How To Build A Business Plan [Real Life Example]

0:00Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard? but not the pipeline. That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions. My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive-sounding metric I had. Impressions. Cut the bull spend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a$250 credit. Go to linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything?

0:35Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. These guys want to start a business, but they don't have any money and they're lacking the knowledge to do it. So today we're going to step through a five point plan that they can use to start their business and you can use it too. So the five things we're going to learn today, getting started.

1:11Second is funding. Third is marketing. Number four, we're going to talk about making the idea real. And then finally, we're going to talk about team. So let's get started. So tell people in 60 seconds what your idea is. We want to create delicious sweet treats called Sweet Life and it's going to be protein sweets. We're going to blend indulgence with enjoyment and create the ultimate sweet treat. Okay, so we're getting started. What I would suggest people do is a mind map. So in the middle you have your idea, right? So sweet life. By the way, have you trademarked this? No, that's one of our questions.

1:41So straight away, I mean, we started the mind map, we highlight one area we know we've got an action. We've got an action plan now, right? Number one, trademark. Because if you don't own this name, if you don't control that name, you're going to build a business on it and and you could get into trouble, because someone else might have it. Trademarking will normally be about 300 pounds per category. Okay. And so, as a gift, I'll pay for that for both of you today. Thank you so much. Just to get things going. But it's an important thing to have that baseline done. Yeah, okay. Now, within a mind map, the thing to quickly write down is what the brand stands for.

2:12So you mentioned it earlier, enjoy, indulge, protein. Yeah. Right, a general vibe. Yeah. And then we think about where the business is gonna go. So you're saying at the moment, let's say it's gonna be protein bars. Would that be fair to say? Protein sweets. Protein sweets. Okay, protein sweets. That's the product, okay? So product-wise, you start thinking about, well, where might it be distributed? So let's say supermarkets, right? Yeah. Okay. Now we might say TikTok shop. Yeah. Where else do you think it might be distributed? We thought like a gym building machine. Gym, brilliant. Okay, gym, where else?

2:50We also thought like health and fitness events in terms of being like a sponsor. Perfect. Fitness events. Yeah. Anyone else? We had some specific supermarkets in mind. Okay. But yeah, they're the main category. By the way, so supermarket, great. You're now identifying another part of this mind map, which is because brand has to relate to where you distribute. Yeah. So you don't want to be distributing in a X brand that doesn't, isn't on, so I'm not going to say one in case I insult someone, but let's say Asda as an example. It might not be right brand alignment for you, right? So give it a supermarket that you think is in line.

3:22Whole foods. Perfect, I know you were going to say that. I also think Selfridges as a launch, for example. So you kind of think Selfridges. By the way, it's much easier brand-wise to start high-end and come down, then be a low-brand product and go up. Then you want to start thinking about, let's say, the marketing. Which we're going to talk about this later on in much more depth. But in the mind map, it's quite good to think about the marketing side. The simplest two methods of marketing are influencer-led marketing. So let's say Simon Scrib launches Help Bank and I'm promoting it because it's my business.

3:58So what Steve Jobs used to do is he'd get 3 ,000 news reporters and tech people in a room and he'd launch the new product. So he'd have him as a personality then present to a niche group of people, tech magazine writers. And then those 3 ,000 people would go away and write articles and it'd become very famous overnight. but you've got individual marketing. Now with individual marketing, you've got the personal brand, which could be, for example, behind the scenes. So you've got the ability to share on your personal channels, today we did this and selfishly said no, but we're not going to give up.

4:36People like that. So that's personal brand and then they know who's behind the product. Within the individual marketing space, you also want to think about how brands like Sony do it. Now Sony don't have someone who founded the company that you can think of. And so when you think of Sony, I don't really think of anybody in particular. So what they do is similar to Nike. So they have, I'm going to write down the Nike strategy. It's probably an easy one to go about. So what Nike do is they go and get the best athletes in the world and then they sponsor them. So they don't have anybody in the organization that's a personal brand.

5:07They find the best in the market and they sponsor them. You can also do this. But you basically will then identify, let's say 10 people that you think, hey, if they hold our product and really love it, then that will be brilliant endorsement. I'm going to say Grace Beverly, for example, I don't know. So, you know, people that I can sense, and I'm sure you can make a nice list of people that are just awesome, wholesome, authentic, that I see eating your product. So we can make a list on this mind map. Now, once you have this list, we're going to talk a little bit about sales for a second. Everybody can sell.

5:42Everybody. It's not for the special few. all you need to sell is the story. Yeah. Okay? And I kind of feel like you have it. Okay. The one thing in your story I'm going to talk about in a minute is you need to have your why. You know, why you're doing this, right? So we'll cover that in a minute, but just before we do. Okay. So in sales, now we've identified that there's a list of people we want. You have to add them on here as influencers. We now have a number two action list. Sell to influencers. We all know why. So now we know influencers. Yeah. And we have a list to sell to. Of course, supermarkets.

6:18When we list here supermarkets we have to sell to, remember there will be things like accelerators that you can get into. So these are programs that these supermarkets run to try and find brands like yours. Oh, okay. And then there's trade events. Right? So trade events. So now we're going to put on here, you know, what trade events are there? Yeah. That you can go to. Research. So how do we find those? Or Google. Easy. Why don't you put accelerator in, supermarket, they'll come up. Trade events, food events, supermarkets go to, they'll all come up. But you need to do some research on this, and now we're starting to see the marketing side, the actual distribution side, the sales side.

6:56Cool, so now we have our mind map. You're ready to get started. So now we're gonna move to the next bit, which is funding. Now I could do a whole video just on funding. Okay. I could spend a day just doing it on funding. But I'm gonna give you the juice of it. Okay. I'm gonna teach you the different quickly, the different ways that we can raise money for your business. And the best way to raise money. First thing I'm gonna say to you is, try not to need money. Now in your particular idea, there is a product based element to it. So that means, oh, I need money to make the product. I'm gonna talk you through how to do this without money, but I'm also gonna teach you how to get money if you really need it.

7:34And we are gonna need it. We are gonna need it. But there's many different ways to get it. Here's a quick tip. This is the biggest and most important thing about fundraising I ever learned. If you want to raise money, don't ask for money. Ask for help. If you ask for money, you'll get help. Okay. If you ask for help, you'll get money. Right. Okay. The other good thing about asking for help and not money is not only the psychology of it, but also you can flush out these investors because there are a lot of bad players. Okay. So there will be people that will want to steal your business. There are VC firms.

8:12That's their whole model. They invest in you, they say, and then slowly they try to replace you and take over the brand and take over the business and then asset strip. Now that's, of course, I'm being general, there's a lot of really good investors out there too. And you're going to find out if they're good investors by whether they will help you. If someone says to you, I'm only going to help you meet the people at Tesco's if you give me 20 % of your business, you don't want to work with these people. you want people that will genuinely help you now most successful properly truly rich people will help you anyway because yes it would be nice to have equity in your business but they don't need it they are already successful it's only the ones that aren't successful that I've seen in my life that really go right I'll only help you if you give me equity now a large chunk do not, this is a big red flag on fundraising do not give a large chunk chunk of your company away too early okay this is probably the number one mistake new founders make okay okay because you meet someone and they're rich and they say i'm gonna give you some money oh money yeah yeah and uh i know everybody and they're all right but i want 25 of your business yeah yeah okay now instantly that puts you between you on 75 you're gonna dilute you guys are no longer in charge you have a new boss yeah and this person depending on the terms that you did with them can stop you raising money in the future they can stop you selling the company and they can stop the whole business growing if they're the wrong person before we go to a little bit later in this list how to get money from angels which we'll talk about in a minute i think your production partner when you raise money you're going to spend it somewhere and the way to think about funding instead of getting money from some idiot yeah who's just got money and then giving it to the person who's going to do the work, why not just give equity the person who's going to do the work?

10:06Okay. Right? So if there's a production partner, and I have one, by the way, I'm launching a product called Dream Brew. Okay. Everything I'm teaching you here, I've done myself. Yeah. I have a production partner who is helping me make sure all the product, we're doing cold coffee, decaf and regular coffee in supermarkets. Okay. And so he is an expert in manufacturing that product. Okay. All right? Yeah. Now, actually, you can't pay him to work for you. He's too good. He's too knowledgeable. He will only work on projects if he gets equity. That's a true sign of success, by the way. And actually, the good thing about that is I could raise a load of money easily.

10:42It's my reputation. I can raise a load of money. And then I'm basically going to try and hire him. But I can't because he only works for equity. Right, okay. So what I'm trying to teach you here and those listening is in your cycle of the things that you need to get done, in your case, it's pretty obvious, production of a product. You want to find either a person who does that. Well, they could work in a big company already. Or the manufacturer, so the factory. Now, there might be, an investment is, they make the product for you. Right? So a manufacturer. Again, these guys often are on the back of packets.

11:17Yeah. But what I'm trying to teach you here, just broadly, is the best investor you can get is people that can actually fill the gaps you've got. Right. Whatever you'd raise the money to do, you want the money to go direct to the person that's going to do it. Now, the fourth idea when it comes to fundraising, everyone says it, but family and friends. The thing that's good about family and friends is no one will know you better than them. Yeah. So the most important rule when you raise money from friends is you tell them they're going to lose all their money. It sounds counterintuitive when you're pitching for funding.

11:47It's like, don't worry, we'll make it work. Yeah. It will be brilliant. I think you say to them, we've got this plan. Simon Scripps influence is kind of involved. I think it's going to be good. Yeah. but any money you give us just please pretend you've lost it all then it'll be never awkward on Sunday lunch but honesty is the key and you say to them if you give us£20 ,000 this is what we're going to spend it on and be totally transparent with them again ideally family and friends can help you and even if it's packing the product but don't overlook family and friends people are always nervous to ask family and friends I don't think so again work life integration the key is honesty Fifth is crowdfunding.

12:28Do you know much about this? Not really. A little bit, but not a lot. Okay, there's lots of different crowdfundings, and I have actually done a whole different video on crowdfunding, but I'll just give you a quick sum up. You've got, basically falls into three categories. You've got products like GoFundMe, which is simply, here's our idea, here's what we're doing, would you like to give us some money to help us make it happen? Okay. They don't get equity and they don't get anything. They're just doing it to support two young people with a dream, right? By the way, I think you can do this. I'll put some money in your crowdfunding.

12:57One thank you. Yeah, so option one is what we call kindness, equity, right? And it can work. The second element is equity crowdfunding. So there's quite a lot of different platforms that do this, but basically you sell a part of your equity to the community. And then the final one is product crowdfunding. It's basically getting community to buy your product. Now they don't need equity, but they do need to feel valued. So maybe you create a special WhatsApp group. Maybe they get invited to the launch parties. Maybe they get to see the new product first before anybody else. But these three methods are definitely something to consider for you.

13:36I think all three of them have a strength and weakness. There is one more funding thing I want to teach you. Angel investing is a very complicated world. I actually think they shouldn't call it angels. I'm trying to think of a better world. It's often lazy people with money. Okay. Okay, and so, it doesn't sound as good as English, does it? I already mentioned the psychology of it, you know, generally with angels, you want to ask for help because then they feel they can bring value, and they should bring value, and then you let them invest. Okay. Right, you let them invest, important psychology.

14:11Okay, does that value, sorry to interrupt you, does that value include like, not just money, but contacts and support? Of course, of course, but that should not be held back, I don't think. yeah right a lot of angels would disagree with me in this and the tv show dragons then is built on that i'm going to introduce you to someone at tesco's therefore i'm worth 50 right i don't agree with it yeah so the way i think an angel should operate is they should say right hi you two you're cool i know i know the person itself which is i'll just email them now yeah you're done right good you want the sales process to be them pitching to you as much as you're pitching to them yeah don't get me wrong you should still pitch yeah right you should still be excited about them having involved, but you want them to almost interview for the job.

14:53Okay. All right? Any questions on funding before I move on to marketing and income? The one question I've got with funding slash equity is how much equity is too much to give away? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good question. I'll add this on then. Equity. Because this is what the audience will be asking as well. Okay. So I like it. Okay. Like I mentioned earlier, 25%. No, don't sell 25 % to just someone with money. Okay. Yeah. Okay? And if you do, make sure they have a dilution clause in there so that later if you raise more money, they dilute. Okay. Otherwise, if it's just you diluting and they keep their 25%, it's going to be a real problem.

15:31A lot of investors won't invest in the future. What do you mean by dilute? So every time money comes in, a company, when it raises money, everybody who has equity, the number or the percentage of shares that they have reduces. Okay. Right? So if you think about it, percentage can be confusing. you can present it as 100 shares, you sold 25 shares, right, to Bob. Okay. No offense to any Bob. Okay, now the rest, between the two of you, you have 75 shares, right, founders. Now if I sell later another 10 shares, what should happen, and sometimes with paperwork's wrong, what should happen is this 10 shares could come from both of you.

16:10Okay. But what actually happens if you get the wrong investor is 10 will come from you. So now you're on 65 and this new shareholder's come in with 10. Okay. Right. Another bob. Right, so you just need to be very careful. So when you ask what's the wrong number, it's more like what's the wrong paperwork structure. Okay. Okay, and if you're a novice founder, you won't know this. Yeah. This has happened many times. Okay. And so you just don't want it that someone comes in, gives some money, does nothing, and then never has dilution. They'll be a bigger shareholder than you by the end of the process.

16:41Okay. And also, it means the dilution is much heavier on you each time. So they've got to be a diluted shareholder, plus, frankly, you also don't want them blocking a sale, for example, or blocking an investor. So you need to retain control. Control isn't about the amount of equity you have. Control is literally in the shareholder agreement, so it's not about the amount of equity, it doesn't equal control. Shareholder agreements equal control. So you've also got to make sure that there's voting rights and this person who has 25 % doesn't outvote you two. Okay. Right? So those sorts of things are what you need to watch out.

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18:06However, I have secured for a limited time only the ability for you to buy a domain name for 99 cents using only the link down below and the code Simon. Click the link in the description to claim your domain name today. Marketing is a mind map as well. Okay, so we've got Suite Life in the middle. Yeah. And then we talked a little bit about, you know, distributions, so supermarkets, right, and TikTok. But then marketing can also be, let's call it PR. What magazines do you read? Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them, that's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

18:45I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a$250 credit. Go to linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen. Snacks. A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step.

19:30Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. Vogue. Of course you read Vogue. So you might say PR might be getting in Vogue. Okay. It might be, I read the sun. Okay. Sorry, I don't really read the sun. But it might be like, you know, I think the Daily Mail was one of the biggest portals in the world. Okay. Not a fan, but you know. So that's one marketing method, by the way, get PR, right? So it's obvious distribution like TikTok or supermarkets. And then we might do events, okay? And we said this earlier, but in events, there's kind of quite a few categories.

20:04You've got your own events. So you might do a launch party, right? And then you might go to other people's events and sponsor them. Yes. So you can, this is my map, by the way, you can do this in your own time, but you might list all the people you quite like to sponsor. so I was just at a Nike event organised by a friend of mine she's a dreamer as well she started her business it's called Rocks Queens she just did a partnership with Nike and so she sponsoring her event supporting her event I'm interested to her by the way she is amazing but she got Nike to sponsor her launch party event but then you could give product at her future events so you can combine so she's already done the work she's already going to do the event and she'd probably support you because she's also a young female founder trying to make it happen, right?

20:48But events that are sponsored that you can sponsor, but also events that you can get sponsored. Okay. Okay, now this is where I see revenue. You could, I'm going to make a little list of revenue because marketing today is not like it used to be. Okay. Marketing used to be a cost center, right? Marketing would cost you money. Okay. Now the smart people like me that know marketing so well, marketing is income stream. Okay. I promoted my book, got hundreds of thousands of copies sold. Yeah. I got paid by TikTok for the videos I made to promote my own book. Okay. Right, so it didn't cost me money.

21:27Yeah. It made me money to promote my own book. If we do this right, you can make money before you've even sold one product. Right, okay. And that's what can underpin you as a business. Okay. So your marketing is going to make money. Yeah. You have to believe this is possible. Yeah. A lot of people don't get it. Yeah. It's like this is another hack that no one's really realized. So your marketing doesn't have to be a cost center, and it can be an income stream before your products even hit the shelves. So would this support like a pre-order model type? Yes and no. Yes, it can. So, I take my book.

21:59I do a video saying, I did one video, it was£10 ,000 on my book. That video made a lot of money. And then people saw the video and went and bought my book. So the same model, you guys could do a video, we're gonna make the most amazing sweets in the world, and then you do a video going into sweet shops and stuffing them in your mouth and you're like, oh, these are all disgusting and you spit them out. That gets 50 million views and that can be 10 grand. Now you've marketed your products coming and you made 10 grand. Now I don't want to, when people are listening to this and you guys included, I don't want to make this sound easy because I think that this, like anything else, is a combination of pressure, persistence, execution and innovation and luck.

22:40But you will only get lucky if you try. Yes. So if you made a video every day from today until six months from now, if one of them goes viral, you can make more money than you have done in your salary in the last six months. Right. And give yourself more runway. Yeah. It's called social media income. And here's the exciting news. You don't need a following to get social media income. Now on TikTok, technically I think you need 10 ,000 followers to get on the income program. And YouTube, you need 1 ,000 subscribers. So you do actually, I'll take it back, you do actually need a bit of a following, but you can work with someone else.

23:14So I can do a video about you and that video can make money and I can share it with you, for example. So there is one method where you have no following, but what I was trying to say really is you can put a video up today and you can get 100 million views and you don't need any following to do that. I mentioned it already a little bit, but just to make it clear, partners. You can get brand partners, let's say Nike. By the way, people always think these big brands are not easy to get. They're easier than you think. These brands need you. They are losing relevance. They need you more than you realise.

23:48Which person in a big organisation would you go to? There's two ways to find out. One is you just go direct on LinkedIn and look for the marketing manager. And if you see the marketing manager, and maybe you see that that marketing manager knows someone you know. Right. I'm pretty sure they know me. But you'll see a connection on who they're connected to. So you can look at, you can just see it online. You'll see these events promoting to you all the time. Just go look at the organisers and go to them and say, hey, we're two founders trying to start a business. I noticed that you got Nike as a sponsor.

24:17How did you do that? And who are they? Teachers, teachers. And they might reply, they might not. If they're a small business, they probably will teach you, right? But there's the Nike type partnership. But there's also, of course, we talked about this earlier, but there's also like, let's call it influencers that aren't making lots of money but have lots of followers. So let's not talk about Grace Beverly or Jamie Oliver because they've got successful businesses. They can be partners, but I think the easier, low hanging fruit is often people that are doing quite well on social media but they don't have a product.

24:48Right, okay. So a lot of those guys, you can do something called affiliates. Yes. So affiliate, you really need the product to do affiliate. But they could also be your event partners in the meantime. And you could even do crowdfunding with them and give them equity if they support. And they could become your ambassadors. And these are a lot of micro-influencers. A lot of these guys have big followings. They can't monetize. So you can be their partner to monetize. This is the single biggest thing that's gonna separate all future businesses from past businesses, and it's community. as soon as you can you want to start building a community now it can start with you two that care about this problem but I'm sure you know five friends or five people that also care about this problem marketing is an income stream this is the important lesson I want you to take away from this it's not a cost centre it takes time to set up of course social media numbers take time to build up but today this is your secret weapon because social media you can do better probably than big companies Yeah.