11. Sharing Your Idea

11.1 Rocket Pitches

11.2 Drafting your Pitch

11.3 Making your Rocket Pitch

After hours of research and reflection, you have successfully written a business plan. Now it’s time to share it! This chapter will teach you how to leverage your plan as a tool to attract partners, investors, and other supporters.

Lesson 11.1: Rocket Pitches

Being able to share your business planwith othersin a way that generatestheirinterestis very important! More often than not, you won’t have to convey all of the information in your business plan, but you may also only have a very short amount of time to convey what is most important and/or impressive about it. One way to do this is through what is called a rocket pitch – a short delivery of a business idea or opportunity. A rocket pitch usually consists of a simple, three-minute or less presentation that explains the market potential and how your business model will capitalize on it. Because this presentation is so brief, you want to include only enough detail to interest investors and highlight why your business idea is superior. Be as concise and straightforward as possible, but bring passion and energy to the idea so that others are inspired by you

There are areas that you should cover in your rocket pitch as well as guidelines for its delivery:

The Need

• What is the need?
• Who has the need? Who is the target market? How big is this market? Is it growing?
• How is this an opportunity?

Product or Service Solution

• What is the product or service?
• How does your product or service address the need in a way that it is not by anyone else? Mention who your competitors are and how your solution is different.
• How will you make a profit? What is your business model?

Goals

• How much do you project that you can make? How did you arrive at this projection? You will want to reference totals from your Pro Forma Income Statement.
• What do you need to get started financially, socially, and otherwise? You will want to reference totals from your Schedule of Start-Up Costs.
• How and when do you plan to start your business? What is your action plan?

Audience Call to Action

• What can the audience do to help you get started? Do you have immediate needs (e.g.,capital, equipment, expertise, word-of-mouth advertising, etc.)? How can the audience fulfill these needs and get involved right away?

Presentation Guidelines

• Total presentation time lasted 3 minutes or fewer
• Presenter immediately captured the audience’s attention
• Presenter spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear
• Presenter spoke clearly and slowly enough for audience to understand
• Presenter had an effective and memorable closing
• Presenter was confident
• Visual aids were used effectively (if applicable)

When making your rocket pitch, using visual aids may help you reach your objectives by emphasizing the key information you present. Pictures and diagrams, for example, are used to raise the audience’s level of understanding by clarifying your message and creating excitement. Other examples include drawings,charts, graphs, and props. Here are other tips to keep inmind:

Identify what you want to accomplish with your visual aids first.
• Keep visual aids simple and brief – do not overload them with too many words or graphics.
• Make sure that they can be understood by everyone in your audience.
• If information does not increase learning or understanding, do not include it.
• Do not allow visual aids to take your attention away from the audience.
• Reference all borrowed material.

Exercise 11.1: Your Outline

Create an outline of the structure of your rocket pitch and the information you want to convey basing on the questions below.

1. Need
a. Description of the need statement your business is addressing:
b. Who has the need? Who is the target market? How big is this market? Is it growing?
c. How is this an opportunity?

2. Product or Service Solution
a. Clear, concise explanation of your product or service and business model including how you intend to make money:
b. How does your product or service address the need in a way that it is not by anyone else? Mention who your competitors are and how your solution is different.
c. How will you make a profit? What is your business model?

3. Goals
a. How much do you project that you can make? How did you arrive at this projection? You will want to reference totals from your Pro Forma Income Statement.
b. What do you need to get started financially, socially, and otherwise? You will want to reference totals from your Schedule of Start-Up Costs.
c. How and when do you plan to start your business? What is your action plan?

4. Audience Call to Action
a. What can the audience do to help you get started? Do you have immediate needs (e.g.,capital, equipment, expertise, word-of-mouth advertising, etc.)? How can the audience fulfill these needs and get involved right away?

Lesson 11.2: Drafting your Pitch

Before you create and present your rocket pitch, you should be sure that you have an understanding of who you are talking to, what their needs are, and what you want to achieve as a result of your conversation with them. If you don’t consider these factors, your rocket pitch is likely to yield few results. Your pitch should consider who you are talking to and the purpose of the pitch. For example, will it be family members, professional investors, or a bank? Each party requires a different approach and presentation style. For professional investors, you may need a detailed presentation complete with pro-forma financial statements and details on logistics. However, family members may only require information on the business model and payback date. You must know your audience in order to create the most impact. Edit your rocket pitch to the specific person or group you are targeting. If you are not sure who this will be, focus first on who you think will be able to solve your most important needs.

For example, Samuel and Grace have offered to pitch the Trash Removal business on behalf of their friend. They have identified who they will target, what their desired payback is, - both tangible and intangible - and what business information their potential investor will require in the presentation.

Potential supporter #1:
Family Member

Their needs:
$20 for startup costs

Reason for presentation:To seek funding for all start-up costs

Supporter’s needs:
1. Amount of money requested
2. Plan for how the money will be spent
3. Assurance of payback within two years
4. To create sources of employment for family members

Information to include in presentation:
1. Outline of how the money will be spent
2. Projected financials to demonstrate projected breakeven point and profit
3. Payback schedule
4. Summary of employees needed and which positions will be reserved for family members(if applicable)

“

“Other reasons for funding could be to secure partial funding, advice, partners, employees, or other collaborators”

Grace

Now that they have identified this information, Samuel and Grace have been able to draft a rocket pitch for this audience. You can find their rocket pitch in the Metropolis Trash Management business plan in Appendix II.

Exercise 11.2: Adjusting Your Pitch

Find a space, identify what person or group you will target with your rocket pitch, what you expect to achieve with the pitch, and what specific information you think each audience will expect you to include in your presentation. Be as detailed as possible.

Potential Supporter #1:
.............
Your needs:
............
Reason for presentation:
.............
Supporter’s needs:
...........
Information to include in presentation:
.............

Potential Supporter #2:
.............
Your needs:
............
Reason for presentation:
.............
Supporter’s needs:
...........
Information to include in presentation:
.............

Potential Supporter #3:
.............
Your needs:
............
Reason for presentation:
.............
Supporter’s needs:
...........
Information to include in presentation:
.............

Exercise 11.3: Drafting Your Pitch

Using your Rocket Pitch outline and one of the potential audiences that you identified in the last exercise, draft one complete Rocket Pitch.

Being able to make an effective rocket pitch is perhaps the most important step in getting your business started. However, it’s almost certain that your pitch will not be perfect the first time you make it. You need to practice it.

Exercise 11.4: Rocket Pitch Feedback

Using the outline you have developed above and armed with the knowledge of who your audience is, practice your pitch on three different individuals. Ask each of these individuals for feedback on your pitch. Each time you make your pitch, try to focus on differentsuggestions mentioned on the previous page. In the space below, summarize what you found to be most difficult in making your pitch. Was this the same each time? What kind of feedback did you receive from those to whom you presented? Refer back to the “Rocket Pitch Checklist” presented earlier in this chapter. Document the feedback you receive.

Exercise 11.5: Editing Your Pitch

Edit your rocket pitch based on the feedback you received.

Lesson 11.3: Making Your RocketPitch

There is only one way to achieve the goals of your rocket pitch and it is simple: practice, practice, and more practice. Rehearse your presentation with friends and family every chance you get. Since this pitch is about something that you are passionate about, you should know it well and be able to deliver it at a moment’s notice.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you make your rocket pitch.

Attitude
• When you make your presentation, remember that first impressions matter. Dress appropriately and deliver your pitch from the beginning with confidence and energy.
• Always show your excitement and passion for your product to your audience.

Storytelling
• Try to engage your audience right from the beginning with something simple and attention grabbing that keeps your audience interested.
• While you only have a small amount of time to make your pitch, do not speak fast. Make sure you have practiced what you are going to say and say it with authority and confidence.
• Don’t use language or visuals that will be confusing to your audience. In most cases, simple is better so that you can be sure everyone in your audience understands what you are trying to convey.
• Don’t rely too much on your visuals. This should be your story, and your words and actions are more important than any visual representation of the idea.

Reflection: Sharing Your Idea

Who do you plan on sharing your rocket pitch with? Why, how, and when?

“

“Every good entrepreneur will have to revise their plans over and over again as they gain new insights. Remember to leave some space to come back, revisit your reflection, and add more thoughts as needed.”

Sam

Taking Action and Overcoming Obstacles

12.1 Develop a Goals Time Line

12.2 Planning for Obstacles

12.3 Overcoming Obstacles

12.4 Commit to Your Goals

So now that you’ve taken the time to think about your business, write a business plan, and work on your business plan presentation. It’s time to take some action and get your business up and running! Without any action (even small steps of action), you will never obtain results, never learn anything new, and never grow your business like you want to. But, before you jump into it, you’ll want to make an action plan and a goals time line so that you stay organized and on-task. And, even with an action plan, things will often go a little differently than you imagined. You’ll need to work through these obstacles, stay focused, and learn from your mistakes.

Lesson 12.1: Develop a Goals Timeline

To create your action plan, you will want to sit down and make a list of exactly what needs to be done in order to get your business up and running. You should have already thought through these needs in the business planning phase, but now you will want to take another look at what action items you need to complete before you can open up your business to customers. Make sure you pay attention to details and try to think of all the small action items that you will need to take care of in order for your business to start smoothly

In order to stay on track and keep yourself motivated to get your business started, you will also need to create a goals time line that helps you prioritize your action items and sets a time line for when you want your goals to be completed. You should use the goals that you developed to come up with a goals time line.

For example, the owners of Metropolis Trash Management may have a set of goals and a time line that would look something like what is below.

Metropolis Trash Management Goals and Timeline

• Raise funds by pitching business plan to potential investors, partners, or other supporters
• Need to identify compost space
• Finalize supplier and costs
• Finalize the price of services
• Make a sign to display at markets and local businesses for promotion

Exercise 12.1: Develop Your Goals Timeline

Using the business idea that you have chosen to pursue, develop an action plan and goals time line that you could foresee for a business of this type. Use the following templates to develop your action plan and goals time line.

Make a list of what you need to do to start and run this business?

The entrepreneurial process is about finding a balance between thinking, planning, and doing. It’s not worth it to try to predict and plan for every possible obstacle because soon you would be overwhelmed with everything that could go wrong and end up never taking any action. It’s also not efficient to just take action without having some kind of plan in place because without a plan it will be difficult to know if you are even headed in the right direction. Instead, make a plan with the knowledge that you likely will have to be flexible and adjust your goals time line as you go. Begin to act on that plan assoon as possible and then continually go through a cycle of acting and revising and acting and revising. Remember that a failure is only a failure if you learn nothing from it. The entrepreneurial process, which takes you from ideas to action, is one of constant learning and problem-solving. At times it may not feel like you are making any progress or that you can’t go any further, but you just have to keep going and think creatively. Embrace the challenge! And remember to always keep a positive attitude!

Lesson 12.2: Planning for Obstacles

One way to prepare for obstacles you may face is by brainstorming potential challenges and thinking of ways that you would work to overcome them. Remember, it is okay if you haven’t considered every obstacle you run into, but having a plan to overcome some of the potential obstacles will help you to feel more prepared when starting your business.

For example, Grace and Samuel have brainstormed and identified the following potential obstacles and potential plans for overcoming those obstacles for their friend’s Trash Removal business.

Exercise 12.2: Your Obstacles

Think about some of the obstacles you think you might encounter as you develop your business. It might be helpful to discuss your business idea with someone else and ask them to help you brainstorm about the obstacles you might encounter. Sometimes we become too focused on our own goals and can’t see things that others might see. List some of the potential obstacles you have identified and generate possible plans to overcome these obstacles in the space provided.

Lesson 12.3: Overcoming Obstacles

While it can be useful to think about potential obstacles, you will never be able to plan and prevent every obstacle. The key instead is to have a positive mind-set and the flexibility to react to obstacles as they arise. This is easier said than done. Overcoming an obstacle might mean doing something all over again, which can be frustrating and perhaps make you feel like giving up. Note that both ofthese feelings – frustration and desperation – are driven by outside forces but come from within you. You might be unable to control what obstacles arise, but you can control the way you react to those obstacles. There are ways that you can prepare yourself to handle obstacles and react more positively when you encounter them. The following exercises provide some examples

Exercise 12.3: Build a Support Network

Knowing you have others who are supportive of you and want to see you do well in life is probably one of the best ways to help you feel capable of overcoming obstacles. Sometimes just having someone else who believes in you is enough to make you feel like you can change the world. For this exercise, ask three important people in your life, preferably older than you and in a position of some authority, to be part of your support network. These should be people you can go to when you are feeling like giving up. They do not need to know anything about entrepreneurship or your business—they just need to be there to listen to you and give you words of encouragement. List the names of people below after they agree to support you.

Name:................Relationship to you:................
Name:................Relationship to you:................
Name:................Relationship to you:................

Exercise 12.4: Pick Me Up!

When confronted with obstacles, it is easy to lose confidence in yourself and forget the passion you once held for your ideas. In this exercise, write words of encouragement to yourself below. This could be a compliment to yourself, a compliment someone else said to you, your vision for the future, or perhaps a quote that you find particularly motivating and uplifting. This way whenever you are feeling like giving up or when you are dealing with a particularly difficult obstacle, you can just turn to this page and hopefully these words will remind you of how great you are and help you feel ready to conquer the world again!

Lesson 12.4: Commit to Your Goals

Developing goals and a time line for meeting these goalsis great, but actually achieving them is certainly another thing. How can you be sure that you achieve these goals or at least are headed in the right direction? The truth is that no one can guarantee this. But the one thing that is needed is commitment on your part. You have to believe in yourself and believe that you can reach your goals. To believe in yourself, you have to have a realistic understanding of your capabilities and consider what you really can achieve given these capabilities and your resources. It doesn’t pay to commit to goals that are unrealistic or not achievable – it will only create frustration for you.

While you may know your capabilities better than anyone else, before you commit to goals you might want to discuss them with family or friends. They also know you well and probably know what you are capable of achieving. Discussing your goals with them might even spur you on to bigger goals since they may have even more confidence in you than you do in yourself. Family and friends can also serve as a reality check and make sure that you are not setting yourself up for failure by aiming too high with your goals.

In the end, achieving your goals really comes down to you. You know yourself better than anyone else and the motivation to achieve your goals must come from within. Others can offer advice and support, but your actions are all that matter. While you need to listen to others to help you shape your goals, don’t be deterred by those who may not share your passion and commitment. Move from ideas to action by setting goals and make a commitment to yourself to achieve those goals.

Exercise 12.5: Commit to Yourself

Write a message to yourself about what personal and professional goals you would like to accomplish in the next six months. Be specific and realistic and make sure the goals you list are things that you will pursue with passion and energy. Come back to this page in six months and review these goals. Evaluate your success in reaching them and think about the reasons you were or were not successful. Based on this review, would you have done anything differently as you pursued these goals over the past six months?

Reflection: Taking Action

After learning about action plans and goals time lines, why do you think it is important to complete both of these steps before working on getting your business started? What was your most important takeaway from this chapter? Discuss the potential obstacles that you think you will confront in starting your business and how you might overcome them. Are there any plans for overcoming obstacles that stand out in your mind as good ideas that you could potentially use in the future?

13 Growing Your Business

13.1 Create A Process

13.2 Adapt

13.3 Diversify

Once you have your business up and running, almost immediately you will need to start to think about ways to sustain and grow your business. There are many ways to do this once you have established yourself in the market. This chapter will present you with some ideas about how you might be able to expand your business.

Lesson 13.1: Create a Process

As your business grows, it will probably become increasingly difficult to satisfy the demand from your customers. You need to find a way to deliver a consistently high-quality product or service without having to be personally involved in every detail of the business operations. For example, pretend that you started selling handmade necklaces a few weeks ago, but now everyone is buying your necklaces and you keep running out. You need to hire other people to help you make necklaces. But before you can do that you need to create easy to follow, consistent instructions for making necklaces so that those you hire can produce the same handmade quality product. You need to make it so that someone else can be trained to complete all the tasks/processes you do on a day-to-day basis efficiently and with a high standard of quality. Doing this also gives you more time to think about the vision of your business rather than being caught up in the details of day-to-day operations. Your business may or may not have started with multiple owners or employees. Either way, there may come a time when you will need to add more members to your team.

Exercise 13.1: Analyzing Your Business

While you may not yet be ready to focus on growing your business and building your team, can you think of processes or tasks that you have already identified in your own business that you might be able to standardize and train others to do? Why do you think these tasks are the best to potentially assign to others?

After you have started your own business and you begin to become well-established in your market with a solid customer base, it is time to think about expanding. There is only so much that one person can accomplish on his or her own, so it might be time to think about adding employees who could help you grow your business. For example, if the Trash Removal business isrunning successfully and growing, they might consider hiring the following employees to free some of their time to focus on growing their business even more rapidly:

• Additional sorters: Another sorter could move the process along more quickly and efficiently

• Marketing associate:Someone with extensive knowledge in marketing who can help them run a more intense marketing campaign for their services.

• Book keeper:Someone who can help them compile data on their business, including sales and purchase data, which will be one less task they have to complete on their own.

Deciding to grow your team and expand your business is not something that should be taken lightly, as new employees add more risk (are the people you are letting into your business reliable and trustworthy?) and add more expenses(new employee salaries) to your business model. Before hiring a new employee, make sure that your business can afford it (weigh the current risk of adding a new salary to your payroll versus the potential payoff in the future if adding the employee enables you to expand your business), extensively interview that person, and check his or her credibility and reliability with outside sources.

Exercise 13.2: Your Team

Think of potential employees that you could hire in the future as your business grows. In the chart below, list these employees, identify the role you would expect them to play in your business, and note some of the skills you would expect them to have.

Lesson 13.2:Adapt

Another way to grow your business is to carefully analyze what you observe happening and acknowledge what is and is not working the way you want it to. This is certainly easier said than done. Keeping a customer log is one way to see what is working. A customer log is not necessarily a formal part of your record keeping or accounting system, but it is simply a way to help you keep track of what your customers buy, how often they are buying and any other observations you might make about their purchasing behavior. Just jotting down some notes in a notebook can serve as your log and help you to see which products are popular and which are not. Remember, you can only see patterns over time so keep doing this. Do not jump to conclusions after the first day of sales. After some time has passed, you can begin to see what are your most popular products and begin to analyze why. If you find that something isn’t working well, don’t give up on it completely! There may be ways to change the product or service to improve it, and suggestions for these changes are likely to come from what you observe about your successful products or services. In the end, however, make sure you are objective in your decision making process. You might love something you are trying to sell, but if it is unprofitable and your customers do not seem to like it… it might be time to get rid of it or modify it.

The trash removal business is doing relatively well and they have been compiling data on their customers and their habits in purchasing. They start to review the data that they’ve compiled over the few months the business has been open and determined the following:

Collecting data like this is very important. It can help Metropolis identify products they should eliminate, stock more or promote more often. As your business grows, you will want to create a similar system to track how your products are selling and for what profit each is responsible

While a customer log is a great way of capturing the profit from a transaction, it may not be completely reflective of the strength of each product or service. Before the business stops providing any service or selling any products, they have to consider whether their customers will choose to use their other products or services if the current one is discontinued. For instance, Metropolis has learned from their customers that customers who purchase the low margin trash bags are more likely to pay for their higher-margin pick up services. Therefore, Metropolis will want to continue to sell the bags.

Remember that identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your business is an ongoing process. You will want to continually evaluate your operations and determine what is working and what isn’t and develop an action plan for addressing your weaknesses and focusing on your strengths.

Lesson 13.3:Diversify

Once you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business, you might consider diversifying your business. To diversify your business means to expand the kinds of products or services that you offer. When you do this, be sure to build on your strengths and avoid taking actions that might weaken what you are already doing.

One example of diversifying is to offer new products or services that complement your core business. This means that you will add products or services that you think your existing customers could use or that what add something that is closely related to what you already offer. For example, the Trash Removal business may one day decide to extend their services to include additional cleaning services. Soon, they might become known asthe owners of a businessthat can address multiple cleaning needs in the community. Remember, however, that diversifying your business will cost money. There are always additional expenses incurred when adding new products. Make sure you look back to other chapters of this guide as you consider diversifying to guide your decision process with your mission, market research, and your financial situation.

Exercise 13.3: Complementary Products

This exercise is to help you think about ways that various businesses could expand into different product lines. Identify three complementary products that each of the following businesses might offer:

Fisherman
........................................
Hair Salon
........................................
Art Store
........................................
Your Business
........................................

Once you start thinking about complementary products or services for your business, you will need to do research and come up with a plan for implementing the new product or service. For example, you need to identify a supplier, develop the processes for selling this product or service, determine how much you will sell the product or service for, etc. In a way, it’s almost like going back to the beginning of this guide and starting all over again for this new part of your business. Once you have implemented the new product or service, you will need to continually analyze what is happening to determine if it is a successful addition to your business. Remember, not every product or service will be a success – even if it sounded like a great addition to your business, it may not work out the way you want it to. Be ready to adapt and change!

“

“Every good entrepreneur will have to revise their plans over and over again as they gain new insights. Remember to leave some space to come back, revisit your reflection, and add more thoughts as needed.”

Sam

14 Entrepreneurship of All Kinds

14.1 You are an Entrepreneur

14.2 Practicing Entrepreneurship

14.3 Entrepreneurial Leadership

In this chapter, we’ll discuss the ways you can apply the skills you’ve gained throughout this guide to your everyday life!

Lesson 14.1: You Are an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is everywhere. Entrepreneurship is a problem solving technique and way of thinking in which a problem, a want or need of a group of people, is identified as an opportunity. That opportunity is then approached through the practice of acting with the resources available, limiting risk by understanding one’s self, available resources and relative environment, acknowledging the unknown, and then learning from the successes and failures of the action or actions taken.

Entrepreneurs solve problems because entrepreneurs see problems as opportunities. We all face problems in all areas of our lives - both work and personal. The skills you’ve learned in this program are LIFE skills, which you can use in any project you under take, or within any organization in which you take part.

Entrepreneurs address opportunities using the resources they have on hand - both when they’re starting a venture, AND in their everyday life. In doing so, entrepreneurs take small steps - everyday actions that move them a bit closer to their goals - and then learn from those actions. They repeat this process, continually moving forward using the lessons they’ve learned, in a more informed way.

The “Act > Learn > Build” model - which we talked about in Chapter One - can be used in everyday life. How can you use this process outside of creating a business? Let’s look at a few examples.

Let’s imagine that you want to start walking to school taking a different route than you normally do, but you’re unsure about the amount of time it will take to get there. Rather than taking the risk of being late to class the first time you try, you choose to test your possible new route on a Saturday. You plan 20 minutes for your walk, and leave at the same time you would normally leave for school

By the time you arrive to school, you realize that 35 minutes have passed. You now know that you will need to leave 15 minutes earlier, or go back to your old route. Either way, you haven’t lost much because you are not late to school!

In this example, the opportunity is a new route to school. You decided to ACT - you took a small,relatively easy step by trying out your new route on a Saturday. You LEARNED that it takes you longer to get to school on this new route. Now you’re ready to BUILD... next time, you’ll either need to leave earlier to take your new route, or continue taking the route you normally take to school.

Let’s look at another example: Imagine that there is a student in your class who is always alone, and tends to be very quiet. It’s very likely that everyone thinks that this student does not want to make friends.

Asking him to play soccer with you and your friends seems like too much before you know him, but what if you decided to take a small step and just say ‘hello’ to him today. When you do, he responds very kindly, and asks about your day.

Given his positive response and attitude, you learn that he’s a very nice person. The next time you see him, you may ask him if he wants to join you at the local internet café after school. It’s as simple as that! What did we learn in this example? Your OPPORTUNITY isthe potential to make a new friend. You ACTED by taking a small, nonthreatening step - saying ‘Hello’. From his response, you LEARNED that he is a nice person. Finally, you decided to BUILD; in the future, you’ll spend more time with him.

As you can see, the Act - Learn - Build model isn’t just for business; there are many ways that you can apply this model to your everyday life!

Lesson 14.2: Practicing Entrepreneurship

Living entrepreneurially requires practice and reflection. Your future is made up of the results of many decisions that you will make along the way. As you go through your life, consider the following eight practices for living well and making good decisions, taken from the lessons of From Ideas to Action.

Know yourself – your skills, passions and values.
In the From Ideas to Action chapters ‘Knowin Myself” and “Finding My Passion”. you identified your strengths, values and passions, all of which impact how you think and the way you make decisions. The foundation for all of the decisions that you make - in business and in life - are rooted in your passions and core values... and your general self-awareness.

Know and Grow your Network
Meeting new people is the single greatest way to find new opportunities, and solve problems at home and at work.

Know Your Audience - or Community!
Entrepreneurs make decisions that affect people every day. The more you understand the people who are affected by your decisions, the more successful you will be. Knowing what is important to them, their challenges and how they get their information will contribute to your success.

Look for Connections.
The methods of making connections described in the From Ideas to Action chapters about your community and Idea Generation can help you see the way you - your skills, interests, and values - fit into any scenario.

Develop Processes and Good Teams.
Effective decision-makers must be able to understand and create processes, and identify and engage other people’s talent in an effective way.

Create Systems to Measure your Progress
No matter what you are tracking - money, grades, goals or other things - developing a system for measuring and recording your progress is the best way for you to manage information - which you can then use to make decisions!

Use your Resources Efficiently
Recognizing the resources you have and knowing how you can use those resources to take action on your ideas is one of the most important skills of being an entrepreneur.

Communicate Effectively
Regardless of the task, your ability to communicate is extremely important. Being clear about you and your goal can help you and others to accomplish your objectives better. Remember your Rocket Pitch! One of the most important everyday functions of entrepreneurs is the ability to consider all of the skills mentioned above, and use the information gathered to make informed decisions - what we call strategic decision making.

Exercise 14.1:My Goals for Practicing Entrepreneurship

Make notes about your goals for each of the eight principles of practicing entrepreneurship

Know Yourself – your Skills, Passions and Values.
Know and Grow your Network
Know Your Audience - or Community!
Look for Connections.
Develop Processes and Good Teams.
Create Systems to Measure your Progress.
Use your Resources Efficiently.

Lesson 14.3:Entrepreneurial Leadership

The skills that we’ve talked about here are not just important to entrepreneurs; these core skills are often the same used to describe a great leader. People who use and practice these skills are often described as inspiring others; being passionate; confident; and skilled at what they do. This combination of entrepreneurship and leadership will enable you to take your ideas further than you could imagine. Your idea will become important, not only to you, but to others as well.

Your idea could change your community and beyond! It’s important to remember that as an entrepreneurial leader, you should be consistent in your values across all that you do. Be honest with yourself about your goals and intentions; be open to change, and be sure to always empower others to do the same. These skills - emphasized throughout this guide - are the core of entrepreneurial leadership.

Remember that you are an entrepreneurial leader EVERY DAY. Continue to practice it, because you can change the world.

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“Every good entrepreneur will have to revise their plans over and over again as they gain new insights. Remember to leave some space to come back, revisit your reflection, and add more thoughts as needed.”

Sam

MyBusiness Plan (Annotated)

Use this guided template to create a draft of your business plan as youwork through the exercises in the book. When you are done, Find a place and write the final draft of your business plan.

Name of Business:.......................................

Name of Entrepreneur(s):................................

Date: ..................................................

This will be your cover page. Feel free to add artwork relevant to your business or a logo but be sure to include the name of the business, the name(s) of those starting the business, and the date.

Summary

This section will serve as a summary of your entire business plan. It will likely be the last section of your plan that you write.

Market Analysis

Positioning

This section describes how your idea is unique and adds value relative to other businesses which may already be out there addressing the very same issue. Be sure to include a positioning map.

SWOT Analysis

This section describes internal strength and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats in the marketplace. Be sure to include how you will capitalize on your strengths and opportunities and minimize your weaknesses and threats.

Product or Service Solution

Mission Statement

This section describes your product or service idea in and its importance in a short, concise, and powerful way. Be sure to include in your description your idea, the need you are meeting, and the people who will benefit from your idea.

Product or Service Description

This section describes your product or service idea. Be sure to include information about the value added by your idea and how you are positioning yourself in your business environment.

Marketing and Sales

People

This section describes in detail the people whose need your product or service is meeting. Be sure to include demographic information as well as how they use the product or service.

Promotion

This section describes your promotion strategy. Be sure to include information about your brand identity as well as information about the costs associated with your plans.

Place

This section describes the location at which you will sell your product or service. Be sure to explain why you have picked this location as it relates to what you know about your target customer.

Price

This section identifies the price at which you will sell your product or service.

Operations

Product and Distribution

This section describes in detail how you will get your product or service to the customer. Be sure to include a drawing of your supply chain and a description of each link in your chain as well as what inputs you will need and from whom you will get them.

Team

This section describes the team members who will be running the business. Be sure to include a description of each team member’s role in the business’s operations.

Core Commitments

This section describes your core commitments to yourself, to each other (if you have a team), and to the community your business serves.

Financial Statements

Cash Flow Statement

This statement shows your use of cash and ultimately the amounf of cash that you have available.

Pro Forma Income Statement

This statement shows an estimation of how profitable your business will be over time.

Schedule of Start-Up Costs

This statement shows what expenses your business will incur before operations start and how much cash will be needed to cover these expenses.

Funding

This section describes what resources you need to start your business and where you will get those resources from.

Sample Business Plan

This sample business plan was adapted from a real submission to the Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy.

Summary

After a critical look at unmet needs our community we saw that most households and businesses find it difficult to get rid of their accumulated trash properly because current waste management services do not frequently attend to our neighborhoods. This accumulated trash poses a threat to the health of residents and the community at large and doesn’t take advantage of ways to reduce the amount of trash disposal through recycling and composting. Hence, we saw the opportunity of starting Metropolis Trash Management for collecting and effectively disposing of waste both to help our neighbors and help protect our earth.

Metropolis Trash Management will collect rubbish from homes and firms which find it difficult to dispose of trash properly. The rubbish will be sorted and cleaned the recyclable materials from the non recyclable trash and organic materials. The cleaned recyclable trash will be sold to a recycling factory in our community, it will be transported to that factory using the bicycles. The non recyclable trash will be dumped at a government refuse dump in our locality. The organic trash will be buried at a compost site, for now the backyard of a founder’s home, and the compost will later be sold to agricultural businesses at an affordable price.

Market Analysis

Positioning

There is another company in the community offering trash management services, but they are unable to meet the entire need of our large community. Furthermore, their focus is primarily on businesses rather than residential ares and their pick-up times are infrequent.

The Metropolis Trash Management team feels that their business adds value through providing a consistent and frequent pick-up of trash. Since they have decided to position their business based on the frequency of trash pick up, their positioning statement is “Most Reliable and Frequent Trash Removal Service.”

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

Product Service Solution

Mission Statement

Metropolis Trash Management provides small businesses and homes around their community the ability to affordably live in a healthier environment and to work together to minimize their community’s environmental footprint through the correct disposal, recycling, and composting of waste materials.

Product or Service Description

Metropolis Trash Management will collect rubbish from homes and small firms which find it difficult to dispose of trash properly. We will enlist homes and small businesses such as internet cafes, tailoring shops, and food joints to hire our trash management services for a monthly fee. The Metropolis team will use two modified bikes in all transporting of trash. The team will bike to the homes or small businesses of their clients and pick up their trash. The team will bring the trash bags back to their plant site where it will be processed. The team will then sort the trash, repackage it, and either deliver it to a disposal facility or sell it to a recycling plant. Organic items which can be composted will be collected in a small plot of land near the sorting site. This compost can be purchased by nearby farmers.

There will be a growing demand for our services because we are fast, effective and reliable. Individuals will always have trash in their bins to be collected so our customers will be anxious to dispose of their trash through our services. Metropolis will be sustainable because there is a constant supply of waste from homes and businesses.

Marketing and Sales

People

Our target market is made up of residents in the community as well as small businesses and firms such as internet cafes, tailoring shops, and food joints.Our customers will need ourservices because they currently find it difficult to dispose oftheirtrash properly. Especially in our community, the current solution is overwhelmed and unreliable.

Promotion

Since we are a service business, we recognize the importance of focusing our promotion around building trust and relationships with our customers. Our early promotion methods will be low cost because we will simply go door to door to share information about our services. Once we have begun generating revenue, we will invest in stickers and posters to hang around our community to grow our business more. Our bicycles will be brightly decorated to call attention to ourbusiness.

Place

Metropolis Trash Management will be operated out of the home of one of our founders. Additionally, the backyard of one founder will serve as our plantsite at which trash is processed. This backyard will also serve asthe original compostsite for organic materials collected. Customers will not come to our site, they will see our bicycles in the community which will spread our name further

Price

Our prices are affordable. Each customer will pay a monthly fee for regular pick up services. There will be multiple pricing packages depending on how often the customer would like the pick up services.

Operations

Production and Distribution

Metropolis Trash Management will enlist homes and small businesses such asinternet cafes, tailoring shops, and food joints to hire their trash managementservicesfor a monthly fee. The Metropolisteam will use two modified bikesin all transporting oftrash. The team will bike to the homes of their clients, pick up their trash, and supply new trash bags. The team will bring the trash bags back to their plant site which islocated in the backyard of the founder where it will be processed. The team willsort the trash, repackage it, and either deliver it to a disposal facility or sell it to a recycling plant. Organic items which can be composted will be collected in a small plot of land near the sorting site. This compost can be purchased by nearby farmers.

Team

Metropolis Trash Management is a joint partnership founded and lead by Mary and Isaac. All decisions about the business will be made together.

Mary
Director of Operations

Mary loves to go on long bike rides and knows the community neighborhoods well so she will handle all the transportation of trash. Mary will be the leader of business operations as she well be responsible for picking up the trash from their customer’s homes as well as delivering the sorted trash and recyclables to the correct disposal facilities. Isaac and Mary will share the responsibility of sorting the trash. Her backyard will serve as the sorting site and composting site.

Isaac
Director of Sales, Marketing, and Accounting

Isaac is good at drawing and making signs and flyers. He is also very good at interacting with customers from growing up watching his mother run a very successful tailoring shop. Isaac will be the leader of marketing and sales as he will be responsible for creating promotional materials, recruiting homes and small businesses to buy their services, and selling the compost to nearby farmers.

Core Commitments

Our team agrees to the following core commitments to ourselves, to each other, and to the community our business serves:

• Empower each other to be the best we can be individually and as a team.We will strive to be leaders in our community as we continually grow in knowledge and skill and embrace challenges. We will create a team culture full of positive energy, communication, and honesty. We will always act with conscience and no regrets.

• Make our community a better place.We will create solutions to real needs in our community. We will strive to make these solutions self-sustaining and long-term.

• Constantly learn and innovate. We will listen to our community to deeply understand their needs and always think about new solutions. We will embrace opportunities to learn from our own experiences, from each other, and from others in our community

If at any point someone on our team feels that we are not upholding these commitments, it is necessary that the team member take action by bringing it to the attention of the other members of the team.

Financial Statements

Refer to Chapter 8for sample accounting statements.

Funding

Metropolis Trash Management will acquire most of our necessary resources through our families. Our main equipment needs are taken care of by one founder’s family allowing us to use their home as our plant and sorting area. Additionally, both founders already own bicycles that will be the first two bicycles of our company. The only additional cost will be what it costs to modify our bikes and the bags that we will need to provide to our customers. We will borrow a small loan from one founder’s father’s business to cover our initial costs. We will pay the loan back with 3% interest over the next 6months.