How to Write a One Page Business Plan

For the longest time I didn't like writing business plans. Here's why. Because every time it came time to write a business plan, it was almost as if my school teacher from Jr.

high school would say, "Patrick, go do your homework. Write up a business plan. " And I'm sitting here saying, wait a minute.

First of all, I don't know how to write a business plan. Secondly, I don't think it works. I don't think it's effective.

I don't think this thing's going to work. Until I realized how to write up a business plan that worked for me and from there on, I could not wait to write up my business plan for the following year. So today, we're going to talk about two different types of business plans.

One, which is dissecting and spending six, seven, eight hours getting every single detail of your business plan in place, that you read once a month. Then from there, gathering all the information and taking all the simple things, the clear things that you need and creating a one-page business plan. And that's the one that you look at multiple times per day.

So we're going to cover those two things today. Now, prior to writing up a business plan for 2017, let me tell you what's even more important than writing a business plan for 2017. Many times we will go through a past relationship.

And the relationship didn't work. And some of us guys, you know, we can't wait to just say you know what, it didn't work. And we move on and we go to a bar and meet a new girl.

And we move on. Then that girl doesn't work. And then the next one.

And this one doesn't work. And the next one. And then this one.

Four years goes by. And we say, "Wait a minute. How come I don't have a steady relationship?

How come none of these things are working out? " Well, because every single time one of them didn't work, you didn't ask yourself what would you have done differently. What could you have done differently?

What can you change about the next one? Is there a trend that you keep picking up on that you know is not effective and it's not working for you? We don't do this.

The same exact way why most people who write business plans, all they're thinking about is the next year, while the most important data for you is the year that just passed you by. In order to predict the future, you've got to study history. This is history, 2016.

What happened in 2016 for you? What went right? And if you had a bad 2016, I gauge my year based on what percentage of my goals that I wrote down on a sheet of paper become a reality.

If less than 50% of my goals become a reality, it tells me something. Here's what it tells me. It tells me one, I didn't give the best effort or urgency and number two, I didn't have the best strategy in place.

So it's effort or strategy. And by the way, most of the time it's number one, effort. Sometimes it strategy.

A lot of times people say, but you don't understand. The market was bad, and there was this. .

. Great. One percent of the time you're forgiven for that.

99% of the time, I want to know what I can control and I can control most of it. So, we look at that past year. And when I look at my past year, the way I do business plan, a lot of times I used to just look at my business.

It's only business I'm going to look at! Because this is the only thing that matters. Yes, that sounds kind of great, in a class at business Wharton school or Harvard, but in life everything's kind of connected.

So, imagine trying to grow your business while you have a relationship that's just day and night you're arguing with your girlfriend. It's tough to drive your business if all you do is argue all day on text. So imagine you're about to get into a sales presentation and your girl and you get into a text fight.

Now try to go in and do the presentation for a sale that's going to make you 20 grand properly. So this is what we do, do you have any problems? They don't want to do business with you because they feel something's wrong with you.

Relationship. So I started looking at my business with everything that's connected to the business,. Personal development, this is business [left] this is personal life [right].

My financial issues makes me have a bad business because I stress out if I don't have my finances in order. My personal family life, you know, kids if you have kids. Girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, mom, dad, sibling - that affects business if that's not steady.

Health, you gain 40 pounds all of a sudden. Your energy is lower. You get tired earlier.

You know, you have certain pain that, throbbing, or certain things. That's effecting this [business]. You're getting a lot of headaches, and you don't really know where the headaches are coming from.

Maybe you need glasses. Hello, PBD, I went last week, the doctor says I need glasses and I'm getting glasses so you're going to see me start doing episodes with glasses, which I'm sure the first few episodes are going to be hilarious. Stay tuned.

My glasses are officially ready today. I think I'm going to go pick them up some time later on today. Spiritual.

For some of you guys that are very spiritual, is that connected to your business? So, 2016, gauge every one of them. How did you do in every one of them?

And this is how you do it. Good, bad, ugly. What was good about your financial, 2016?

What was good about it? What was bad about it? What was ugly about it?

What would you have done differently? Did you work hard in 2016? What are some details you can gather about every one of these things?

A relationship didn't work. Why not? What was good about it?

What didn't work? What part of it was on you, that you can control and change? Now I'm not talking about getting emotional and putting I want to know what love is or and then texting her back and saying, "Babe, I miss you so much.

I wish. . .

" I'm not talking about your reminiscing and going back to that. I'm just saying what was different about it? What can we do different with health?

Good, bad, ugly. I ate too much. I just started eating so much bread.

I ate so much sweets. I became lethargic. I only worked out two times a week, at best.

I don't even walk anymore. I used to walk. I'm not doing it any more.

Why not? Right? Spiritual, business, personal development.

So then as you're going through this and you're dissecting everything about your business for that, the following year, now you're looking at '17, let's just say you found all your mistakes, all the mistakes you made. You said you were going to give up some things and sacrifice, and you didn't. You still watch a lot of T.

V. You said you would give up certain things too, you didn't. You're still.

. . these are trends.

This is what you need. This is all the details you need. This is what's going to help you have a great '17.

This is the truth. This stings. This hurts.

This sucks. This is not fun. But if you can get through this, man, heaven's around the corner for you in business.

If there's a heaven for business, it's around the corner, but you've got to go through hell first. I'm telling you right now, you've got to go through hell first. So that part's first.

Now, let's just say you went through this. Now you want to put a business over here. Great.

For each of these categories, now, for 2017, you've got to start writing things down. For instance, financially. In 2017 when it comes down to my finances, I'm going to start saving $3,000 a month.

Hypothetically, I'm throwing a number out there. You know, one of my things I want to do financially in 2017, I want to save $50,000. I want to save $100,000.

I want to save $10,000. I want to save a million dollars. Ten million.

Whatever the number is, I want to do that. Great. I want to pick up these habits.

Great. When it comes down to my family I want to look for a girlfriend. I want to find somebody steady.

I want to look for a boyfriend. I remember in '08, no, '06, '07 - when I assessed my 2006, and I was going into '07, I had to ask a very weird question for myself. Here was the question.

Do I even want to get married? I saw a bunch of my friends getting married. They were happy.

And some of them were miserable. I saw all these stories about oh, you don't want to have kids, man, let me tell you one thing about kids. You're going to stay up.

I wish they would have told me, bro, all this stuff about kids are great. People do it because everyone's doing it. .

. And I just studied it. Do I want to have kids?

Do I want to have a family? Then I made a decision. I do want to have kids.

I do want to have a family. I'm the only Bet-David left in our lineage that can continue the family, I do want to have family. And I do want to continue this.

But here's the next part. I have no clue exactly what I'm looking for. So I went and studied.

I read a book, 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged by Norman Wright. And I went through all these 101 questions. I got very clear on what I wanted.

I took that book. I was dating four girls at that time. I had each of them read the book.

Came back, three off, one made sense. Those three are happily married, all of them. They're happily married, they all have great marriages, they're all good where they're at, but we just weren't a fit for each other.

And I moved on and I found my wife and we are married, we have three kids. And we're still happy as of today. We've been married for seven and a half years.

But I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my family. I can't just say, "Let's go 17! " No, clarity.

You want clarity. What do you want? Clarity.

What are you looking for, right? So family. Health, spiritual, personal dev - what needs to change?

Once you figure that part out, like let's just say in business. In business you may say, what do I need in business? I need better systems.

Great. Who do I need? I need seven great sales people this year.

I need one great sales leader, and I need two phenomenal assistants, and I need one operations person. Great. Write it down.

How much do you need this year to expand your business? I need to make around a million dollars this year. Okay, great.

Write it down. That's what you need to make. Great.

Then, how are you going to make a million dollars. Then you go break that down. Then that's the part when you write that long business plan.

So you need to create a mathematical formula. If I do x times y plus z, I will make a million dollars. So then give yourself a formula to hit that number.

That's the long business plan. Long business plan that you write. So your goals are here [business], how you get it is a deep, written business plan that you have, right?

Once you've done that, once you have done that, and you've written the detailed business plan, then, on one sheet of paper, one sheet of paper, you laminate, the front, on one sheet of paper, you write down, "2017" - you can put the title whatever you want - The Year of . . .

Give it a title. Every year is a new campaign. What is 2017 known for you?

What is your life, 2017 like. Right here [title], one of my favorite ones is 2017: The Year of Recreating Myself! The year of recreating myself.

I think that's a phenomenal way to start off for anybody, but yours may be the year of explosion, the year of growth, the year of expansion, the year of you know, whatever it is. You figure out a word. But your year, you need to give it a title.

What is 2017 going to represent to you? This gets a lot more fun as you keep continuing doing it. 2017: The Year of.

. . Great.

Then on one sheet of paper, all of these six brackets that you have, each one of them have two things written on them. Obviously, when it's a sheet of paper it's more room, I'm just writing on the board here. On one side, it's three new habits you want to instill in this part of your life.

Three new habits. For instance, financial, let me give you an idea. In '02, I created a habit of running my credit score every single month, once a month.

I remember even on what day it was. It was the 19th. Every month, I ran my report.

That's a new habit. Second, I tracked every single one of my financial accounts on the 19th of every single month. Mutual funds, stocks, investments, bonds, artifacts, whatever I had, every single month was my financial statement.

So these are new habits. Then the next one is goals. Habits, goals.

Habits, goals. Three. No more than three.

Three is enough for your brain to remember this. Three new habits, three new goals. Family.

Three new habits. You got kids. Sunday's I'm going to do .

. . with my kids.

Great. You know, you got family. I'm going to visit my parents once a month.

They live somewhere else that's two hours away. Whatever it is to you. Habits, goals.

I want to find a steady boyfriend or a girlfriend. Goals, not this year, next year we want to have kids. Goals, I want to strengthen my relationship with my father.

Whatever. Goals. Habits, goals.

Habits, goals. Same with health. Habits, work out three times a week.

Habits, don't eat bread, all year long, except for Sundays. No sweets, all year long, except for Sundays. Look at what will happen to your life.

Health. So that's habits. Goals.

Goals could be 190 pounds, 13% body fat, bench press 300 pounds. Goals, run a 26-mile marathon. Okay, one of my friends recently, where did he run it?

George ran a 26. 2 mile marathon, I think he ran it in Bakersfield, right? He said he's going to run it, he ran it.

This is a guy I've been mentoring for the last 12 years. So he said, "I'm going to run it" and he ran it. It's very strong mentally.

So you put goals. I'm going to run a marathon. Go run it.

I'm going to bench press two plates, 20 times. Go do it. That's the goal.

For each side, personal development. I want to read two books a month, four books a month. Okay, I want to read 50 books this year.

Great. Personal development. I want to find a new mentor.

That's a goal. That is exactly the life I want to have. I want to find a mentor.

You write it. New habits. what is a new habit?

A habit is you know, I am associating myself with people that are better than me. You can figure out the new habit that you can put in. I'm going to read 30 minutes a day.

New habit. I'm going to have meditation, spiritual time, 30-minutes every morning. Whatever it is for you.

Then business, same thing. Three, three. So habits, goals.

Habits, goals. Habits, goals. Now watch what happens.

When there's three habits, three goals. You have your detailed business plan, you revisit once a month. Because the detailed business plan is going to show you how to get to 190 pounds.

How to get to 12% body fat. How to do xyz amount of revenue this year. How to have $100,000 in savings.

That's the how-to. This is the goal. But your brain needs to see the numbers and then you can validate it with the formula that you've written on a sheet of paper that could be 10 pages, seven pages, but it needs to be in front of your face.

So what this one sheeter does for you, you're allowed to review it daily. You're able to drive your initiatives, and you, re-remind. Review, boom.

Review, boom. Re-remind. Re-remind.

Re-remind. And it's in your face. In your face.

In your face. In your face. How do you and I learn the lyrics to a song?

Re-remind, re-remind, re-remind, re-remind. How do you and I know the words to a commercial, you know the Dos Equis commercial? You know, he's so this, that even his enemies put them down as an emergency phone number, whatever.

Re-remind, re-remind, re-remind. They put it in our face so many times, re-remind and they drove the initiative. And they reviewed.

Let's adjust. Let's drive the next initiative. Re-remind, Dos Equis, review - same thing you've got to do to your brain, and your heart.

Same thing you got to do. So once you do this, one pager, then you got to make some sacrifices. So what are your sacrifices?

What are you going to give up this year? What are you going to give up in 2017? What are you willing to give up?

Show? T. V.

? Bar? Beer?

Drnking? Alcohol? Smoking?

What are you going to give up? What are you going to give up in 2017? Because you know what you need to give up.

Everyone's got a vice. What are you going to give up in 2017? Sleeping in?

Because that's the effort, and the strategy. And the more time you spend on the strategy, the details, the better of a one-pager you can write. The better of a one-pager you can write and you remind yourself the rest is history.

So, you may be asking, man, I wish I had this format. I got it for you. I got it for you.

Here's what I need you to do. I need you to go to my website, PatrickBetDavid. com, if you're watching this video on the website, go to the bottom, we have the one-pager for you, the PDF, you can download it on exactly how to have your one-page business plan written on a sheet of paper, that you can use yourself.

It will be formatted. All you got to do is print it out, grab it, laminate it. Put it against your shower wall, every morning you wake up, every night you go to sleep, look at it and read it out loud.

Just look at it. Look at it, look at it, look at it. Look at it.

Review, drive, remind. Every day. Every day.

Every day. You will be amazed within a week, two weeks, three weeks how much of this is already internalized in you. You can't help yourself but be thinking about it.

And somehow, some way, you start hitting it. Remember effort, strategy. We got the strategy.

If you put the time, here's a one-pager, then it's reminder, drive, review, and eventually, next year comes back up, 2017, and you're going to look at your last year, how this year went by, and you're going to say, "Oh my gosh, I hit 80% of my goals. This is so exciting. I hit 80% of my goals.

" And by the way, people ask me for book recommendations with this, honestly, I will tell you the best book recommendation I can give you on this, this may sound like I'm self-promoting, but I can't remember the last time I self-promoted this book. I will tell you, though, I highly recommend reading this book I wrote called 25 Laws for Doing the Impossible. It's sold 150,000 copies, translated in five different languages, I think now it's also in Mandarin, six different languages that you can find.

And one thing about this book, 25 Laws for Doing the Impossible, I wrote out exactly the formula I used to recreate me. So I'm telling you pure experience how this cat went from being a 1. 8 GPA in high school to somebody no one expected was going to do anything, goes in the military, comes out, becomes a salesman at Bally's, and gets into business, struggles for two, three years, four years, trying to figure this whole thing out, then I recreated myself, then the rest was history.

This book, the first 10 laws are all about how to recreate yourself, then how to identify your cause and how to go out there and make history. So you can have the link to the book, Paul, let's make sure we put the link to the book on the bottom as well, 25 Laws for Doing the Impossible. And last but not least, Paul, give me what you got there to your left.

Oh my gosh. Let's see that first, and then give me the other one. So this one here, the poor pillow has done a very good job for us in 2016 and helped us hit a goal.

Today we had a young cat that drove 30 miles away, named Phillip came through to just give us this new pillow. And we haven't yet decided what's going to be the new pillow. We're going to choose a new pillow.

This is how the pillow goes. Subscribe to Valuetainment. I love this new pillow, Phillip.

Subscribe to Valuetainment. Subscribe to Valuetainment. It's a cool-looking pillow.

It's one of the top three right now that we're looking at. If you haven't sent your pillow, if you have not sent your pillow, we will be deciding for these by December 31, on what pillow will be featured in our videos in 2017, to say, subscribe to Valuetainment. Because our goal in 2017 is to get to a million subs, so if you haven't subscribed, please do so.

Paul, give us a good catch. If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, about this video, comment on the bottom. Take care everybody, bye bye.