STP 101 | How to Stay on Track in 2025 with Brandon White
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[00:00:00] James Marland: Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice Podcast. I'm James Marland, your guide to turning big ideas into real action. This is where therapists, coaches, and consultants find the support they need to take the next steps towards their dreams.
[00:00:25] James Marland: Let me help you put your mission in motion.
[00:00:32] Brandon White: You should expect that you're going to make mistakes. The key is to the key is to minimize those mistakes try to make small mistakes and recover because like if you just Dwell on the mistake for too long You're going to go into You're going to spiral and if you start spiraling It's really hard to grab yourself to get out of that and then that turns into a really [00:01:00] That can turn into a really bad place.
[00:01:01] Brandon White: So and it can kill ideas I mean the truth is most people are much closer to success than they think they are and they quit too soon You just heard from Brandon White, he is a serial entrepreneur, and he's going to be our guest on the show today where he drops a lot of knowledge. About staying on track with a business plan, something that will help you make decisions and keep you on track for 2025. I wanted to share with you a webinar that I'm hosting for my friends, Sophie Lechner on January 23rd at 1:00 PM. It's going to help you become confident. With your LinkedIn profile, your LinkedIn profile is something that comes up first, almost every time.
[00:01:48] James Marland: Somebody searches for your name. And we want to help you attract the right customers and networking partners with the right. LinkedIn profile. And Sophie [00:02:00] is an awesome expert. On LinkedIn. And she has her magnet model and our magnet model web page. And she's going to share with us how to, how to improve your LinkedIn profile.
[00:02:11] James Marland: It's actually not as hard as you might think. So she's going to host a webinar on Thursday, January 23rd at 1:00 PM. Titled the trust advantage, elevate your LinkedIn profile for impact. And she's going to share her powerful strategies to. Uh, tweak and change and transform your pro profile into a magnet. That actually attracts your ideal clients and partners.
[00:02:35] James Marland: I, I hope you join us for this. Uh, this webinar. Thursday, January 23rd, 1:00 PM. Eastern standard time. Go to course creation, studio.com backs. Backslash magnet. To register course creation, studio.com backslash magnet to register. I really hope to see you there. She's got a lot of good information. [00:03:00] Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is your host James Marlin. This is the show where we empower mission driven leaders to launch life changing online courses. Really happy to introduce my guest with you today. His name is Brandon White. He's an entrepreneur and investor for over 25 years.
[00:03:25] James Marland: He's the host of the Brandon White podcast. He has a lot of information about businesses, automation, Business plans. We're going to talk about that today. Brandon, welcome to the show.
[00:03:38] Brandon White: James, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.
[00:03:42] James Marland: So we were talking, uh, we a little bit about where you're from and how you got here and that you've been podcasting a very long time. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
[00:03:52] Brandon White: Yeah, sure. Um, I hope I actually don't think I have 20 I think I only have 20 years experience. I don't know that we would age me that much but maybe it does. [00:04:00] Um, uh, I started my career in 1996 Building what became the largest social networking e commerce site for sport fishermen on the internet Back then the internet was a very uh In its nascent years, it was a fun time.
[00:04:18] Brandon White: It was a wild west but Uh, I had this crazy idea that you could put a fishing magazine On the internet while everybody listening just rolling their eyes right now That was actually a pretty novel idea back then, um, which was digital media company and social networking site. So I did that um cut to the chase that that was a bumpy road, but I had I had bootstrapped it, started my spare bedroom.
[00:04:42] Brandon White: I raised money for it, uh, had a chance to sell it. The investors said no and sell it for a lot of money, tens of millions. Um, the board said, no, the market crashed in 2001 and I bought the company back from the investors and decided to, that I was going to [00:05:00] still run it. I was going to run it as a side hustle.
[00:05:01] Brandon White: I decided that the internet was not going to go away. Seems like a good bet right now.
[00:05:06] James Marland: You're a fortune teller.
[00:05:08] Brandon White: so it's sort of like my investment in Bitcoin. 11 years ago, but um, so I bought it back and I ran it as a side hustle Um, and then I went into venture capital. I worked for two venture capital firms Investing in the internet enterprise software analytics.
[00:05:25] Brandon White: I worked I did a quick stint Um, I think a year and a half or so at America online, which was a really fun time to be at America online. Uh, some people listening to this might not even remember AOL, but AOL was effectively the largest, not effectively, it was the largest company, internet company in the world.
[00:05:42] Brandon White: And it was just a wild time. We were, We were printing money. I think when, when I was there, we were throwing off 1. 9 billion of free cashflow and, and we were effectively 40 percent of the internet's backbone at the time. So crazy ride, um, went back into venture [00:06:00] capital, decided to go to business school, came out of business school, still running the fishing site on the side and decided that I was going to build a business plan, which we're going to talk about today, and I wanted to sell it within five years.
[00:06:14] Brandon White: Um, in that time. I used. The capital to build another software enterprise software company, which was it started out as an automated CRM customer relationship management tool, which your listeners will know, keep track of your customers, and it turned into an analytics platform that the U. S. Government invested in, and it became an analytics tool.
[00:06:38] Brandon White: And then I sort of had a wild ride from there. I Thank you. I built a, um, software engineering company that worked in the U S government on classified projects. And then I most recently was, um, the COO and CFO of a bond management company. And now I do a lot of things, one of which is a partner at third brain where we do AI [00:07:00] and automation stuff.
[00:07:00] Brandon White: But, um, all that to say that I tried to do that in two minutes, but I skipped over like the 10 strikeouts I had James. So for all your listeners. Great impressive. I had to oh, I should say I did sell the fishing site that plan actually my five year plan Turned into a four year plan because a very large public media company At the time this was 11 or 12 years ago came and said hey we want to buy it Which was ultimately I wanted an exit and bought it.
[00:07:29] Brandon White: So i've had two two exits um in that time, but i've struck out like 10 times and At the end of the day the biggest tool that i've ever used And most valuable tool that i've ever used whether I was starting a company Going into a new year launching a new product or service, whatever it is even at america online.
[00:07:48] Brandon White: I was in charge of Premium services where we grew the antivirus product from zero to 90 million dollars in 12 months And you know, we didn't do that by luck. We did that because we actually had a business plan We had financials [00:08:00] and we had targets. So the biggest tool i've ever used Ever had a business plan.
[00:08:03] Brandon White: That's what led me to write a book on it. Um, back of the napkin to business plan, 11 slides. So easy. You can do it on a flight from San Francisco to New York.
[00:08:13] James Marland: Great. Yeah. Uh, for the video watchers, uh, There is the book before we get into that, because I think that's going to be the bulk of our show talking about the business plan, setting goals, making a plan for your diversifying if you're doing a new product, you said something that is one that, uh, that piques my interest all the time is like learning from your mistakes and taking, um, Taking some of your mistakes and rolling it into the future because for for many of us, I'm raising my hand here Starting something new is pretty scary like starting out and and and uh putting yourself out there and um Making sure you know not knowing it's perfect and it's kind of foggy [00:09:00] It is scary.
[00:09:01] James Marland: And so for many years I was like, well, i'm just going to take a paycheck, you know I'm just going to work for somebody else And do that job And that safety until it wasn't safe anymore. So just just if we're if we're having coffee and you're telling me, you know, one of the things I learned from my mistakes, what would you how would you fill that in?
[00:09:27] Brandon White: Um, gosh, one thing I learned is one thing I learned is I expect them now. Like,
[00:09:34] Brandon White: I mean, the bottom line is you have to, you have to expect that you're going to make mistakes. Like even today, James, like you're talking about that. And I have a side, I have a side project called Trevely, which you and I didn't talk about, but it's an, it's a, it's a context manager, a personal context manager that nobody has fixed this problem.
[00:09:53] Brandon White: My wife and I've had the problem forever. I still, I didn't know the plumber's number when she was away. [00:10:00] Like, why can't she share her contact with me? And why isn't it up to date? Like, so I'm just using that as an example to say, like, even today, after, after, you know, the guardian angel that I've had and the successes I've had, um, and the way too many mistakes I've had, you know, I'm still, I still have those feelings.
[00:10:18] Brandon White: I'm like, Oh my God, I cannot put this product out there. People are going to judge me. Right. Like, and. And I can't make any mistakes. I don't have time for mistakes anymore and just having a lot of anxiety and you know I I ride my I ride road bike a lot and that's really where I get a lot of my thinking done and And just my fitness and health stay healthy.
[00:10:39] Brandon White: You should expect that you're going to make mistakes. The key is to the key is to minimize those mistakes try to make small mistakes and recover because like if you just Dwell on the mistake for too long You're going to go into You're going to [00:11:00] spiral and if you start spiraling It's really hard to grab yourself to get out of that and then that turns into a really That can turn into a really bad place.
[00:11:09] Brandon White: So and it can kill ideas I mean the truth is most people are much closer to success than they think they are and they quit too soon And it's because they scare themselves and I I scare myself all the time. I think i've almost killed that one software product You At least 50 times, if I'm being honest, James, like, and I pay for a full time developer and everything that we've been building this for a while.
[00:11:31] Brandon White: And, you know, I'm like, let's just see what happens tomorrow. Now I do want to say one thing, James, there comes a time. And I help a lot of entrepreneurs and I've taught a lot of entrepreneurs, at least trying to help them avoid mistakes is there comes a time when you do have to realize, like, Maybe this business thing or this idea or something isn't going to work.
[00:11:54] Brandon White: And I don't have the magic formula for that because, because like I said, so [00:12:00] often, yeah, I've been so close to success and had I quit. Would have never if I had quit that fishing site I wouldn't be here in a in a studio at my house in half moon bay on the ocean Like it wouldn't have happened now. I may have gotten here somewhere else some other way, but right now I can't really see that Right.
[00:12:18] Brandon White: So I think I can't give the advice of what that is. That was a really long winded
[00:12:23] James Marland: No, I, I love it though. I love that advice. Expect mistakes because I love, I, I have the perfect number fallacy, you know, like everything's going to work out fine. It's going to take one hour to do this task and one month to do this and all that. And, and then if I had, if I was expecting delays, expecting mistakes, expecting not everything to work out perfectly, then I, I would be in a much, I wouldn't go into that spiral you were talking about.
[00:12:55] James Marland: So, um, everything's an experiment, learn from everything. I really [00:13:00] love that advice. Um, and, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. So we were going to talk about, uh, business planning, because we're recording this at the end of the year. Of 2024 and, um, people are making goals and, uh, maybe the part of their goals to diversify into a new product, or maybe they don't have a business plan and they're like, Oh man, I wish, I wish I felt really secure in my steps, but I don't have a plan.
[00:13:28] James Marland: So I'm just sort of like doing stuff that I hear on the internet, maybe on a podcast. You, you have some real world experience and you've taught people, uh, this, this process of your business plan and you were going to be gracious and share that with the audience today.
[00:13:47] Brandon White: yes so it is a everybody gets excited about their ideas james and this is like the I used to think I was going to build I thought I was going to build a business actually Hey After um a few years ago many years ago. I was [00:14:00] like, oh I could just help people write business plans But it turns out people hate writing business plans.
[00:14:04] Brandon White: They they they So I for all the listeners like you may hate this, but I promise you I promise you If you go through this exercise and I spent a really long time making this simple We're going to go through 11 slides today. I'm going to go through them pretty fast Um, i'm not trying to hold anything back you can buy the book and if you don't want to buy the book You can just google uh business plan podcast and I Put it all out there for free so you can go into more in depth than james and I are going to be able to go Into today just because of time.
[00:14:35] Brandon White: I'm just because we only have so much time here today, but Um, I just want everyone to know that and I made it really simple most business books james I don't know if you're aware about 60 000 words Uh, my goal when I wrote the book was to get it in under 30 And I think I got in at like 24 000 and the reason is is I just want to make it simple So if it's okay with you, you can stop me.
[00:14:56] Brandon White: I know we have time here, but i'm going to roll through these slides. [00:15:00] So um your first slide is Really your elevator pitch and your elevator pitch, although it's your first slide You want to take a crack at the elevator pitch in the beginning? But it's going to get better as you work through the following 10 slides or so But you've got to have an elevator pitch and you're you know, people talk about this james But people really don't have their elevator pitch like a good elevator pitch is we fix bad haircuts That's a good that's not a good elevator pitch.
[00:15:31] Brandon White: That's a great elevator pitch, right? um and And, uh, and, uh, they're, you got to be able to be very succinct. I will mention some mistakes here that people make. People always start out with their name. They always start out with their story and they go into it because they're passionate. And I got news for everybody listening.
[00:15:51] Brandon White: Nobody cares. The only thing people care about is what. What problem you're solving and do you have a solution to it and does it apply to them and can that make [00:16:00] their life better And only then once you've earned that trust in that elevator pitch Do you get to talk about your name and your story and you only get to talk about that because they ask you so Um, that's a little bit on the elevator pitch.
[00:16:14] Brandon White: We're not going to go deep. We can come back to it if if we have time but You really got to have your elevator pitch and it really needs to be less than 15 seconds If it's anything like you can have a 15 second version a 30 second of 45 in a minute Think about it. Like if you're just meeting someone who's pitching you a product.
[00:16:31] Brandon White: I mean most commercials on the internet Commercials aren't even 30 seconds, right? So or they're not a minute for sure or your attention isn't going to last in today's world Everybody's scrolling all the time. You just don't have it So you got to get an elevator pitch your next your next slide is your problem slide And It is a very, very simple formula to come up with this.
[00:16:53] Brandon White: A person does x, their pain is, existing solutions are broken because. [00:17:00] You can literally just write that down on the slide and fill it in. Again, a person does x, their pain is, existing solutions are broken because. That's it. That's what we're all solving. I don't really care whether you're selling a course, you've got a new dog toy that you're making, a new piece of software, whatever it is, or a service that you provide, you can break it down into that format.
[00:17:24] James Marland: Yeah. Well, I was just going to make a comment because, um, if they, if the solution was working, they wouldn't be searching for a product. Like the, you said the solution is already broken or their existing solutions is broken. So for example, my audience, the therapist who is working, you know, they, they can't work any more hours. In the day with seeing people, but they're not getting ahead. What is their solution? They could raise rates, but there's only a certain amount of time. You could time you can raise rates [00:18:00] and what, if they don't want to hire too many more people or they don't want to invest in other, other things. So they don't want to, you know, do adjunct teaching or whatever. What, what can they do? One of the solutions could be to diversify into online course material or cohort type coaching. Classes that, that only comes into play for me. You know, I need to find the people who the solution of, you know, grinding out a 60 hour week, seeing people all day long, isn't going to fill their, that that's the problem, the problem of seeing their family or burning out or.
[00:18:41] James Marland: Not being with the right people all the time like that that is For the person whose practice is going great and they love it and they would rather work 60 hours a week doing that This isn't the solution for them So, I I don't know. I just like that that point about the solution is broken or what they've already tried is broken
[00:18:59] Brandon White: Yeah, I mean if you're [00:19:00] doing a um, and I have a master's in psychology and I I didn't um Whether with a concentration in counseling, I didn't go into the counseling, but I do understand it It's just it's I mean this you could apply this to yourself as a therapist I counsel My clients, my pain is I can't scale past eight hours a day and my existing solution and the existing solution of doing eight hours a day is broken because I can't scale myself.
[00:19:26] Brandon White: So I'm going to create a course that works for me when I'm not working. Um, So you could apply this to yourself. So there you go for for your audience out there,
[00:19:35] James Marland: Thank you. Thank you,
[00:19:36] Brandon White: That you could that you could do that and then you get to uh slide three Which is the solution and we fix that or you know, because With x and it provides xyz in this case if you're doing a course It's we fix it with an online course.
[00:19:51] Brandon White: It's self directed with a one hour Uh office hours a week now you could serve [00:20:00] 20 clients Without having to meet them for 20 hours and meet them one hour a week and do that So and whatever that solution is, so whatever you're you're doing that is your third slide Your fourth slide is what's the market?
[00:20:16] Brandon White: So what type of therapist are you? Are you are you going to define the market by geography? Are you going to define it by discipline? Are you um, You know i'm making this up. I I Just because i'm thinking of everybody in my psychology master's degree who became psychologists I mean we have an industrial psychologist, right?
[00:20:34] Brandon White: So that that would be the market we have a um, uh eating disorder One, uh psychologist that comes to mind. I mean there's family therapy That's just a hundred different things different markets But what is that market and you've got to be able to define it It's not and the mistake everybody makes here is they go to well, there's you know I'm making this up, James, a hundred million people in America who need therapy, and I like that.
[00:20:59] Brandon White: That's not your [00:21:00] market. Your market is, is I live in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and I'm going to service people within 30 minutes, and then you're going to go to the U. S. Census. You're going to look at how many people around there. You're going to see if the economic department or somebody has some, uh, health, uh, Metrics around that, or you're going to use a general metric that you looked up and apply it.
[00:21:22] Brandon White: And then you're going to figure out what your market is. Then you're going to figure out how many other therapists there are in the market so that you understand your competition, which I'm jumped ahead to seven, but it does relate to your market. And then you're going to figure out what your. What you're a serviceable addressable market is.
[00:21:36] Brandon White: And there's a way to, there's a, you basically want to get as small as possible, whereas the mistake is everybody's like, there's a hundred million people in the world. I'm going to get 1%. Like, that's not a strategy. So that's, that's slide four.
[00:21:50] James Marland: Okay,
[00:21:51] Brandon White: Slide five is how am I going to go to market? So if you're doing a course, how are you going to get your course to market?
[00:21:58] Brandon White: Are you going to market that, [00:22:00] uh, you're going to do organic? Posting across social media. And if you do that, you're going to need to figure out how many impressions you're going to get and then what your conversion rates, cause that's going to feed your financials in slide eight. That's coming up in a second.
[00:22:13] Brandon White: Or are you going to do Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads? Are you going to partner with people? Um, Are you going to partner with influencers? You're going to partner with other practices that don't have courses that they could refer people to Um, how are you going to go to market? That is literally how you're going to let people know about your product or service and it's very specific Number six is traction and milestones your slide six.
[00:22:41] Brandon White: So what traction do you have today? And what are your milestones? And you got to be very specific on your milestones. I would set one month, three months, six months and 12 months, and then maybe, uh, one far out, but you're always focused on 12 months or less because that's really what you have [00:23:00] visibility on.
[00:23:01] Brandon White: Um, number seven is your competition. So who is your competition? If you're online course creator for, uh, let's see if you're an online course creator for, um, I don't know. Eating disorders or weight loss. How many of those are there out there? What does that look like? Where are they posting? Maybe nobody's posting on threads, but so that's your opportunity, you know, because you can figure out who your competition is, you figure out what they're charging, all those sorts of things.
[00:23:31] Brandon White: So who are they and where do you fit in that whole? Landscape.
[00:23:36] James Marland: and that kind of ties in with number four who is the market because the better you can find that the the If you're going for eating disorders There's so many, you, there's, people might not know specifically who it is for, is it, uh, I'm not an eating disorder
[00:23:59] Brandon White: [00:24:00] Therapist, right?
[00:24:00] James Marland: therapist, but, uh, like, is it for women, men, older, younger? athletes, nervous people, like what is the, what is the reason for the eating disorder? So if you can find who you work the best with, that makes it easier to stand out from the competition where you can do things that they can't do and talk to those people in their type of language, their specific problems that the other people who are just doing a general we do. this type of disorder or this type of problem can't, can't even touch.
[00:24:39] Brandon White: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And all these, they're in the order they are because it's what you're really, if you step back and at the end we'll go through it real quick and everybody will see that this is a story. Business plan is a story and stories have structure, right? I mean, you go to star Wars and you're like, there's an opening slide in the, in [00:25:00] the, the rebellion is coming up.
[00:25:02] Brandon White: And the problem is, is that Luke Skywalker's struggles with his past. I mean, I could go through the exact story journey is. In the analogy to a business plan and that is and it doesn't mean you're not going to go back Like we said james, you're going to go back to slide one Your elevator pitch is going to get better because you've got better fidelity at your attraction milestones and competition for instance Um, so it all builds on one another and I think that's a good point.
[00:25:27] Brandon White: I do want to say it's not Okay, I got my problem slide. I'm now I go to my solution market go to market. I don't go back You do go back in fact The business plan is a living breathing thing that probably changes every few weeks if you want to use it as your backbone to your business Um, so let's just do a quick review.
[00:25:45] Brandon White: We did the opening slide. We did the problem slide We did the solution slide the market the go to market the traction and milestones Number seven was competition and now we're on eight which is financials. This is the one that You Everyone really [00:26:00] hates and avoids more than they do the whole business plan But if i'm going to tell you right now i'm going to tell all your listeners james If there's only one slide you do in this Do your financials because the whole business plan is actually in the financials people don't understand that Initially, but it is because your cash flow statement is in there Your marketing tab is in there because you need a marketing tab because your marketing tab is going to drive You How many customers you get because that's where your foot your marketing funnel and sales funnel is That's then going to tell you drive from your pricing tab To figure out how much revenue you have in your cash flow statement, which is your which then flows into your pnl statement I know that's a lot for absorb and some people just your listeners just threw up in their mouth Uh, but but the truth of the matter is you got to do your financial slide.
[00:26:50] Brandon White: It is It is the meat and potatoes of where Everything happens. So we do not have enough time to go into that today, but [00:27:00] financial slide is, is really important. Any questions on that? We should touch on, it's very hard to go over financials in two minutes.
[00:27:09] James Marland: Um, no, I, I've just, from what I, what I, what I hear is if, um, you don't have cash and you don't know where it's coming from, eventually everything dies.
[00:27:21] Brandon White: Yeah. You'll go broke.
[00:27:22] James Marland: Yeah. You're, you're done.
[00:27:24] Brandon White: Don't guess it's not in your head. No, people don't even like to talk about money anyway. Like, like, And I mean, I'll, I'll just give you an example. Like, let's say you're going to market off of an email list for your course. You need to know how many email people you need on there. So on your marketing tab and your financials, and I'm just using this as an example.
[00:27:45] Brandon White: So your listeners understand that financials isn't just this P and L state profit and loss statement balance sheet or cashflow. It's actually your marketing tab, because let's say you're doing it. Let's go back to email. So email, you have a 10, 000 person email list. Now you have to build that [00:28:00] funnel in there.
[00:28:00] Brandon White: You have to say, okay, 10, 000. You have a 50 percent open rate. You have a three percent click through rate out of the click through rate You're going to do on a landing page on the landing page You're going to how many people are going to convert like then you're going to get to a customer And then that customer is going to be what what package they buy or maybe it's just one set price on a course Whatever that is and that's going to drive revenue like that is where at all Happens like, and that feeds your, your go to market slide, which was slide number five is in the financials because your go to market in this case.
[00:28:32] Brandon White: Is an email list. This is how you really do plan for your business. And, and I do want to say this to anybody out there, a business plan is taking your idea and putting it on paper to see if it makes enough sense. And you're going to make a lot of assumptions. But you know a business plan might save you money because you figure out that the business that you were trying to [00:29:00] do isn't feasible Because you're making a widget for ten dollars and you can only send it sell it for eight or your profit margin So small that you know, it wasn't worth it So these are the type of insights that you're going to get so it's going to it can save you time and money, too Um, I don't want to go down that rabbit path, but
[00:29:18] Brandon White: rabbit
[00:29:18] James Marland: wrap up with your money tells a story like it, it tells it, it puts. It's concrete, uh, it's concrete evidence of what you actually feel or believe or do or what your business can do. And so to ignore it is sort of like inviting, you know, inviting danger, uh, inviting, um, calamity on yourself. So, all right, what's the, what's the slide nine?
[00:29:47] Brandon White: Nine is your team. That's really evident. Like that could be you, your staff. Maybe you need people. Maybe you need a marketing person. So who do you have and who do you need? So that's going to drive recruiting. Number 10 is how [00:30:00] much money do you need to make this happen? Which is going to be driven off of your financials and all the other things, because you need to know how much money Very rarely are businesses cashflow positive out of the gate from some of your listeners James They could be already because they're already therapists They already have some cash flow that they're generating from selling selling their time for money, right?
[00:30:19] Brandon White: But they they are going to have to make some sort of investment in this So what how much funding do you need and when do you need it and then figuring out how you're going to get that? And then the last the last slide which is slide 11 is the summary slide. So the summary slide is actually just You A quick summary like you did after I did a long explanation of each one Uh of what your results are.
[00:30:41] Brandon White: So what's your elevator pitch? What's the problem? What's the solution? market go to market traction milestones competition financials team funding needs and Then you can use that as your executive summary as sort of a reminder and to keep track of yourself again. You can use this to launch a new business, launch a new product or service, use it.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Brandon White: The year is coming. Remind yourself about your business. What changed? Maybe you learned that the problem you thought you were solving isn't the problem anymore. So you have to pivot a little bit, but you can use this framework and you really can. You really can do this in a few hours. You you should not be spending weeks on your business plan.
[00:31:18] James Marland: And we touched on this a little bit where sometimes You called this a living document. Like I imagine sometimes people don't like writing it because they write it and then it goes on the shelf and then nothing happens. Like how, do you have any tips for how to use this throughout the year to make it worthwhile and beneficial?
[00:31:39] Brandon White: Yeah, it's not I suggest that you can write this out, but these are slides. This is like a slide deck This is literally a slide deck and it needs to fit. That's the magic if you can't fit the answer except for financials financials for the most part are They're going to have a separate spreadsheet whether that's google's google sheets or excel.
[00:31:59] Brandon White: But [00:32:00] um, James, you should be able to summarize The answers to this in 32 font on a slide, not in a, you know, my first business plan was 52 pages and it did, it sat on the shelf because it was like, how am I ever going to modify this? But back 20 years ago, that's what they taught. They taught it in business school.
[00:32:17] Brandon White: They taught it everywhere. Right. But now, you know, here in Silicon Valley, where I live, it's, it's a slide deck. And you really do like the, is it any more complicated that a person does X their plan. Their pain is existing solutions are broken because and my solution is x like if you can't explain it on one slide These answers that it's too complicated
[00:32:38] James Marland: Yeah. They won't, the, the, your audience will be like, huh, that's nice. And go to something else that they understand.
[00:32:47] Brandon White: And you back to your question you won't use it because you because you're gonna have to go back and read it every time No, you need it Like you can keep us I don't have it mine's in the drawer because I didn't want it on the desk here but like my business plan is just [00:33:00] I just staple it and I carry it around with me and I make notes and it's a reminder, right?
[00:33:04] Brandon White: And you can use it for anything. That's the thing. Your business plan you can use for updating yourself. You can use it as a pitch deck. You can use it for recruiting. Someone asks you about your business. You can use it for anything once you have it.
[00:33:17] James Marland: Yeah, this is great. And I feel like there's a lot, a lot of, uh, a lot to grow from here. And you, I want to get into like what, um, you have a podcast and you talk about these things. Can you talk about like where, what your, what your show is about and how you help people?
[00:33:39] Brandon White: Yeah, so I I guess i'm a sort of a podcast. What do you maybe i'm addicted to podcasts? Maybe I need some therapy but Uh, no, actually what I what I realized is is a podcast need to be very specific So the brain and white show is a show it has over 500 episodes I talked to people I started in doing business stuff and then I just decided I wanted to talk to interesting people So it's had everyone from steve [00:34:00] case who is the founder of aol america online to other people Well known entrepreneurs to famous venture capitalists, to professional athletes, to a T reader, to, uh, a Navy SEALs and a 10 pilot had, um, just really interesting people that you walk away cleaning something to give you an edge to win in your business or life.
[00:34:21] Brandon White: Um, for specifically for today, I do want to point your, your listeners to. I literally just built a podcast. It doesn't get updated that often because it, you I really don't have as many new episodes, but it's just called business plan. And you'll find it. It's a blue, I think it has a blue, uh, background and it says business plan.
[00:34:39] Brandon White: And it's the entire book read to you. Um, so that you can get more fidelity. Obviously we flew through this today, James, right?
[00:34:46] Brandon White: But. Yeah, but you know I has it has worksheets in here. Um, and I read it so you can listen to it If you want to buy the book you can buy the book I'm sure you can put the link in the show notes But you you don't have to buy that book you can listen to the podcast and I [00:35:00] really just put podcasts out there Like in some cases I built a podcast called productivity where I did a productivity tip in less than four minutes a day I think it has 145 episodes And it's really like I just dive deep into these things and it's a good reminder for myself.
[00:35:14] Brandon White: I listen to them. So Um, that's just a few of the podcasts that I have, but you know, for today, I really want, you know, you asked me about mistakes in the beginning of the show and you know, a mistake would be not building a business plan for your business because you feel like it's a good idea. Like there's just what you feel like is interesting.
[00:35:35] Brandon White: But the reality isn't always what you feel and you can convince yourselves of a lot and you do have to convince yourself as an entrepreneur Like as our sole proprietor or whatever, you know, even if you're a therapist, you're really an entrepreneur running your own business You've got to convince yourself.
[00:35:50] Brandon White: Sometimes you can do things that you don't know or believe you can do. I mean I know that sounds crazy, but that's what you have to do as an entrepreneur. By the same token, you [00:36:00] do need to control what you can control and you can control building a business plan. And if you avoid building a business plan, you have now just put another Variable out there that you're leaving to the universe that you could have controlled you Really in any of these ventures in life and business I really believe that you should control everything you can control because there's just so many things you can't control
[00:36:28] James Marland: I love it. And, uh, the this was very insightful for me and I hope for the listeners. Um, I feel like we, I feel like we've gone through so much, uh, already. Um, is there anything else you want to say to the audience or was that a good wrap up?
[00:36:46] Brandon White: No, I think that's a good wrap. If anybody's interested you could find me at you can find me all this stuff at brandoncwhite. com I have my a site with all the information and I hope this is really helpful Uh useful for your for your listeners [00:37:00] if you really have problems you can reach out to me Um, but I really appreciate you having me on the shame on the show james to be able to share this with people
[00:37:08] James Marland: Great. Uh, Brandon, this was a wonderful episode. A lot to think about. A lot to chew on. And I think also good. A good reminder, a good way to get a set out right for 2025 and beyond. Um, thanks for joining us.
[00:37:23] Brandon White: Thanks james
[00:37:24] James Marland: All right. Uh, it's now time to put your mission in motion. Thanks for listening to the show, man, that was a great episode where we talked about how to stay on track 2025. I think, uh, embracing the mistakes. And realizing that mistakes will be made, but they don't have to give you, put you into the death spiral that can actually inform you on what to do and what to take.
[00:37:49] James Marland: And remember everybody makes mistakes. There isn't one perfect entrepreneur. And if you're comparing yourself to somebody who's been doing this. For 15, 20 years, you, there is going to be a big [00:38:00] gap. There is going to be a big difference, but you can bridge that gap with your experience and just taking one more step right after the other. I loved how Brandon said. You're closer to success than you think you are. Um, that was just an amazing, uh, an amazing phrase in there.
[00:38:19] James Marland: That's going to stick with me for a while and I hope it sticks with you. And also the, just the power of a play on the power of having a business plan that you can easily look at, implement and share. It's going to align your actions for success in 2025. And wanted to remind you of the resources mentioned in the episode.
[00:38:38] James Marland: Hey, make sure you sign up for that. The, uh, LinkedIn profile. Uh, making an impact with your LinkedIn profile webinar and that's going to be on course creation, studio.com backslash magnet. And that's going to be Thursday at 1:00 PM. It's Thursday, January 23rd at 1:00 PM. Eastern standard time. Don't forget [00:39:00] to sign up for that, but you can also visit Sophie on her magnet model, web page. Uh, the links for that are on the. The links for that are on the webinar profile or the webinar landing page. Uh, Brandon has that book back of the napkin business plan.
[00:39:18] James Marland: It's a great tool for those looking to simplify the business planning process. And guess what, if you don't want to buy the book, you can just subscribe to his business plan podcast, where he will go into much further detail about the business plan. Also check out the Brandon White podcast. He's been podcasting for a while.
[00:39:37] James Marland: He's got a lot of experience. I know you're going to enjoy that show. For those interested in those resources, they're going to be in the show notes. Uh, Just go to course creation, studio.com and click the blog page. It'll be in there and also be in the podcast. Show notes, Brandon, thanks so much for having. Thanks so much for being on the show.
[00:39:56] James Marland: Listeners, you have a calling, you have a [00:40:00] mission. It's now time to go put that mission in motion.
