Leading-Edge Business Planning Course
The summer of 2022 I took my very first business class with the goal of walking away with a solid business plan for Palisade Posh. The class started Thursday, June 23 and on September 8th of this year I completed the Leading-Edge Business Planning course! Woohoo… even better I now have a business plan!
Overall, I would say the price of the course was worth it, especially if you get the Early Bird Special ($550) which is a discounted price for registering early. The class took place on Thursday evenings in downtown Denver from 5:30 – 8:30 pm and was offered through the Colorado Small Business Develop Center (SBDC) which is part of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. Interestingly, there are SBDC all across the country and even all throughout our individual states! In fact, the last time I was in Palisade my friend Laurie and I visited the Grand Junction SBDC. We got super excited about what they had to offer and the potential networking opportunities it had to offer! While talking to them, I tried out my ‘Palisade Posh elevator pitch’ and they were very receptive, and I quote “… we love artists…” They especially like the Artist Retreat and guest house combo! The SBDC is such a great resource for anyone starting a business as is the Leading-Edge class.
Each week, our instructor would either present on a business plan topic or we’d have guest speakers. We’d also do some group exercises, but I found those to not be as useful as the presentations or guest speakers. I would say the most impactful guest speaker was Jay Ballenberger (jballenberger@denverlibrary.org) from the Denver Public Library. Jay is a Business Librarian (I never knew there were such things as business librarians.) He provided useful information about how to navigate the business section of the library and well as their online resources. He also met with us one on one, outside of class, to provide us with additional research data. I met with him via zoom only my zoom wasn’t working so it was via a phone call. As a follow up, Jay emailed me a video tutorial that he created specifically for me as well as an outline of all the links etc… that we talked about during our phone conversation. Collectively this helped me to identify my target market for the Airbnb. This information was so incredibly useful and Jay was insanely helpful, super nice guy too!
The business plan, which I’m still fine tuning, is divided into sections. The first section is the Executive Summary, which surprisingly you complete last as it is a concise summary of the plan. If you are not familiar with business plans and or the format, the Executive Summary is the equivalent of the cover letter that you include when you apply for a job. One of the things you use a business plan for is to apply for funding, so this analogy makes perfect sense! The two main components of the Executive Summary are Opportunity and Expectations.
The next section of the plan is and expansion on Opportunity. In this section you identify the problem, as in the problem worth solving (this is the point of your business), the solution (your business), the target market, the competition, and your advantages over the competition.
The third section of the plan focuses on the Execution. Under this section you identify your marketing and sales plan, outline the operations, which includes location and facilities, technology and equipment/tools. Also in this section are your Milestones which equates to a timeline of when you want to complete what, and your Metrics. The Metrics are how you plan to track your financial success and potential obstacles.
The fourth section focuses on the Company including its history, mission, vision, and values. Writing the history was easy, fine tuning the mission and vision (I kept getting the two mixed up) was a little harder. The challenge for me was getting my mission down to a single succinct statement that didn’t sound cheesy and or insincere, same goes for the vision!
Our mission is to create a unique destination through experiential amenities.
Our vision is to be the Shangri-la of Palisade, the most sought after Airbnb in Colorado.
Believe it or not those two lines took me weeks to craft, edit, fine tune, and edit again! Totally worth it in the end though because both are from the heart and state clearly the mission and vision of Palisade Posh! Also, under the company section is where you identify your team – this includes ownership and structure, the management team, and advisors.
The fifth and final section of the business plan is the financials. This was the hardest section for me to draft because I’m not a numbers person. This is also where the Executive Summary expectation information comes from. Under the financials or financial plan, you covered the forecast (this included the projected revenue by month, the expenses and profits), the financing, the financial statements, projected balance sheet, projected cash flow statement, and the projected profit and loss statement (with monthly details). What helped me overcome my challenges with numbers and the financial section was the software program we used to create the business plan; it is called Live Plan. It is an amazing piece of software and I highly recommend it if you are trying to develop your own business plan and especially if you aren’t a numbers person like myself! As students of the program, we were given access to Live Plan while we were in class. Once we completed the class, we were also given a six month discount to continue using the software. I’m thinking I will continue to use the software beyond the six months so that I can keep track of the financials more easily. This will be especially useful when it comes time to start phase two of the business, which is the Artist Retreat, and need to look for additional capital funding to build or renovate the outbuilding (hopefully a big old barn) to be the art studio.
So there you have it, with a business plan in hand I am one step closer to making Palisade Posh a reality! Once we get our house here in Denver sold, we can start actively looking for property in Palisade… then the adventure really begins!
