Yesterday we had lunch with a woman who buys into this crap. She was trying to gauge our business by asking such questions as: do you have a written business plan, how often do you have meetings with your partners, how often do you have staff meetings, etc.... It was really annoying. If the meeting had been arranged differently and had I not been buried in the middle of the booth I would have done like Snagglepus and... exited stage right.
As she asked her annoying questions my eyes glazed over as I knew I was not the type of person she wants to do business with. I am straight forward and honest so I answered all her questions honestly:
1) No we don't have a written business plan;
2) We have partner meetings when they are needed;
3) We have staff meetings when they are needed.
Now, I had other thoughts to answer her questions but they were just thoughts:
1) No we don't have a f'ing written business plan because that is the biggest f'ing time waster in corporate f'ing America and really should be reserved for college students, state workers and others who don't have to worry about making money.
2) My partners and I are too busy helping our clients and making money so we don't schedule a meeting just because we have to have a partner's meeting the first Tuesday of every month or some such thing. Rather we have a partner's meeting when it's needed; you know, when we have an important business issue that requires a MEETING of the minds. Might be every day and might be once every six months but it's when we have something to talk about and not just an excuse to order coffee and danish and shoot the breeze with each other.
3) If we need to tell the staff something important we schedule a meeting. Otherwise they do their job because their job description does NOT include sitting in meetings all the time just because. What a waste of f'ing time. Plus, it's just more danish and coffee we would have to buy!
Simply put most of us with a business have a pretty simple business plan:
My business plan is to make a ton of f'ing money in an ethical manner.
Really, beyond that I don't care about much. Did I make a lot of money? GOOD. Did I treat everybody properly? GOOD. What the f' else really matters? Could I wordsmith the thing to death, add a few other sentences, come up with some great catch phrases, etc...? Sure I could but why waste the time. I am too busy trying to make money so I can pay for my kids private school, my big house, etc.... My job is to MAKE MONEY.
In hindsight I probably should have re-directed this annoying lady to some other questions that she could have asked. For example, maybe I should have said:
While the issue of a written business plan is an intriguing academic exercise it seems a more relevant question you could ask is: how long have you been in business? You would find we have been operating by the seat of our pants, with a written business plan, since 1979. That's a hell of a lot better than 95% of the companies that DO have a written business plan, true?
Additionally, the idea of regularly scheduled partner meetings are nice why don't you ask how well the partners get along or how much we trust each other? I would tell you that the other day we had to move money around to keep our bank accounts under the FDIC limits and when I heard we had to move $50,000 I did not hesitate, or think twice, in saying just give it to one of my partners and we can straighten it out later. I KNOW they aren't going to steal the companies money. Even though I don't have regularly scheduled meetings with them I know they won't steal it!
I could go on but hopefully you understand that business statements and regularly scheduled meetings are a waste of time. I can promise you that EVERY single big corporation that Bush is bailing out, so that McCain has a chance of being elected, has a well developed business plan, weekly partner meetings and monthly staff meetings. As George Zimmer says, I GUARANTEE IT!
In fact, corporate America would be much better off reading the SacTownGuy every day because I guarantee you I will share more useful information than you ever could come up with at your next staff meeting! Plus, I wrote your business plan up above and you can copy it if you want to.
peace out.
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