“Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.”
  —Peter Drucker

Business plans are the blueprints for a business. There are a handful of basic elements that go into a business plan:

1. the summary;
2. the description of the basic business concept;
3. the description of the company (or the proposed company), the “who is going to make this happen”;
4. an analysis of the market sector or industry the business will operate in;
5. an analysis of the competition;
6. the description of how the product or service will be made and delivered;
7. and the financial projections based on precedents.

There’s a lot of noise out there about business plans, but these are the basic elements found in every one and the good news is that writing a business plan is pretty simple and even exciting. That’s because, like a blueprint, it’s really an opportunity to dream, imagine and define your vision. It is the first manifestation of your business and the cheapest part—since it’s only on paper. If you’re excited about having and running your business, you should be just as excited about writing and completing your business plan.

We can help make your marketing plans, business plans, or creative direction and implementation better, more focused and more effective. If you or your company need any of these things, contact An Ad Guy.

“Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.”
  —Peter Drucker

The next step is not simply making your product available to your customer, through sales channels, venues, retailers and markets. That is just expecting the product to sell itself and unless it’s water, hot cheese, or chocolate, that’s not going to happen. The real next step is figuring out what exactly you want your customer to know, think, feel and understand about your product so that they are persuaded to take action and make a purchase. This is branding.

Too often, businesses treat branding as if it’s just a matter of slapping their logo on everything they make. That’s usually a part of this process, but done without a sensitivity for the end-result and the possible implications, this approach can work against you. Branding is the process of creating a personality for your company or product that will continuously and consistently express everything that’s important about your value proposition. Branding not only creates recognition, it creates a familiar bond, sometimes referred to as brand loyalty.

Along these lines, the truth is that advertising is not about selling. Selling is simply putting a price on an object and presenting that to the closest person, whether they are interested or not. “Widgets for sale! One dollar! Ten for nine dollars! Gechyerwidgets, heah!”

Advertising is persuasion, the act of dramatizing the value of a thing to a person or a group of people with the result that they “get it” and then voluntarily step up and pay for it, whatever the price is. “Widgie’s Widgets are waterproof and pressure-proof down to 100 meters! And you can cook with them…” Of course, there are other concerns, such as pricing, but the customer has to understand in their gut as well as their head why this thing you’re offering them is of value to them, sometimes referred to as the Why-to-buy.

Therefore, branding is not just one thing but a whole set of elements that work together, a holographic entity that flips that switch in the consumer’s head that’s going to make them say “Ah ha!”

I have written over 25 screenplays; 13 of those are feature-length scripts I consider to be finished and market worthy. Three of my screenplays made it to the semi-finals in two different screenwriting contests:

• HOME OF THE BRAVE placed in The Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, which is sponsored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
• LATENT IMAGE placed in the Austin Heart of Film Screenwriting Conference and Film Festival’s contest,
• CONTROL HOME, which I co-wrote with my friend Daniel Merritt, also placed in the semifinals in Austin.

While I began my professional career as an art director and I’ve always considered myself a visual artist, for almost as long I’ve been fascinated with storytelling and writing. I believe that cultivating and improving creative writing skills makes all of one’s writing better.

The ability to dramatize a point with an efficient use of words is critical in writing good copy.