I‘ve been helping entrepreneurs and business owners like you for more than 40 years — mostly from within our Business Power Tools software apps and templates, and thru my blogs and book, "Business Black Belt." My “Hero’s Journey” started In the early ’80s, I was the electronics buyer and a copywriter for the Sharper Image catalog. Later, I also sold some really cool word-processors in Silicon Valley. After Macs and PCs became popular, I started my own business creating sales literature for tech companies. A friend had a deal going to sell his engineering software to Apple. They wanted to see his business plan to be sure his company would stay in business to provide future upgrades and support. At the time, I viewed a business plan as an elaborate brochure that sold his concept to people at all levels, and responsibilities with various perceptions, biases, and interests. (I learned that from selling word-processors.) We Got the Deal. Over the next year, people came to me with some brilliant ideas, but their plans weren’t getting funded. I helped them fill in the missing parts to succeed. Along the way, I saw that business plans have a fundamentally universal structure. Hmmm… What if I took all the content I’d developed, redacted everything proprietary, but filled in the blanks with a variety of customizable multiple-choice options, and offered it as a software template that many people could use? This became BizPlanBuilder, the first of its kind, and my new company took off! Inspired to help others build businesses that would make our world a better place, we became our own Guinea pigs seeking to remove as many common mistakes and as much unnecessary BS as possible, and crafted tools for others building businesses to make our world a better place. We followed-up with MarketingBuilder, which picked-up where BizPlanBuilder left off, then we went even further with PRBuilder which included sample press release templates… In another direction, we added EmployeeManualBuilder and SafetyPlanBuilder full of actual policies and procedures. Altogether, we had 10 products in about 3,500 retail stores and built a $12 million company with 30 employees… (All that to say, I've been down the road you're on. I didn't just make this stuff up!) Today, all of our products have been integrated into a streamlined and unified online toolbox/dashboard. And we’re the leader in business development software templates that help you build your business. I also like dogs, kick-boxing, flying airplanes, writing, walking on the beach at sunset, candlelight dinners, and red wine... :-)

Dealing with Stubborn People!

  I was observing some stubbornness in a friend — and, when I notice some undesirable behavior in another person, I’ve learned that it is often a reflection of something that I’m doing (or have done), and the best way to deal with the friend is to first understand myself… which got me to thinking about…

Female Founders Are Getting Nowhere With Funding? A Response to Caroline Fairchild on LinkedIn

Do you believe Female Founders are getting nowhere with funding? The reality: businesses are complicated. There are a lot of moving parts so it’s up to you to make your deal make sense to an investor. If you allow yourself to believe that they’re not investing in you because you’re female, you’ve succumbed to what…

12 Sayings that Invite Disaster

or… NLP & The Law of Attraction Burke Franklin, Creator:Business Power Tools Author: Business Black Belt “Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” ~ Napoleon Hill “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” Listen to those words literally – they mean exactly what…

It’s not a resolution, not a goal…

What about adopting a new perspective on something? If you really want to do something new, make a change or bring something to fruition in your life, you must also change your perspective. “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ~ Roman Emperor, Marcus…

Stock and options for your team

Be careful talking in terms of % ownership! Many people seem to get hung up on what percentage of the company they own at any given time. If you need to sell more shares to raise capital or hire a new person, everyone’s ownership piece of the pie is going to change. It’s crazy-making to…