SMALL BUSINESS PLAN AARON SMITH Aaron’s Fast Snacks P.O. Box Lapeer, Michigan (810) 555-1212 This plan is being prepared and submitted pursuant to the reasonable accommodation requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, in the fervent belief that these Acts were enacted to provide maximum benefit to Aaron Smith and those like him who, with support, are qualified and able to own and operate their own small businesses. INTRODUCTION Aaron Smith is 25-year old young man whose life objective is to become a small business entrepreneur. Aaron earned his high school diploma from Lapeer West High School. Aaron, who has autism, also received transition and vocational educational services from Lapeer Team Work, Inc. [Team Work], Lapeer County’s supported employment agency. He lives in Lapeer with his father and mother, John and Mary Ann Smith, and his older brother, John. Aaron is a very socially out going with a keen sense of humor. His autism sometimes forces him to focus on narrow issues and concerns, but Aaron believes this trait will help him maintain concentration on the finer details of operating a small business. His parents and job coach report that Aaron is methodical and faithful in executing work plans. Once he learns the process he will reliably duplicate it thereafter. Aaron has successfully held a paper route of 260 – 275 customers for 7 years. His family, who drives with him on the route, reports that Aaron will not permit any obstacle (bad weather, snow, mud, animals, his own colds or flu, etc.) to interfere with precise completion of paper delivery as expected by his customers and employer Aaron remains active with Team Work, where he is receiving training in maintenance and janitorial services, as well as maintaining his employability skills. Aaron currently is working at several sites with job coach assistance. He cleans and maintains several offices (Court Street) in a small office building and provides floor maintenance services at an Episcopal Church as well as the county jail. Consistent with Team Work philosophy, Aaron has had several other employment experiences, including six months at Lapeer IGA, where he worked in the produce department; Big Lots, where he worked for the two month Christmas season; and a local video rental store, where he worked for two weeks as a “job exploration.” Aaron also has secured job and management skills from volunteer work in his junior high and high school libraries, and as a community volunteer library assistant for the Lapeer area library, where he re-shelved books without direct supervision.
Small Business Plan Aaron Doe
2
Aaron enjoys activities that enhance strong hand eye coordination skills including Nintendo, Game Boy and video games. He also enjoys bowling. Aaron is somewhat reserved but he has an engaging personality and makes firm friends. He realizes that he needs to concentrate on expanding his social skills and feels that a small business that supports him working with customers will help him to develop those skills. Aaron wants to set his own level of performance and achievement. He recognizes that he needs variety and planning time as well as time socializing with others. His previous job experiences have helped him begin to master both the planning and social aspects of working life, but he has not had enough control himself over the degree of time he has been able to spend in either activity. When he has worked for others the saturation of either social time or planning time has not been adequately adjusted to permit him to remain in the employment setting for extended periods (years versus hours) in the same job position. Aaron is excited about starting his own business. Working has become much more meaningful to him because he knows that his income is an important part of being able to live in his own home one day. Aaron already has many of the physical and intellectual skills needed to perform his proposed business’ daily tasks. Aaron realizes, however, that he needs the support of others to achieve complete success in operating his own business. He has assembled a support team that would be the envy of any sole proprietor. His team includes his parents and older brother, who have supported Aaron’s educational and employment objectives throughout his life; an attorney who concentrates in disability rights; a business controller/tax accountant seasoned in the operation of small and large businesses; the Director of Training for a statewide advocacy agency, experienced in marshalling community assets to support community living and work opportunities for people who have disabilities; a WSU Education Professor and nationally recognized expert on Self Determination; the Office Director and Transition Specialist at his local Center for Independent Living; and two state vocational rehabilitation specialists who are seasoned in supporting creative business opportunities for adults who have developmental disabilities. He also has access to community business leaders and local and intermediate school district personnel who have assisted him in acquiring his business skills in the past. This diverse group of committed team members is well connected to the local and state business and disability support communities, and is capable of finding and enlisting the aid of other specialists as might be required to help Aaron make good business decisions and operate his business efficiently and effectively. With the support of a job coach and his parents, Aaron will purchase the vending products, store his products, stock, replenish, and rotate products in the vending machines, clean the machines, complete route reports, sort money, deposit money at the bank weekly, respond to machine malfunctions, and market his vending machines to potential customers.
Small Business Plan Aaron Doe
3
BUSINESS ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS ASSESSMENT Management expertise and skills Aaron’s employment and business skill development cannot be conveniently converted into a conventional “business management” model. However, his autism and his tenacity for detail have enabled him to learn management skills by repetition. Once he nails job expectations and routines down, he has them and can perform all functions without direct supervision. In that sense, he is capable of and does in fact manage the performance of his employment requirements. He needs support at the start, as do we all, when he is learning the basic tasks of a job, but once learned he can perform them independently. So while Aaron has not “owned or managed” a small business, he has demonstrated the management skills, with support, necessary to create and operate Aaron’s Fast Snacks. His business plan embraces Aaron’s skills and includes strategies to ensure that he has access to support from his business team in developing his management skills in each area of his business. Successful business operators may possess a number of skills that permit them to adopt unique approaches to business management. Silent partners may stand in the background repeating profits while others perform daily business operations; assume “employee” obligations while allowing others (secretaries, bookkeepers, office managers, etc.,) manage the business; or form partnerships to allow others to assume daily management obligations and responsibilities. Each of these business approaches is every bit as valid and potentially every bit as successful as the conventional “business owner/operator” management model. Aaron’s ability to own and manage a business primarily rests in his recognition of his skill deficits and his ability to ask others to manage those areas of his life that he cannot or chooses not to manage himself. He has no difficulty or deficit in being able to delegate responsibilities to others. With the support of others, he has woven a net of support people who are dedicated, passionately committed, to helping him achieve his goal of owning and operating Aaron’s Fast Snacks. To the extent that Aaron’s “ability” or “qualification” to run a business do not comport with the conventional business ownership model, Aaron has designed or accepted the development of a system of people with particular skills to accommodate his desire to own and work in his own business while planning that others assume certain managerial obligations. Aaron’s ability to work inside the box (to faithfully perform learned skills in a deliberate manner) is exceeded only by his willingness to allow others to think outside the box to help him meet his business and life goals. His core support group includes several individuals who have owned or managed successful small and large businesses and have obtained the requisite business or professional degrees required to perform business management operations. Aaron has worked with his support team to develop this plan, has proposed changes to meet his needs, has accepted suggestions by others to change various plan parts and has coped effectively with the
Small Business Plan Aaron Doe
4
complicated task of developing all phases of this business plan. He is eager to take the employment experiences he has received through Team Work and his volunteer activities and to move deliberately toward owning and operating Aaron’s Fast Snacks. He has done so while meeting existing employment and family responsibilities and while effectively communicating both his existing demands and his business desires to his Team Work support staff and to his business support group.