The Independent Executive Business Plan – Be Intentional

Executives have more options than ever when deciding on what they want to do next in their career. The more purposeful and intentional they are with that decision, the more time they have to plan and prepare.

Whichever career path you choose, there is as much value in creating a plan as there is for any business. Let’s look at two very similar businesses: one with a plan and one without a plan.?

Imagine meeting a business owner, Roger, who is struggling with his business and can’t figure out why. You start asking questions. As the questions and answers unfold, Roger shares that he started making cheesecakes for friends and family a few years ago. It was a family recipe he has fine-tuned over the years. Anyone who eats a piece of his cheesecake says it is the best they have ever had. One day, Roger strikes up a conversation with a local restaurant manager who is intrigued and wants to try the cheesecake. After a taste test, the manager orders five to sell at the restaurant. Roger adds up his cost of ingredients, some compensation for the time it takes him to bake them, puts a little extra on it for drive time, and gives a price of $25 per cheesecake. This continued with a few more restaurants and local stores. Three years later, Roger has never worked so hard in his life, been so stressed, and made so little money.

Roger doesn’t have a business plan (written or otherwise). He’s never really thought it through. He’s making $10 on every cheesecake and can make 10 of them at a time in about an hour. In his mind, he is making $100 per hour, which is not bad. His go-to-market plan is word of mouth and chatting up restaurants and local store owners in the area. To him, these are all the paths of least resistance and come naturally to him.

Conversely, I know someone who recently did start a cheesecake business. This is the fourth business she has started, with a successful exit of her first, and the other two are concurrent with the cheesecake business. She has a business plan, she has done her market research, she knows what other cheesecakes like hers sell for ($60–$80 each), and every minute she puts into the business is intentional. This is partly because it is who she is, and partly because any minute she spends on the cheesecake business takes away from the other two businesses and the income-producing activities she could be doing.?

Think of your efforts as an independent executive in terms of a business you are starting. Like my friend who started her cheesecake business, consider every minute or hour you put into it as time being taken from something else, whether it is revenue-generating opportunities, your friends and family, or self-care (you) time.

Your executive career is your cumulative experience being leveraged to have a successful business, and it starts with a business plan. It is a plan for how to market and sell your experience, your skill sets, and the problems you can solve. Even if you are a well-known business author and consultant, such as Jim Collins, whose name is a brand and can sell itself, the brand represents his experience, his knowledge, and the hurdles he has helped so many of us get past through his writings, consulting, etc. You are selling what you can do for a client. When a client engages your services, there is an agreement between you and the client that includes a statement of work. The statement of work does not list your resumé. It lists the engagement goals, what problems exist, what will be done, expected outcomes, and deliverables.

Explore yourself and your career — and be intentional about where you are and where you want to go.

Here’s are a few elements to think through when putting together your Independent Executive Business Plan:

·?????? Your Why: Why do you want to be independent, why you are choosing one independent option over another, what is driving you?

·?????? Your executive brand: What are you great at, what is the value you bring, what problems do you solve?

·?????? Potential clients: Who has the problems you solve?

·?????? Go-to-market: How do you find companies/individuals with the problems you solve and connect with them? I’ll give a range of strategies to think through or help jumpstart your thoughts on what works for you.

·?????? Alignment: Understand what a company needs, and decide if you are the right solution or not. We’ll go through the discovery process and analyze what a company actually needs. The purpose is more for you than for the company. This is your opportunity to decide if the situation makes sense for you to say “yes” or “not for me, here’s another resource.”

·?????? Getting to “yes”: Once you decide it is right for you, how do you make it easy for the client to say “yes,” as well? We’ll explore possibilities for productizing what you do, what you should charge, and reducing the risk for everyone involved to move forward.

For more information on building an Independent Executive Business Plan, read The Solution Executive: Transform Expertise Into Impact .