Business Planning

Shit. Okay, this is probably the biggest stressor in my life right now and the cause of my non-functional day yesterday. It's all about a stupid, fictional business plan that I have to write for school.

Funny how one little assignment can send me, a Cancer, into complete mental breakdown.

I've been in Professional Development 3 class for about two months. It is all about starting a business and/or having all of the information necessary for being hired by someone as either an employee or sub-contractor. We've had a ton of information thrown our direction - everything from how to do market analysis, to income statements to the difference between sole propriotorship, LLCs, C Corps, and S Corps.

Apparently I've been sleeping through this class. I've totally tuned it out because it isn't interesting to me AT ALL. Our final project involves writing an actual business plan and I've been putting this off for weeks. I turned in a rough draft, which was only 2 pages. If I do a thorough business plan the end product should be about 10-15 typed pages.

In class on Thursday our assignment was to do a financial statement for a business. This is when my breakdown started. I don't do math or numbers, and I don't do money either. I was supposed to team up with my classmate, Nate, and write this thing with him. Emmanuel, our teacher, was our "consultant" and we had to pay him for advice. Well, I had no clue what the f__k was going on so I turned into baby mode, started pouting and spouting off about how much I dislike this class, why I will never open my own business, and how disappointed I am in my classmates for never coming to class. Nate was there, but Kelly didn't show up for another hour.

I really believe that my mood has a deep dark effect on people. By the end of class Emmanuel was so frustrated with us he left. He came back 5 minutes later to apologize, but still...

So not only was I upset about the class, my black mood brought everyone around me down also, so then I was dealing with the guilt of that. I apologized to Emmanuel after class.

I've decided to tackle this business planning thing. Since it touched a very deep nerve with me I think it will probably be an awesome growth opportunity if I just buckle down and do it. Dave and I are going to buy a piece of software next week - Biz Plan Pro or something like that to help me. It will do all of the math for me.

I'm going to make this plan sort of for real. I'm going to call my massage business either "Under My Thumb" or "Past Tense". What do you think? I'm having a hard time choosing. I'm going to start off as a sole propriotor and then maybe turn it into an LLC or S Corp at some point. It will be solely outcall at first, but then after a year I hope to open my own practice in a store front.

Right now, though, I have a lot of work to do. I need to do some research and I need to get a rough idea of what I'm really tackling here. I was looking at sample business plans on-line last night and they are EXTREMELY detailed. Sigh. Yuck. Whatever. I just have to do it.