|| WBL – Elevator Pitch ||

Whilst learning about business plans, I came across a term I had not heard before, “Elevator Pitch”. Upon further research, I learned that it is a short pitch one would give to someone they are interested in doing business with, but short enough to only last a minute or so, or as long as it takes to get in an elevator with this potential business partner and reach their floor, hence the term elevator pitch. What we as a class decided to do was write our own for the business ideas we made up when going through the Prince’s Trust business plan pack.

As mentioned earlier, my business plan was for an occasion cards company; as the elevator pitch should be so short, only the important information should be said. Before completing the elevator pitch in the business plan pack, I was given a template hand-out, on which I filled out the different sections to perfect my elevator pitch. There were four sections to fill out that, when put together gives an elevator pitch that would be the right length of time when saying it and contain the necessary information. The four sections are; your opening, the middle, the call to action and the conclusion.

The first section, the opening, should last around 10 seconds when you are saying it, and it should include information such as your name, your business name or profession and where you are based, if you have a base or where you are looking for business. As this section should only be around 10 seconds long, you need to make sure you are not including information that is not needed at the start. For example for my card company, I wanted all the designs to be hand-rendered, but it would not be necessary to mention this at the start of the pitch.

The second section is where the bulk of the information about the business should go. The middle is supposed to last around 30 seconds, this is the longest of all the sections. Within this you should mention the products you plan on selling/are already selling or any services you offer, and what you require. So for me, this is where I would mention that my designs are hand-rendered, and how, being digitally and traditionally.

The call to action section, like the opening, should only be around 10 seconds; in this section you say what you would like the potential partner to do, this could be looking at your website, online portfolio, etc. At this point you should also give them something that will remind them of you, i.e. a business card.

The conclusion is the last section, here you just want to end with your basic information, back to your name, business name/profession and finally your strap-line, which is a short statement about your company. For example for my card company it could be something along the lines of “Cards for every occasion”.

To finish the business plan pack, I filled out the elevator pitch section in it, this was split up in three sections, first your business name, then your strap-line, and finally your elevator pitch. This is all of the four sections in the first hand-out put together in one paragraph and written down. This when said out loud should be around a minute long, no longer than three minutes, as this is too long and the person may loose interest if you have too much information that is of no use too them, or be distracted by something else.

I think the idea of having an elevator pitch ready and practiced for whenever you need is very useful, and will possibly come in handy when I have established what I want to do, and need to promote myself with as many people as I can, as quickly as I can. This definitely something to keep in mind for when I have finished this course and if I decide to start my own business.

|| WBL – Business Plan ||

To really learn how a business works and what I would need to go through, should I decide to set up my own business later on after this course, or even later on in life, I would need a business plan. There are many different business plan templates out on the internet, but the one I chose to follow was the Prince’s Trust Business Plan Pack. I was to decide on a business that I would like to run, it could be anything imaginary, and build up a business plan for that business. I chose to work around a business that sells cards, such as birthday and other occasions.

The Prince’s Trust Plan Pack says that the best business plans are not long or complex, they only explain the most important aspects of starting this business, these are what you want to achieve, how you will get there and what you need to do along the way. This business plan helps one plan out a business in chunks, giving different sections that all need to be filled out to have a complete business plan, to develop your business plan, there is also a guide go the pack that is accessible online.

Upon deciding that I wanted to have a card company, I had to do the research into how much everything will cost, such as advertising – printing out flyers and posters etc. The first page is a ‘Getting Started’ page, on this you would write all your details such as company name, your name, address, number and email and that for the business if it is different to your own. After filling that out, the next page calls for an executive summary, this is the business summary and aims and a financial summary, for this I put that my business summary is to sell handmade occasion cards online. The aims of the business are to create designs that are completely different to those on the market at the moment. Financially I would be aiming to gain a small profit in the first year and hopefully increase as the months go on. The next page is all about the quick selling of the business, so the name, strapline of the business and my elevator pitch. This is the end of the first section.

The second section is generally about the owner’s background, asking for information such as why I want to start my own business, previous experience, education and qualifications, training, hobbies and interest. Section three asks about your products and services. Four about the market, such as who you are selling your product/service to. Section Five about market research, desk research and field research and your key findings from doing so. Six goes on to marketing strategy, how you are going to advertise your business. Seven is competitor analysis. Eight asks about operations and logistics. Nine and onwards goes on to pricing and costs of everything – the financial side to starting your own business. All in all there are Eleven sections all that help start your business from the bottom. Once put together you have the necessary information gathered to begin starting your own business.

One important thing to remember when creating a business plan is not to just throw in lots of unnecessary information but to keep it concise and relevant. A business plan does not need to be full of pages and pages of fine details that are completely irrelevant instead, the important details that will help you the different areas of your business are the details are what’s necessary.

Another major part of having a business, is protecting yourself legally. Contracts need to be drawn up for every job you do, so that you and the client understand each other properly. Whether this be in person on paper, or online through having to accept the terms and conditions of a website, the contract needs to protect your work, not allowing the client to sell your service on unless those terms were agreed against. A contract, like a business plan, does  not need to be extremely long, but just needs the necessary details to stop you from having issues with clients afterwards. Upon doing research into important topics to cover in the contracts, I found that these include; having the client information, project information and the project price and payment terms, at the very top, the first part of the contract. Ownership of the artwork is another topic, this keeps your work, yours. Also how the artwork will be given to the client, will it be a digital or physical copy? Amongst other important topics, cancellation needs to have its own section in the contract, should be client back out, it needs to specify whether or not they can keep artwork that has been sent to discuss changes, and that you should get a fee for having completed the work that was already done.