Some Vision Masters are gifted at seeing how trends shape the future. You may be one of them and not even know it. Today, we are talking to one such Vision Master. Burke Franklin has a unique grasp on what it takes in the present to make a business succeed in the future, especially if a plan needs to be revised in order to pivot. We are honored that Burke is taking the time to share his thoughts with our Intelliversity Vision Masters. He is also offering a link to the tools he developed to help CEO’s, Founders, and Innovators that you can use today to facilitate the pivots that you’re undertaking now at this crucial time.. His professionally scripted templates have helped hundreds of businesses to refine their plans and to scale.
If you are starting or building a company and looking for funding, take a look at Mr. Franklin’s BizPlanBuilder business plan software. It’s been around the longest and is the most highly evolved and vetted by seasoned Angel and Venture Capital investors. The modern, secure cloud-based collaborative dashboard includes customizable plans, financial models, and pitch deck templates are a one-stop place to get ready for startup and seed rounds of funding as well as running business planning.
Steven Kramarz:
Oh, hi. This is Robert Steven Kramarz of Intelliversity, and this is the Vision Master blog where we talk to and with vision masters like you, and those that support them like investors. Today, we have Burke Franklin, innovative founder of Business Power Tools. How are you this morning, Burke?
Burke Franklin:
Hi, Rob. Good to be here, thanks.
Steven Kramarz:
So what does Business Power Tools do for the sake of those that don’t know it?
Burke Franklin:
I’ve been in business 30 years, and we’ve been making business development software templates, if you will, that are prescripted, professionally scripted business plans, procedures, employee policies, sample contracts, press releases, everything it takes to build your company into something that investors will invest in, or build your company so you can scale it. It’s all those missing pieces that most people need to-
Steven Kramarz:
So how are you pivoting in the light of the COVID-19 crisis and recession?
Burke Franklin:
Well, I’ve had a few months to think about it, like most of us. So I’ve been thinking about how I can focus on who my customers really are. And I think they’re really the makers. I see made in USA is making a comeback, thank God, finally. So it’s really, how can I help people who are actually making physical products, hiring people, getting funded, selling their products in the reseller channels in the world? And so it’s really, I’ve been scattered everywhere, but now I’m really dialing it down to who can I really help, including those innovators, inventors and, of course, the consultants who help them?
Steven Kramarz:
All right. So what particular recommendation do you make to other innovators at this time?
Burke Franklin:
Well, I think the big word that comes up over and over again these days is pivot. I got to pivot. Now, what does pivot really mean? Well pivot, it might strike fear in the heart of most people. They go, “Oh my God. What am I going to do? How am I going to change?” I want to point out that really a pivot isn’t necessarily a tear down or a divorce. It might just be a small, incremental, directional change, like one or two degrees. It’s not a hard left turn. It might be a shift in focus of maybe a product or a customer base that you’re selling to. It could be you’re rethinking, really, how you’re doing your business altogether.
Now that your people aren’t there, haven’t been there in a while, you can think about do I have the right people in the right places? What do things cost? What are my profits? What’s my valuation? What’s my investor deal looking like? Where am I going with this business? And it’s giving you a chance to really rethink it. I think we can dial down our businesses and operate much tighter than we have before. Be much more effective.
Steven Kramarz:
So what in particular tools do you offer that might be useful in this process?
Burke Franklin:
Well, it happened to have the BizPlan Builder business planning software template, which I started with 30 years ago, so it’s evolved dramatically over 30 years and it’s really helped a lot of people. They’re not just for startups. So a lot of businesses these days are using it because they can go through really every aspect of your company from the whole operation through selling, to marketing, to product, product development, everything you’re doing, and of course your people. And it just gives you the opportunity to really rethink everything, and document it, and have a working plan to play with and work with, kind of like a movie script that you can share with people so everybody’s on the same page. And then there’s-
Steven Kramarz:
So what’s really innovative or contrarian in this broadcast is that a business plan is not necessarily for a startup, but it’s at a time of a pivot or a crisis, it’s a great chance to reexamine your actual written business plan.
Burke Franklin:
It really is. It is a big misconception that business plans are just for startups. I mean, half our customers are companies, this is before the whole COVID thing, would be buying it because they grew and they realized I grew up by the seat of my pants. It’s grown great, but now I’ve got a lot of people. I need to coordinate this thing. I need to dial it in. I need to learn from our… People talk about learning from our mistakes, but I advocate learning from your successes as well, especially your successes, and figure out what’s working, what’s not working, and make the changes accordingly. It just helps get… And also having a business plan, especially with an online web-based business plan like BizPlan Builder, you can get your team to collaborate with you online. So everybody has buy-in of what needs to be done. Everybody’s on the same page. You know what you’re doing, and you’re all pulling in the same direction. That is huge.
Steven Kramarz:
How can our listeners get ahold of your products?
Burke Franklin:
Well, come to my page just for your readers. You’ve got a link in your blog post there where we’ve got a special landing page for friends of Intelliversity, and clients of Intelliversity can come and you get a special deal on everything we offer, which would help you sort your company out, scale it and be ready, have your ducks in a row to grow, and reopen.
Steven Kramarz:
Thank you very much. Burke. We’re running out of time, so I want to say this is Robert Steven Kramarz with Burke Franklin of Business Power Tools. This is the Vision Master podcast from Intelliversity, and that’s the way it can be.