Stop Losing Money: The Entrepreneur's Guide To A Solid Business Plan

Alright, let’s cut to the chase: are you building a business that’s truly free or just another gilded cage? In this episode, Don Costa pulls no punches about the number one mistake he sees crushing even million-dollar businesses: the lack of a solid plan. Drawing from years of mentoring high-level entrepreneurs through his ICE Mastermind and Watch Me Scale Challenge, Don breaks down why just chasing revenue is a recipe for disaster. Forget the illusion of freedom—let’s talk real profit, real control, and defining exactly what “enough” looks like for you. If you’re ready to stop the cycle of barely scraping by and finally build a business that serves your life, not the other way around, then tune in now.

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Stop Losing Money: The Entrepreneur’s Guide To A Solid Business Plan

Welcome to the show. As always, I’m excited to bring you more content and information about some amazing things we’re doing on this side of the Flip Talk universe and the Watch Me Scale Challenge. If this is your first episode coming to us and Flip Talk and or if you’re if you’re watching this video in our community, then you got to know that I’m doing this amazing thing where, I don’t know, however many months ago, I literally stopped doing deals whatsoever, dismantled my entire infrastructure because I wanted to build a company completely from scratch without having any momentum or anything in place.

I wanted to be able to do it and talk it out and be real about some of the struggles are without the momentum behind me of years of marketing. How quickly are our marketing channels taking to get traction in today’s market in 2025? All of those amazing, crazy little things that are going to happen and the nuances and whatnot. What does it take to start to build a new team and start to hire? What decisions I’m making and all that?

It is going to be a crazy, amazing ride. Now this video will probably be in two spots. This video will be inside our community, and this video is also being released for an episode of the show. That’s why I’m addressing both audiences in this one. Some of these videos and/or podcasts will be released only in one spot. We’ll have some stuff on the podcast. We’ll have more current and a lot more content in our community.

Beyond Revenue: Why Most Businesses Are A Hot Mess!

If you’re listening to some of the podcasts, make sure you’re going to WatchMeScale.com, and you are signing up to be part of this journey with us, and you are following along to what I’m doing here as I build this brand new beast of a company. The whole idea of this episode, this conversation, is I want to talk about having a plan. I know everybody’s going to roll their eyes and be like, “Why do I listen to this?” One of the biggest issues I’ve seen is mentoring high-level businesses. I’ve been mentoring high-level businesses. Businesses making a million dollars plus a year since about 2017.

I’ve gotten the opportunity to look inside some amazing businesses, and I’ve seen some do very well. I’ve seen a lot that are a hot mess, like literally like you’re doing a ton of revenue, but you’re not making any money. You have just so many pieces going on. I’ve seen the extreme of all of it. People who have an amazing business making money, but they don’t understand their numbers. They don’t understand what their momentum. They stop doing some of the things that are getting the momentum, and eventually they lose that momentum, and suddenly they cannot figure out why they’re broke.

Through the years, I’ve gotten to mentor and talk to businesses that are winning and struggling. I’ve gotten to become friends with people who have amazing businesses and are winning. I’ve gotten to collaborate inside masterminds with amazing people and amazing businesses. I run the ICE Mastermind community for investors. We have an ICE accelerator for those who are growing their business and wanting to scale it. We have the ICE community for those who are trying to just get out of their business into the owner’s box.

The Map & The Destination: Planning Your Business Success

For all those reasons, what I’m coming to you is that this conversation is through knowledge and experience, and not just what I think you should do. We talk about do you have a plan? Let’s listen. Do me a song, and listen to this and think about what I’m saying here. One of the biggest mistakes you make when you go on any journey is not having a map and not having a destination. Now, there are journeys that we’re going to go on where we don’t have a map, but if we at least have a destination, we can figure out the path. Of course, if you don’t have a destination, but you have a proper map, for the most part, you can start to pick and choose where you want to.

One of the biggest mistakes you make when you go on any journey is not having a map and not having a destination. Share on X

If you have a destination and a map, then you are guaranteed to get to that destination. Not only to get to that destination in the easiest path of least resistance possible, without all the struggle and trials and tribulations you may go through trying to figure the rest of it out. Business is no different. That’s the whole point I want to drive in here. Business is no different. Most of us, when we start in this business, like we’re not business people. We don’t come from business. We’re not entrepreneurs. We don’t have that “We’re entrepreneurs,” but we don’t come from people who have basically showed us the way, showed us the light.

We don’t come from people that have family or that thing. At least for me, I didn’t come from a family with money. I didn’t come from a family that was business owners or entrepreneurs. Everything from incorporating to running a business and all that stuff was all new. I had to figure it out. Anyway, I have to figure it out. A lot of us did that. We did the whole story against the wall and see what sticks were to send to 100 miles an hour. Leave a trail of destruction behind us.

We’ve got to wherever we’re at. Some of you are reading, that is. I’m doing a handful of deals, and I want to scale for some of you reading this. You may be like, “I got a hot mess going on. I have an amazing business. I’m making a ton of money, but I’m nowhere near as profitable as I could be. I’m not exactly sure why all these things are working or not working.” Wherever you’re at in your state of business is I want to encourage you to start to make a plan.

Creating Your Perfect Day: The Key To Entrepreneurial Arrival

There are a few things that come into play here. One is determining, we all know what gets why we’re doing this. We got into this for freedom. We got in this because we wanted to not be held prisoner by a time clock. We got into this for the better things for our family. That’s part of it, but what is it that for us that equals we’ve arrived?

There are a couple of exercises that I’ll be posting in the community that you can pick and choose from. I’d love for you to go mall, but one is the perfect day exercise. The whole idea behind the perfect day exercise is what exactly is your perfect day? What time would you wake up? Would it be a by alarm clock or whenever you get up? What would be some of the sounds you hear? Would it be nice and sunny outside? Would you hear the ocean? Would you be at home? Do you hear your kids playing and laughing? Is the smell of coffee permeating through the house?

What would you have for breakfast? Would you sit outside and drink your coffee? Just play out what your perfect day would be? That exercise is important because, for most of us entrepreneurs, we don’t understand what it means to arrive. We don’t understand what it is to be successful and to take in the moments. A lot of us, I’m not going to lie, have come from broken families, have come from probably abusive situations, have come from trials and tribulations, have come from people telling us we’re not good enough or we cannot make it.

Business Plan: Most of us entrepreneurs don’t understand what it means to arrive. We don’t understand what it is to be successful and to take in the moments.

A lot of us have come from a lot of that. Some of you on here reading, you’ve had a great life and a perfect life, but I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are friends of mine. There’s a purpose behind the reason why they want to achieve great things and want to change their family legacy and direction. They want to break a cycle. What does it look like to break that cycle for you? The other thing that I’m going to post in here is our 90-day goal. I think doing goals in a 90-day chunk is important because they become measurable.

Two Key Success Points: Defining Personal Achievement

You can start to start to steer your course. I’ll post that in the community as well. Just download that and start to write out, “From my perfect day, what do I want my business to look like? What do I want to become? What is enough?” For me, in this particular situation, I’m going to bounce around a little bit here. I want a business that does not take up much of my time. In fact, from this point forward, if I can do one of two things, I can basically never put pants on.

That is me achieving my goal. What does that mean? That just means that I don’t have to be anywhere. Now, obviously, I put pants on because I’m a grown man, and it’s important to wear pants. You get my point. My point is I don’t want to have to be anywhere ever. I don’t have to be anywhere. That is achievement number one for my business, this real estate business I’m building now. If I don’t have to be in the weeds, if I don’t have to be there, if I don’t have to be in the operation, then that is success for me.

Business Plan: If I don’t have to be in the weeds, if I don’t have to be there, if I don’t have to be in the operation, then that is success for me.

Success number two point for me is that I only have to be around the people and hang out with the people that I want to hang out with. Most of those people, be honest with you, are our ICE family. Those are people that I want to hang around. I love hanging around with them. I remember being in New Orleans in April 2023. We were at a bar listening to, probably, one would say, a horrible cover band.

We were all singing along to the music, and I just looked around at the people I was with, and I was like, “There’s no other place I’d rather be except for being and hanging out with my kids obviously.” That group of people was my favorite people. There’s that aspect to raise. That is my measure of success. I’m going to determine my measure of success. I’m going to do my perfect day. I’m going to determine what has arrived. I’m going to start to break down, reverse engineer how to get there.

For me to arrive, what does my business need to look like? How much money does it need to be making and so on and so forth. With a 90-day plan, I’m going to start to develop a path to get there. Those are some things, and I’ll go ahead and do my own of these. I’ll share those in our community as well. I’ll do it in our free little lesson area for the Watch Me Scale Challenge. I’ll break down what my perfect day looks like. What I want my business to look like? What is arrived look like for me to have gotten to that point where my business looks like the way I wanted tit o?

I’ll start to chunk out my goals. I’ll share those. I think it’s important for you to download those documents and do the same thing because one of the things that I have seen is that so many people get into this business or any business for freedom, and they end up building a prison. They built a prison. They chain themselves to their business, to the next deal, to the next whatever it is, and they’re not any freer, any happier. Yes, we have access to capital, so we feel freer.

The Illusion Of Freedom: When Capital Creates Chains

Yes, we have access to capital, so we can take a day off whenever we want or go on vacation where we want. We have the illusion of freedom, but we don’t have freedom because if we got off that train, it would all come crumbling down. That’s not what we want. We want to build it off the train and have it work the way it’s supposed to work. This is what intentional looks like. We’re being intentional about making a plan and building a business that’s going to free us from the chains that we want to be free from for the rest of whatever life we have left to enjoy with our family and the people that matter to us.

We have the illusion of freedom, but we don't have freedom because if we got off that train, it would all come crumbling down. Share on X

Sending goals is extremely important. I want you all listening to this, take some time to really think about that, and go to WatchMeAScale.com. If you have not already joined our community, sign up, join our community. Follow me on all social media channels @TheRealDonCosta so you can get every nugget we throw out there on this.

Scaling Intentionally: Avoiding The 100 Mile An Hour Breakdown

Start to build your intentionality about the business you want. Look, you can do this if your business is already going 100 miles an hour. It’s important if your business is going 100 miles an hour. The worst thing is, for those of us, and trust me, I’m just as guilty of this, we get a business going 100 miles an hour. It’s doing incredible. My business was doing 200 deals a year, and I didn’t have to be in the office, maybe two hours a week. We go, “We want to scale, so let’s break it and make it better.”

Start to build your intentionality about the business you want. Share on X

Eventually, you break to make it better, and you break it, and it all falls apart. That’s something that I think is very crucial. I’ve watched hundreds of businesses do this. Understanding what the end goal looks like, understanding what is enough, doesn’t mean you’re locked into that forever. It just means that now we can get there. We can have a serious conversation about this, “Are we good?? Do we need to chase some other illusional something that’s going to make us feel like we’re validated?

That’s the big takeaway here. Make a plan. Do your perfect day exercise. Establish what success looks like. Let’s break down a path on how to get there. Let’s do the 90-day goals. All those documents are going to be in our community. Go to WatchMeScale.com if you’re not part of that already. Make sure you follow me everywhere. I will see you on the other side of this. I cannot wait to see you soon.

One more thing I want to say, this episode is brought to you by Forefront CRM. Forefront CRM is the CRM we are using for this journey. If you do not have a CRM or you’re not loving your CRM, go to ForefrontCRM.com, put in the promo code ICE30DAY, and get 30 days free at Forefront. You won’t regret it. I love it. It’s a great CRM, and I’ll see you on the other side.