Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Oct 19

Everyone has heard the importance of business planning. Creating a business plan before you start your business is very nearly a universal starting point for all successful businesses. In fact, Chris Corrigan, an Australian businessman who grew logistics company Patrick Corporation into one of Australia’s most successful companies and owns part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Blue airline, said, “You can’t overestimate the need to plan and prepare. In most of the mistakes I’ve made, there has been this common theme of inadequate planning beforehand. You really can’t over-prepare in business!”

Once again, we find that business and aviation are quite similar! Let’s walk through the business planning process and take a look at the similarities:

The first step in any plan is to know where you are… determine where you stand in your business knowledge and preparation. Are you ready to start a business? Do you really want to? This is analagous to a pilot’s home airport and “I’M SAFE” checklist:

• I: Illness - It is best not to fly while suffering from any illness.
• M: Medication - Pilot performance may be adversely affected by the taking of certain medications.
• S: Stress - Stress from work or from home may distract pilots during important segments of a flight.
• A: Alcohol - As little as one ounce of liquor, one bottle of beer or four ounces of wine can affect a pilot’s skills negatively.
• F: Fatigue - Fatigue affects a pilot’s coordination and alertness.
• E: Emotion - Emotions of anger & depression decrease alertness & may lead to taking higher risks than necessary

If any one of these things is affecting you as a pilot, it’s best to postpone your flight for another time. In business, a lack of knowledge of the industry, a poor work ethic, a bad reason for starting a business, other important obligations, etc. are all good reasons to delay the start of the business until your situation changes. I have come up with the following acronym, similar to the “I’M SAFE” checklist to help you determine if you are ready to start a business (NEW BIZ):

• N - Network: Do you have both a business network and a personal network of people who will support you?
• E - Emotion: Is your desire to start a busines free from emotion (e.g. anger or frustration at your current job)?
• W - Work Ethic: are you willing & able to work the hours necessary to start a new business?
• B - Business Acumen: Do you have experience in the industry you would like to enter?
• I - Investment: Do you have the capital (or can you get the capital) necessary to launch & sustain the business until it is profitable?
• Z - Zealous: Are you passionate about this business idea and industry?

If you cannot answer yes to all of the above questions in the “NEW BIZ” checklist, it might be better to wait to start your business until you can. Answering “no” to any one of them will only cause you frustration and pain in the long run of starting and running your own business.

Can you answer the “NEW BIZ” checklist questions in the affirmative? What other considerations might you want to consider before jumping into the entrepreneurship world? Tell us by leaving a comment!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

P.S. Stay tuned for part two of this six-part series: Where do you want to go?

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on May 29

I haven’t done this in several months (though I did post on the first one ever - in the comments sections of the post itself), but I think it’s a good idea and a great way to reflect on what one has learned in the past month (and if you can’t say that you’ve learned at least five things in a month, no matter how trivial it seems to you, there’s something wrong with you!).

 So, in the manner laid out by the Joyful, Jubilant Learning Blog, here are my top five “learnings” for the month of May:

1. No matter where you are, no matter what you think, you have friends near you.  My wife and I were at a beautiful wedding over Memorial Day weekend in Clearwater (Dunedin), Florida.  It was the wedding of a very good friend of ours who Jill met while working in Theatre in Columbus, Ohio (and who now lives in New York City, NY, but whose family is still in Florida).  We didn’t expect to know anyone at the wedding or the reception except the bride and groom themselves (whom we expected to be rather busy, for some reason); however, once we got to the reception, we were almost immediately approached by two other couples who knew us (though we didn’t know them immediately).  It turned out that Jill had met the women while they were the bride’s roomates in college!  And at the end of the reception, one of the bridesmaids was another friend of the bride’s whom Jill had met previously!  Another of the joys of networking… in Florida, we ran into people who we knew from Columbus, Cincinnati, and Kentucky!
2. A business can survive through almost any length of “down season” if the “busy season” is busy enough!  A small shop in Clearwater, FL makes 1/2-pound cookies and homemade ice-cream - and was pretty much empty except for while we were in it (eating a chocolate-chip cookie with two scoops of vanilla ice-cream and hot-fudge on top… whoa!).  The man behind the counter said that spring break is always his best time.  Planning ahead for the rest of the year is of utmost importance!
3. Related to the above, a business can survive without a business plan or without good leadership if it’s in the right location.  If you serve alcohol and pizza, and are located on a beach where college students frolic during spring, you could leave your business i the hands of a monkey and still survive.
4. Love bug season in Florida SUCKS.  Those damn bugs were EVERYWHERE and they were ANNOYING!  Jill and I took to calling them “Fuck Bugs” for two reasons - 1) they were fucking, and 2) we were constantly saying “Fuck, bugs! Get away from me!” I buried as many as possible in the sand, alive. 
5. Business is just breaking down a large “problem” into small, actionable parts.  The “problem” is your business and the small, actionable parts are your goals and plans to reach where you want the business to go.  This is basic - but I constantly need a reminder of it.  I’m reading Robert Allen’s Multiple Streams of Internet Income, which breaks down internet business quite well.  I’ve already taken 13 pages of notes and I’m not even halfway through it.  I’ll buy a copy for myself (I’m reading a library copy) so I can highlight and underline and take notes in the margins…

Hope you enjoyed this, and I encourage you to do the same thing on your own blog… (what?  You don’t have a blog?  Leave a comment on this one or on JJL’s!)  or at least in your own head so you reap the benefit of reflecting on the month behind you!

Next post will be back to our regularly scheduled programming (the sacred six flight instruments & how they relate to business)!

Fair Winds,
Andrew