Business Plan Experts

A business plan should tell a compelling story about your business, explaining who, what, when, where, how and why. The plan should define specific business objectives and goals to guide the organization. These two successful entrepreneurs understood the importance of a business plan and what key components of a business plan made their business successful.

While working full-time at Red Lobster, Daymond John launched FUBU (For Us, By Us), a clothing line marketed to the African-American community, in 1994 with $100,000 in startup capital. At the height of the company in 1998, the business grossed $350 million in revenues.

 John now a cast member of the ABC show, Shark Tank, he listens to entrepreneurial hopefuls are looking for an investor to invest their personal money into their business ideas.  In exchange, the Sharks are not only looking for a return on their investment, but also own a piece of the next big business idea.

In an interview with blogger Tim Ferriss, John says that he makes the deciding factor in investing in an particular product by asking himself a few questions. He focuses on:

            -What void in the marketplace does this product fill?

            -Who are the core consumers? Has the company correctly marketed to them?

            -What are the sales?

            -What are the distribution channels?

            -How much does this entrepreneur know about his own industry?

            -Is the business on an upswing? Or has it peaked?

            -Is their room for profit and growth?

            -What is the plan for growth? Is it laid out or simply another idea in the entrepreneur’s head?

            -Is the evaluation of the company fair?

            -How can I best help this company?

He continues with that the entrepreneur should always be ready for these questions and he/she doesn’t have a quick response to these questions, there is a problem. 

“With a business plan, there is direction and focus. If there is no business plan, then there is no focus for your business and you are bound to fail. With a plan, you know where you are going, what you are doing, and how you will get where you want to be,” says real-estate tycoon Donald Trump.

Chairman and President of the Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts, Trump has succeeded in marketing and branding the Trump name on a number of products ranging from a mortgage firm, business education company, restaurants, online travel, menswear and more.

In 2004, The Donald became Executive Producer and host of the NBC reality show, The Apprentice, where competitors duke it out for high level management position within The Trump Organization.

Effectively Using SEO

As an A&R Consultant with Lisa Davis Music Management, I encounter a lot of independent artists who know that the Internet, especially social media is a great resource to promote their music and build their brand, but do not understand the importance of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a web page in search engine’s search results.

So many artists are eager to set up multiple social media accounts and a website, but there is no kind of connection. In my experience, the focus should be tying all of these outlets to one main source. Meaning all of your social media profiles should drive your audience back to one central location, for example your website. An artist that has done a great job of linking all her social profiles together is Gaby Borromeo.

Gaby took to her social media profiles to promote her song and video “New Day”. I think Gaby did a great job of using backlinks. Exchanging link with other related websites is very important because it help increase backlinks to your site. In the case, Gaby back linked her main, lyric and behind the scenes videos. By linking all the videos together, that increases the chances of fans watching all the videos.

I believe that artists underutilize the description portion of their YouTube videos. This a great opportunity to take fans directly to your website and social media links. Gaby did a great job of linking viewers to her website, the download link for the song and her social media profiles. For instance, when I Google, “Gaby Borromeo New Day”, my Google results include the website posting, the official video, lyric video, PSA video, press and even a link to her SoundCloud page. This is a great example of optimizing SEO.