Every business has a story. Sharing yours in the best place to start if you want to develop meaningful connections with your perfect prospects. Use these resources to build yours with Donald Miller's Story Brand concept.

If your target audience gives you a 30,000-foot view of the type of people your business will serve, the Perfect Prospect Profile brings that down to a street-level view. This is where true connection happens- when people feel seen and understood by you and your business. Remember, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care~ Teddy Roosevelt.

Bespoke (adjective): Custom-made; dealing in or producing customized experiences

Now that you have a street-level of how your Prospect feels, prepare to take a deep dive into color meanings. Be able to discuss the history (if applicable) and what the color means in general. Make the connection between this background information and how it is important to your business. 

The next aspect of this production is font selection. You will need to identify and select fonts that you will use for your headings, subheadings, and body of the different forms of content you and your team will create. 

Based on the humanistic and emotional connection you should have with your future first customer, select the colors and fonts that would speak most to that Perfect Prospect (with the understanding that she or he represents your larger target audience). With the Canva Color Wheel, you can create and download your color palette with images of the specific colors and the relevant color numbers.

Include this palette in your company style guide. Use a blank Presentation template in Canva showcasing your fonts and specific colors. The slide(s) should include the business name, tagline the design elements that you would want in your logo. You can draw inspiration for those design elements by clicking on the Elements icon in Canva, which can be found on the left side of the screen whenever you are drafting any type of design in Canva. 

One of the culminating aspects of this bespoke experience you are creating for your customers is your website. Donald Miller, author of Building a StoryBrand, suggests there are 5 things that every website should include. Sign up on his website to learn what they are for free! Your final deliverable is updating your website to incorporate each of those five things along with design elements of the brand kit that you have just created. 

With more than 20 years' experience in business development, customer relationship management, integrated marketing communications and strategic pricing, I have found that the shortest distance between an idea and executing the idea is Business Model Canvas. The 20-minute video below translates the Business Model Generation concept so you can build your own in the creation of your Business Operations Manual (BOM).

A finished BOM is a document file that incorporates your brand identity (color scheme, fonts and logo if available) and is the detailed, written version of your business model canvas.

Using design principles and free software like Canva, Easely, or Spark by Adobe, create an internal training document that does the following:

1) Paints the vision of the impact the business/organization will make based on your Brand Script;

2) Tells the story about the people you serve according to your Perfect Prospect Profile; and

3) Outlines in specific detail the way each aspect of the business should operate given your Business Model Generation. 

Consider formatting the finished product like a magazine and upload to Issuu (try to save it as unlisted so the general public won't have access to your company's proprietary information). Make sure the cover page of your organization's BOM is visually enticing so that someone will actually want to open it up and read it! While protecting the brand identity, make sure it's entertaining, inspiring and educational.

In preparing for the long-haul, you are going to create a pitch to secure investors, sponsors or even customers. Before you do that, we must answer the age-old question: "How much should I charge??"

The answer to that question is really based on what I call the Three C's of Wealth-Building:

• Communicating Your Capability: This is when you take a stance for the things you are passionate about and communicating to those around you that you are the best person- or your business is the best option- to get the job done.

• Calculating Your Capacity: You might truly love what you do but if you don't have the time to generate an income for it, then you don't have the capacity to make a living from it. Your Capacity to Earn Income is based on several factors- you can learn more about them as you dive deep into the Becoming FEARLESS Strategic Pricing Model.

• Computing Your Compensation: Here is where we bust the myths and shatter the assumptions about your worth. Many African American business owners undervalue their time, talent, and expertise and this shows up in the pricing structures they use. This is when you must put Profit First into your pricing. Revisit the Becoming FEARLESS Strategic Pricing Model to make sure you have a firm grasp on this.

Once you have your strategic pricing done, the rest of this will be a breeze!

This pitch should be based on Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start. You can use this Pitch Deck Template to pitch your business. (NB: If you are pitching to customers, the Financial Projections slide should be more like a product or service menu instead.)

The visual elements of the slides should be on-brand, with a color scheme and font that is consistent with the brand identity you previously created.

Your pitch should be no longer than 7 minutes and should end with a strong call to action. Make sure that your call to action is consistent with everything in the pitch that leads up to the call to action. For instance, if your Problem, Value Proposition, Underlying Magic, etc. slides are speaking mostly to your future customers, then your call to action should speak to them and not potential investors. The direct call to action from your StoryBrand should fit seamlessly in this pitch.

Create an account on Loom.com to create a voice-over for your video pitch. You will want to do 2-3 run-throughs to ensure that you master the technology and get your timing perfected. Keep one thing in mind: We are in pursuit of success- not perfection. With that being said, I don't want you waiting to launch this until you can get it edited. You know this stuff anyway!

When you are recording your pitch, just go through the material as if you and I were talking face-to-face (that is exactly how I'm writing this :). Let it come out as naturally as if I were right there in front of you.

You've got this!!

You read that right.

Not a 3- month goal or a 3- year goal.

Your Three-Generation Goal.

Think about what kind of impact you want this business to have three generations from now. How should it serve your grandchildren and their children? What about your current clients- will the company still be a viable candidate when their grandchildren are in the market for similar services?

Certainly, the business model might need to change to adapt to (or create) new trends in the market but the real question is will a company that you founded still be a player in the game three generations from now?

When you apply the Becoming FEARLESS Strategic Pricing Model from Step 5, your business can be profitable from Day One. And because you have a three-generation goal at the forefront of all you do, you work with trusted professionals to help you establish your family mission statement, family vision, and wealth management strategies that will last much longer than just three generations.

Connect with me to learn more about PDC Wealth- a family-based dynastic wealth-building coaching program designed to specifically address the generational trauma that people of color experience around money and wealth.