How to Write a Simple, One Page Business Plan with Dave Sullivan

Are you a business owner that would like to retire one day and be able to pass off an excelling company? Then today’s show is just for you! Creating a one-page business plan that any business can use to get their company in order. Dave Sullivan has his own podcast “The Roofer show”, where he helps teach others to grow their business, make more money and have more free time.

In 1979, Dave graduated from the top-ranked business school at the University of California. His plan was a long summer of travel and adventure before joining the family roofing business.

He was looking forward to working with my father and learning the ins and outs of running the business. And he was looking forward to his retirement and finally relaxing and traveling himself. Something he could never do while he was “chained” to the business. But those plans were all cut short when he suffered a heart attack from the long hours and stress of running the roofing company for all those years.

Suddenly, Dave had to step up take the reins of the family business. Now he was a contractor.

But without his father’s “real world” guidance, it didn’t take him long to run the business into the ground. He knew he needed help but like so many contractors, he let his pride get in the way.

After finally setting his ego aside he started the long climb out of the hole he had gotten into.

But he didn’t do it alone. He hired a business consultant and it changed his life. With his help they designed a plan to take Dave where he wanted to go. He knew he didn’t want the stress of doing everything himself and grinding out a living working 14 hour days. He’d seen first hand how that works out. He wanted to travel while he was still young and have the time to watch his 3 boys grow up. Essentially, he wanted to be able to do whatever he wanted to do. He wanted to enjoy life. He wanted to have a business that worked for him. Not just a job where he worked for his business. And that’s exactly what he did. Over the years he built a wildly successful roofing business that allowed him to step away from the stressful day to day decision making and live the life he wanted.

A generous gift from Dave Sullivan: Check out his website to download his one page business plan!

Show Highlights

  • Dave’s rough start and what lessons he learned early on in the business
  • What Dave realized he needed to help him with his problems
  • The one-page business plan, and what you need to make the plan
  • Focus on what your company does well, that is when Dave’s business finally took off
  • 8 step plan and actually convincing someone they need a business plan
  • Step 1 – Start at the end, at the destination so you can reverse engineer a roadmap to get there
  • Step 2 – Who, what, where and why about the customers
  • Step 3 – Mission Statement, an elevator pitch that focuses on what problem you solve
  • Step 4 – The SWOT – Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your company
  • Step 5 – Operation, the key to business, sell work, do work and keep score
  • Step 6 – The process, having systems in place so you can get out of the way
  • Step 7 – The action, what is the most important thing we can do
  • Step 8 – The view, what it will be like when you are at the end, exiting your business

Resources

Check out the conversation between Mike and Sabrina that 95% of entrepreneurs never have at the Profit by design website. Profit by design Podcast Website

Profit by design Facebook group

Email: SabrinaAndMike@ProfitByDesignPodast.com

Check out and Subscribe to Dave Sullivan’s “The Roofer Show” Podcast website

Sponsors:

Tap the Potential website

Contractor Business Solutions – Small Business Consulting Group Website

About The Author

Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist and international best-selling author of the How to Hire the Best series and The 4 Week Vacation™, is the founder of Tap the Potential and host of the Profit by Design podcast. At Tap the Potential, we work to free business owners from the constant demands of a growing business.

We believe work supports life, not the other way around. Clients in our Better Business, Better Life coaching program have more time for what matters most and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. Next, we send them off on a 4 Week Vacation™ to celebrate their hard-earned journey to take their life back!

Dr. Sabrina and her team at Tap the Potential are on a mission to change the story of entrepreneurship from one of long hours, grinding it out, to one of sustainably profitable businesses that support and enhance life. The Tap the Potential Solution™ and our Tap the Potential Family of Business Owners are disrupting small business as usual. We are on our way to making the Tap the Potential Solution™ the mainstream model for growing business.

By 2023, 150 Tap the Potential clients will have taken 4 Week Vacations. These are the trailblazers, role modeling what’s possible for entrepreneurs. In many entrepreneurial circles, it is becoming more and more common for one entrepreneur to ask another, “Have you taken a 4 Week Vacation™?” (as opposed to asking “How many employees do you have?” or “What is your annual revenue?”). Taking a fully unplugged 4 Week Vacation is rapidly becoming the recognized symbol of entrepreneurial success.

Never one to accept the status quo or back down from a challenge, Dr. Sabrina’s How to Hire the Best series grew from her desire to solve the toughest hiring challenges interfering with her clients’ growth and profitability. What sprang from her experience working with entrepreneurs in rural areas catapulted her into becoming the world’s leading expert in attracting top talent in small businesses—no matter what hiring challenges those businesses are facing—and earned Tap the Potential’s reputation as the go-to resource for entrepreneurs committed to creating Great Places to Work with thriving coaching cultures and highly engaged team members working from strengths.

As The Business Psychologist, and with her years of driving profit in small businesses, Dr. Sabrina knows what it takes to find, keep, and motivate exceptional performance out of your biggest investment—team members.