin her new building with actual materials. Her job is to deliver a design that diminishes problems on paper. She studies weight loads, heating concerns, functionality, and aesthetics. The purpose of the architect is to produce a design that has considered the weight, the pressure, the strength, the environment, and other usage factors that would lead to a successful structure. If you plan it right with a pencil, you can build it right with steel. Pencils are easier to correct than welding!
Your business plan is just as important as an architect’s blueprint. Your plan is both essential and valuable because anyone seriously willing to consider investing their resources is unlikely to do so if you haven’t invested time and energy into drawing out a design that anticipates the inevitability of the challenges ahead. Potential investors want to see the extent to which you’ve envisioned the future as you attempt to reach your destination.
Keep in mind that each business plan is unique and should reflect your particular field or industry, your personal passion and professional advantages, and your constituents’ sensibilities. While numerous templates exist for basic business plans, one size does not fit all, so use them as guides to craft your own.
Your business plan must be customized to your industry, field, and audience. A plan for launching a neighborhood beauty salon will look different from a plan for starting a technical consulting business and from a plan for selling your hand knitting online. Similar to the way you might adjust a résumé, this customization should be as specific as possible to your particular venture.
There are all kinds of business plans, ranging in length from one page to some that are longer than this book. Numerous resources are available, with models emphasizing different aspects of your plan over others, and I recommend a few of my favorites in the Appendix. I encourage you to study a variety of them and pick and choose the best for your business. Whether you want only a bare-bones skeleton for your plan, a more full-bodied elaboration, or something in between, all business plans should remain works in progress that can be studied and updated often.
To get you started, I suggest answering the following questions in writing without worrying about spelling, grammar, or perfecting your prose. Just write out your responses in a sentence or two, knowing that some may require additional research or reflection upon revision. As you can see, there’s nothing magical about these questions—I’ve basically just used the old reporter’s trick of looking at a story from all angles. My hope is that answering these queries will provide you with the raw material to draft your design for ultimate success.
YOUR SOAR! FLIGHT PLAN
WHAT?
What are you selling? What problem are you solving?
What’s your mission and motivation?
What makes your business unique?
What’s your destination? What will success look like for your business?
WHO?
Who needs what you want to offer? Who’s your ideal customer?
Who else could use your product or service?
Who will be on your support team? Who are the other professionals you need to consult or hire for their expertise? Lawyers? Accountants? Consultants? Others?
Who might want to invest in your business?
WHY?
Why do people need your product or service?
Why should they buy it from you instead of from one of your competitors?
Why will they return to your business and refer others to you?
Why will you succeed where other, similar businesses have failed?
HOW?
How will you operate? How will you handle production, distribution, delivery, etc.?
How much money do you need to get started? How will you raise this capital?
How will you market and promote your business?
How will you manage cash flow?
WHERE?
Where is your airspace, the ideal atmosphere where your business will succeed?
Where will your business be located physically?
Where will potential customers learn about what you’re offering?
Where do you want your business to be three years from now?
WHEN?
When will you start your business? What specific season and date make sense?
When will you know your venture is a success? When you serve a certain number of customers? Make a certain percentage margin of profit? Reach sales of a certain number or range?
When will you need to rescale your business? Hire more employees? Move to a larger location?
When will you consider selling your business?
Another Way to Get There
Perhaps you don’t like all these questions and don’t particularly enjoy writing long, detailed responses. If so, I suggest finding another way to create your business plan—perhaps visually with graphics, charts, and pictures. Maybe you put it together as a slide show you can present to prospective customers and investors, something you can use or build from for your new website. If you’re an artist, you might create your own quirky flow chart, cartoon, or painting that specifically illustrates the big ideas for your business.
Depending on your unique variables, you might consider making a video that can be posted to YouTube or recording a podcast, perhaps with help from someone you know who already has a following. While these creative expressions may strike you as more a matter of marketing and promotion, if done well they can provide all the specific information one usually finds in a formal, written business plan. Personally, I recommend that you do what works best for you—and then make sure you have something in writing that you can post, text, tweet, email, or hand to customers and investors.
If you choose one of these more creative expressions for your business plan, here are the major categories you should consider addressing: an overview of your mission (often called an executive summary); a description of atmospheric conditions in the airspace where you hope to fly, the state of business currently in your chosen sector; market analysis and competitive strategies; operational logistics; financials; and your destination, the way you will know you’ve met certain goals or metrics. Let’s briefly consider each of these ingredients.
Overview of Your Mission
Also known more formally as an executive summary, this sets the tone for both your business and the rest of your business plan. This information provides the first impression readers receive about you and your business. It’s usually a paragraph or two and addresses most of the “WHAT?” questions directly while touching on “WHO?” and “WHY?” as well. It indicates the specific legal form of operation you have chosen—a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or limited liability company (LLC). If you’re unfamiliar with these terms, please refer to the Appendix for a brief definition of each one.
This overview of your mission should be direct and tightly focused. This is not the place for creative marketing language and over-the-top sales copy. You want to be taken seriously and have your business clearly identified and accurately described, highlighting its unique distinction within the competitive marketplace where it will fly. Again, I encourage you to do some research and peruse a variety of business plans and their executive summaries to see what you think will work best for your venture.
Atmospheric Conditions
Like a good weather forecaster, you should be able to give a concise description of your chosen business sector’s current conditions. This section addresses the “WHERE?” questions while touching on your answers for “WHO?” and “WHEN?” If you can place these current conditions within a specific context, then all the better. Depending on your field, you may want to note certain patterns or the kinds of “storm fronts” that tend to move through your airspace. Providing this overview should show why now is a good time to launch your business. Or if not, then you will need to address how you will fly against the wind at takeoff.
From this general assessment of business conditions, you should then narrow the funnel to a more specific description and explanation of where your business will attempt to fly. What’s the economic mood in the neighborhood where your dress shop will be located? What’s the average age of residents you hope to reach in your targeted ten-mile radius around your restaurant? When is the ideal date to launch your holiday catering service? Answering these kinds of questions shows that you’re well aware of the weather you’re about to fly into.
Market Analysis and Competitive Strategies
This section focuses on the habits and histories of your customers and your competition. It addresses many of the “HOW?” and some of the “WHY?” questions. Here you summarize what your research has revealed about the market you want to penetrate with your product or service. What’s the size of this market? Its rate of growth? How is it organized or structured? What are its unique, even idiosyncratic, features? What are the latest trends in this market? How often have trends tended to shift? How will your business address this market in light of all these variables?
And perhaps more importantly, how will your business be able to compete in this market and who are the major players you’re up against? Who’s the Goliath you’re up against? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors? Why is your business going to be able to compete with these opponents? While it’s tempting to think your product, service, or business is the first of its kind, most for-profit entities have some competition—if not from a similar product or service, then from something or someone pulling potential customers’ attention and assets away from you.
Operational Logistics
This section gets to the nitty-gritty of the “HOW?” questions. It provides a sequential schedule for design, production, delivery, distribution, and point of sale for your product or service. In addition, try to describe the way you envision your business running on a daily basis. Will you hire employees? How many? What will their roles and responsibilities be in terms of the operational process? Forgive me for sounding like one of those old vinyl record players stuck in the same groove, but be as specific as you can in thinking about the life of your product or service from inception to birth to maturation.
Financials
You will likely answer the rest of the “HOW?” questions not already covered as you address financials for your business. While this may be a new or murky area for you, I cannot emphasize enough or overstate its importance. Learning about the financial components your business requires may necessitate consultation with other professionals—accountants, lawyers, lenders, investors, consultants, and other established professionals in your sector.
Consider your business’s start-up requirements and where, and from whom, this capital will come. You will want to draft an income statement and project how your business will establish profitability. Cash flow is one of the biggest problems for new businesses so you definitely want to spend some time considering how you will fund operations if your projected profits are not realized on time. Many businesses have seasonal cycles they follow, times that are more profitable for various reasons as well as times when operating and production costs are higher or lower. Identifying these cycles ahead of time will save you countless headaches, not to mention all kinds of sleepless nights!
Your Destination
Finally, you will want to identify some specific ways you will know when your business has arrived at its destination of successful, sustained flight. Many business owners base this not only on profit margins but on growing their customer base, expanding public awareness, and enduring for a particular time period such as five or ten years. Not only will establishing these goals before you’re airborne help you know where you’re going, they will assist you in making decisions about growth, product expansion, target marketing, and more.
Knowing your destination is also helpful in identifying when you need to make changes in the business. Because even if you’re able to remain in the air, your plane may be losing velocity or even some of its parts! If you’ve anticipated how your business will mature and what it will need to grow at a healthy rate, you can avoid the stress that often sends entrepreneurs plummeting to the ground. Curiously enough, the unexpected success of a young business can be just as taxing and stressful—perhaps more so—than the lack of projected sales. In either case, a good business plan will help you know what you need before you need it, reducing your stress levels along the way.
The Weight of Your Success
I learned this lesson about anticipating stress the hard way, but over time I’ve recognized what works for me. In fact, I recently spoke at a business conference sponsored by SUCCESS magazine about an event from my boyhood that has become a tragic symbol of stress left unchecked.
When I was growing up in Charleston, West Virginia, there was a bridge about sixty miles northwest up US Highway 35 known as the Silver Bridge. It had been built in the 1920s and spanned the Ohio River, facilitating travel between the Mountain State and the Buckeye State. If we went to visit relatives in that area, we would have to go over the Silver Bridge, which seemed enormous to me as a child.
On December 15, 1967—I would’ve been ten years old—the Silver Bridge collapsed right at rush hour. In less than a minute, more than thirty vehicles fell into the cold river, killing forty-six of the sixty-four people on board (Jim Henry, “Pike’s Past,” www.newswatchman.com/blogs/pikes_past/article_2bf5283b-c086-53e7-bb85-6a824e824d82.html). After the victims’ bodies were recovered, government engineers studied the ruins of the structure that had provided safe passage for almost forty years. They discovered that despite how solid the Silver Bridge appeared, it had been supporting more weight than it was intended to bear for some time. This strain apparently led to a stress fracture, which along with hidden corrosion caused the bridge’s collapse. Finally, it could no longer support the thousands of pounds of rubber and steel traversing its suspended lanes.
The tragedy shocked us all and garnered national attention, including assurance from President Johnson that the bridge would be rebuilt with federal support. Obviously, this event made a lasting impression on me, both for the terrible loss of life it caused but also for the reason behind the bridge’s collapse. I recall overhearing some people talking about how the bridge had been constructed at a time when automobiles were still relatively new and fairly light compared to the larger, heavier sedans and trucks of our own time. Consequently, the bridge was bearing more weight than it was intended to carry, without additional structural support. But no one realized this until, sadly, it was too late and dozens of lives had been lost.
In recent years, I often think of the Silver Bridge whenever I begin to feel stressed in my own life. When my schedule gets crazy and various responsibilities begin to overlap, naturally my stress level tends to rise. During these times, my wife usually tells me to take a vacation in order to relax and rejuvenate. This remedy works for her and so she assumes it works for me.
I’ve discovered, however, that when I take a vacation solely to de-stress, I usually feel even more stressed when I return. Not only are my thoughts preoccupied with problems for much of my time away, but the source of my stress is still there waiting on me to return. I haven’t resolved the problem—I’ve only delayed it!
Eventually, I learned a different way to alleviate my stress. My aha! moment came when I realized being stressed is not just about burnout and depleted energy levels. The real source of the stress is the increased weight added by new roles and responsibilities as well as unexpected conflicts and complications. Stress is about lacking the structural support for the weight you’re carrying. It’s about carrying too much additional, unplanned baggage for too long.
As soon as I had this realization, I began adding more organizational strength to the load-bearing areas of my life. I began revising my business plans and rethinking what I need to sustain the flight of my various ventures. I found hiring the right person to whom I can delegate the source of my stress better than any trip to the beach.
Your business plan is the foundation for avoiding stress in your life. It provides you with a rudder that can adjust to the harshest winds as well as a compass to help steer your plane into smoother airspace. Your plan will need frequent updates, tweaks, and revisions as you maintain flexibility and adapt to changing environmental conditions. If the Silver Bridge had been modernized with additional support beams, perhaps it would not have collapsed under the increased weight load.
While it’s too late to change the Silver Bridge’s tragic fate, you can prevent your business from collapsing down the road. You can design your business plan to accommodate shifts in the amount of weight it must carry. You can make sure the connection between product and customer remains strong enough to bear increased traffic.
With a powerful business plan, you can build a bridge to carry the weight of your success.
Use What You’ve Got
As you assemble your flight plan, the idealist in you may be tempted to hold out for optimal conditions and the perfect runway to give your new venture the very best opportunity to succeed. While I encourage you to do all you can to set yourself up for success, I would also caution you not to let your idealism provide excuses that delay your start. While you definitely want to make sure there’s wind beneath your wings and customers for what you’re selling, you will never have perfect conditions that can guarantee your success with certainty. Market conditions will always have a certain volatility. Competition will always threaten your success. Nonetheless, you’ve got to use what you’ve got and make the most of it!
Keep in mind the first airplane was built in a less than ideal environment, not in a giant hangar or cavernous garage. The Wright brothers’ early prototypes for their flying machine were built in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Obviously, Wilbur and Orville knew they weren’t trying to build a bicycle! But they also knew that the ideal environment for what they were building didn’t exist yet. They were blazing a trail and breaking new ground so there was no perfect laboratory for their construction. Working in their own bicycle shop, however, provided them with most of the necessary raw ingredients: tools and tires, wood and metal, nuts and bolts.
Similarly, you don’t have to have everything you’d ideally like to have in order to get started. Instead, use what you have to get to what you don’t. Start-ups seldom start perfectly and often resemble the beginning of a marriage—making adjustments and accommodations for the new dynamic of being together as a couple. In the beginning, the Wright brothers’ early aircraft model was underpowered and difficult to steer. It lurched and sputtered, popped and pinged, but it didn’t take to the air.
They moved forward by always learning from each attempt. Even when it seemed that they were taking two steps back for every step forward, Orville and Wilbur kept copious notes and then discussed, argued, and brainstormed their way to their next adjustment (David McCullough, The Wright Brothers, Simon & Schuster, 2015). They assumed they wouldn’t get the wings right the first time or have the accurate angle of ascent for takeoff versus landing. They knew it was all part of the process. Whatever frustration, impatience, anger, and disappointment they experienced as years passed without their model taking off was mitigated by the momentum of moving toward that moment when they were suspended above the ground.
Expecting some dysfunction throughout your process also helps you modify your expectations. A strong business plan anticipates and addresses such potential pitfalls and their resolutions. The first plane didn’t glide like an eagle, nor was it quiet as a sparrow. Though the movement of birds inspired it, the first attempts didn’t function with the grace and ease of a falcon—it was more like the fits and starts of trying to get an enormous kite off the ground.
One of the most important things for an entrepreneur to know is that your business may not proceed down the runway and into the air according to the way you describe it in your business plan. Start-ups often have to sputter their way into the air. You may have to sell pound cakes online to virtual customers before you discover that the sweet spot of opportunity for you is actually opening a bricks-and-mortar bakery in your own neighborhood.
Mistakes, errors, and disappointments are necessary ingredients, so don’t pressure yourself for perfection or criticize yourself for not knowing everything prior to the moment when you make a mistake. It is what’s wrong with the business that gives you the experience you need to get it right. Working through dysfunction is a factor you must include in the plan. Don’t try to avoid it because you can’t—and better yet, you don’t want to avoid it. You want to learn from it.
Smooth Landings
At the time I’m writing this, a couple of major airlines are suffering public criticism over a handful of situations exposed by social-media-savvy passengers. They, too, are trying to learn from their mistakes. In each instance, the airlines’ first response has been to defend their crew members’ handling of these situations by reminding us of their policies.
In our post 9/11 world where the potential for devastating acts of terrorism seems to lurk around every corner, airlines have implemented strict guidelines and policies to ensure the safety of passengers and crew members. While such measures are both justifiable and understandable, they also overlap and sometimes infringe on the rights and expectations of paying customers. As a result, many of the stringent rules and regulations are being reexamined to avoid more customer-relations debacles while ensuring safety for all involved.
These incidents remind us that having a plan that anticipates problems is essential; otherwise, each situation would end up being treated subjectively, inconsistently, and even arbitrarily. But these incidents also emphasize the necessity of listening to and incorporating customer feedback and then updating our plans. For several decades we heard “the customer is always right” as a mantra for ensuring the success of a business. While this statement still holds merit, you want to be careful because customer demands can smother you if you attempt to cater to every whim, critique, and request a customer makes.
The key is to listen but not necessarily to act. Remember, most passengers aren’t pilots! They don’t know how to fly your plane because only you can determine what changes to make and how and when to make them. Business plans, like flight plans, must remain flexible so your business can adapt to unexpected situations in real time. Without them, you risk flying by the seat of your pants, literally, all the time—an exhausting prospect to say the least. In other words, indulge me once more as I stress the vital importance of crafting a written plan for your business. Consider it an ongoing work in progress as well as a basis of comparison between the reality of your business and the vision you cast for its success.
Finally, I must confess to you that I have not always drafted a written business plan for every single venture or entrepreneurial endeavor I’ve launched in my lifetime. And there have been times when I’ve been humbled by experience for not having one! But whether I have it in my head or in an eighty-page prospectus, I’ve always tried to work with the end in mind so that I can work backward to see what steps need to be taken.
Like the leaders I admire and seek to emulate, I try to look ahead not only at what’s probably going to be next but also what other possibilities and contingencies might pop up along the way. Such preparation, like the groundwork before I speak or preach, often goes unseen or unused, but it gives me the freedom to ensure a smooth landing! Preparation facilitates liberation.
While I believe preparation is never wasted, I pray some of the information I share in this chapter will provide high-octane fuel for your engine. Use your business plan, my friend, to make sure you not only take off and soar to new heights but also so that you know how and when to land and take off again. A good business plan is indispensable and increases the odds of your success by leaps and bounds. If you want to see nothing but blue sky, then make sure your flight plan is in black and white!