Building your War Chest (Step 3): 365 days to 100K - Your agile strategy to hunt, What makes a great leader? Warrior and man
Your actual business plan, the pivot tool your offensive and defensive run and attributes you need to have to be effective.
I first heard the term ‘To build your war chest’ about half a decade ago, plus. I was working for a media consultancy building their bespoke digital platform and the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) was a guy called David. The Co-founder and CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) at the time, was named Tom. Tom and David really had a great dynamic and balance. David was charismatic, athletic-looking and a great storyteller, he has all the attributes of a leader, well-groomed, well cultured and ladies man, a James Bond. Tom had similar attributes as David but he sat in his mind more, he was meticulous, I would ever say a mastermind, a Steve Jobs. Their vision is and was amazing…
We were renegotiating my position in the consultancy, they wanted to keep me on, building out their digital ecosystem and David gave me his sales pitch about the company’s vision. I enjoyed every moment of it, the terminology, the way he spoke, paused, smiled and, if I wasn’t before, at that moment, I became a fan. He spoke about building ‘The War Chest’ and their market niche and how enriched it is and the action plan, it was war talk but wrapped in a Disney story of trials and tribulations - in essence, I learnt a lot more from them than they think - but whilst I respected them and wanted to be apart of their journey, their story, I didn’t realise I was already out there building my own - war chest - so I needed to travel to another land and become my own man.
They both were family men, fathers, husbands who went to the gym or ran. Both were sharp and had zero tolerance for wasting time. They both were Alphas in their own right and co-existed in a pack… Wolves and hungry ones… They networked well, took risks and chances, and the whales that they landed... £££.
Whilst I didn’t know their personal lives, in hindsight, I realised there is a lot of share attributes in being a great leader, father and warrior, and they led their team in the image of following great men. Once you break it down to actions and executions… Leadership is leadership, right?
What makes a strong leader?
Assessing and reacting fast to your environment; being concise with your thinking, and making sure that the course of action taken is extremely effective, is what it takes to be a good hunter, warrior, leader, man.
One has to sharpen and develop their mind to their landscapes… Remember, you have secret enemies out there, that want what you want or want what’s in your hand! A lean body with speed and critical thinking makes a man a great hunter, a formidable leader and a CEO that can stand the test of time and pressure on the mind. Funnily enough, these same attributes can be developed in the gym.
The gym teaches you to delay gratification, you also get back out what you put in…
The strength training, the sprint training and eating of the right foods, and having the discipline, will not only add confidence to who you are becoming as a man but to the external image of being a leader - You will look and feel like a strong person.
People will start to ‘dislike’ you because they want to be like you, they envy that you have the confidence to take a chance on yourself, they become jealous that they did not invest in themselves, they are riddled with self-doubt and fears, and you become a mirror. A mirror to the excuses that they fill their minds with, whilst they observe you, you excel.
The door of the gym is really the limbo, between, heaven and hell. The duality of both the inanimate and animate, the lifeless steel and the flesh, blood and sweat to exhale. Be consistent and who you walk in there ‘to be’ will even change the very structural composition of your brain - your cortex literally develops with your body as well - but even the gym has its traps, it’s called vanity and a lot of insecure people chase an image of perfection and die on the treadmill… You see? Be concise and develop a strong mind and the person you see in the mirror you’d like, from the inside.
“You Can Have Results or Excuses… Not Both” - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Your agile strategy to hunt
In the last post (Step 2), I spoke about the mindset that needs to be acquired, in order to better yourself and become who you can envision yourself to be. I state that 90% of your downfalls will be due to you doubting yourself. When you become self-aware it is such a powerful yet damning thing - you start to see the world for what it truly is.
To cushion your mind to the game, you have to see it just like that. A game. Life is a game, with game rules and game assets, game landscapes and game people - both allies and enemies - both bonuses, losses and wins. This is the monopoly board, the snakes and ladders, checkers and chess - all your childhood games. This is God of War and yours Kratos but, this is the point, in time, in which, you, set your game level, the risk to award, and a lot of people picking ‘Beginner Mode’… But right now you’re choosing ’Legendary’.
Be:
Fast
Concise
Effective
Learn to read the room and with that being said let’s get to the actual Business plan that you will use to navigate this world with all these attributes.
Your Lean Business Plan
Your lean business plan is simply your one paper business plan that holds high-level assumptions. Your business needs to be as agile as possible to survive. A traditional business plan is great to get them starting “in-game coins”, from the institutions you apply with but let’s be real, after a couple of months the information in that 30-40 page plan will become stale real quick and most don’t tend to update them.
As you learn there will be constant changes and who has time to open up Word when you’re engaging in war?
So what are we actually going to do?… STAY LEAN
Stay lean, agile and structure our lives with good time management - read this blog: Time Management: - 8 ways to think about time and improve your timekeeping to be a boss! it’s about how to plan and structure your day effectively, you’ll need to take control of this before anything else - this keeps you effective.
Once you’ve organised your time management, here are 9 areas you will need to answer to keep lean!
Customer segment
Problem
Revenue stream
Solution
Unique proposition
Channels
Key Metrics
Cost Structure
Unfair advantage
All these areas cover your landscapes and assumption that allows you to start hunting and building your venture.
Who is your prey? - Customer segment.
What problems of your prey are you trying to fix? - Problem
What can you eat from solving this problem? - Revenue Stream
What is your plan to solve these problems? - Solution
What will make your prey come to you especially? - Unique Proposition
What paths are you leading your prey down for this solution? - Channels
How are you going to tell if you’re hunting well? - Key Metrics
How is your hunt style set up, what is your weapon? - Cost structure
What do you have that makes this hunt easier for you? - Unfair advantage
Fortunately for you, if you wish to get a more detailed approach to answering these 9 areas subscribe below and send me a message! I enjoy working with budding entrepreneurs and building their visions, so hit the subscribe button and we can talk!
Once you’ve completed your lean, it should be filled in and designed like this (screenshot this image)
You can quickly create these boxes in Google slides and share the document with your business partner, mentor or friend and can start filling areas in, in collaboration.
Do not spend too long on this, this lean plan should not take you longer than half a day to fill in, and you will notice areas in which your knowledge is weaker but you can add additional slides with the area title “revenue streams” and bullet points some assumptions like..:
Is your business model:
Business to business (B2B)
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Consumer to Business (C2B)
Direct to Consumer (D2C)
Revenue Streams:
Subscription fees (monthly usages fees)
Renting, leasing, or lending assets
Licensing content to third parties
Brokerage fees
Advertising fees
Once you write all these areas down, we can move on to the next steps when you can test the market pivot and tweak and make leaner your one-page business plan!
If you like these posts and/or have further questions, please do let me know.
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Twitter: @BnBeckford
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I am always here to help!
Thanks for reading!
The ‘war chest’ series will be broken down into the following:
Registering a business, Business Banking & Accountants - Preparing your war chest and council.
Your idea & raising startup funding (A business plan) - Understanding your landscape.
Prototyping your product (MVP) - Your Weapon
Planning your go-to-market strategy & the power of your brand marketing - Drawing first blood in battle.
Personas, knowing your customers & converting leads - learning your opponents.
Creating a Loyal Customer base & scaling your business (additional funding/venture financing) - Building your kingdom.
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