franchise business plan deca guidelines

“Choose something you are passionate about. The less passionate you are about your topic, the less productive you will be.” — Ben Smith; Wisconsin DECA VP of Event Managment.

When I decided to compete in a written event my junior year, it was a no-brainer: I love presenting and researching, so of course, I had to go the written route! The tough decision, though, was what event to pick. I knew I had to go for an entrepreneurship event so that automatically narrowed the field. The previous year, I competed in an eleven-page event, and I thought that limit was too restrictive, so I had to go for a thirty-pager. Honestly, the decision was only between two events — Independent or International. Like I said, I love researching, and I really wanted to squeeze the most out of this event as I could. That said, I chose the International Business Plan because it gave me the opportunity to research the culture and business/entrepreneurship environment of another country.

Stage 1: The Core

Now that you have a better understanding of what written event you’d like to compete in, we can move onto the skeleton of your event: the core member(s). This is the stage that you DO NOT WANT TO SKIP . You can slack on any other stage and produce a winning project, but if you chose to slack on this stage, then you can kiss your Glass hopes bye.

Team or No Team — That is The Question.

Every DECA written event allows you to compete solo, as a partnership, or as a group of three. Like every project or idea, the team is the backbone and will make or break everything . Choosing your team, or not choosing one, is the single most important decision you will make during your project. Your partner/group members, though, must be from your home chapter.

Flying Solo — Pros and Cons

If you are the type of person who wants absolute control over every aspect of your project, this is the route you need to take. Personally, I chose to fly solo. If you lack innate self-initiative and are a weak presenter, I urge you to not even consider this option. Flying solo feels great — you never have to deal with conflicting schedules, you can work on your own time, and you make every decision. But, that also opens you up to some pretty (potentially) devastating negatives. When it comes to presenting, you have the full load of work; you can’t rely on someone else to cover certain parts. When it comes time to make a decision, you have full say, so if you don’t consult outside help, you’re getting a very biased view. You have no one to hold you responsible to any deadline, and if you start to lose interest, you will have to find a way to reel yourself back in.

Teaming— Pros and Cons

If you have a strong core of one or two chapter members that possess wildly different (applicable) skill sets and mesh well, forming a team with those members is a great way to go. From the paper standpoint, the team route (when executed well) decreases the workload and dependence of all members. From a presenting standpoint, each member can cover certain parts of the pitch, which should allow for better (and impressive) flow and transition (plus you can wear matching outfits, and that’s pretty cool). However, this route also opens itself up to (potentially) devastating negatives: team communication has to be at maximum level during the project (I recommend Slack if you have a team of three); arguments can break out over trite team decisions; stupid high school drama could wreck your team. If done well, teaming can be a perfect option, but any slip up during the project could spell doom to all of your hard work. Tred with caution.

I recommend setting aside a few weeks at the start of school to survey new DECA members and observe returners (summer changes some people). If you take this step early, there is absolutely no reason to rush to rash and impulsive decisions. If you decide to form a partnership or team, take a week to just talk — doesn’t have to be about DECA. No matter the skillset or promises offered by anyone, you must mesh well with your team (this isn’t necessarily a start-up; no need to be a Steve Jobs). Also, a word of wisdom: I’ve gotten burned by (looking back) ludicrous promises by teammates. Don’t be blinded by outlandish promises; they are almost always too good to be true.

Stage 2: Planning and Research

Lemme be 100: if you don’t know how to plan well and conduct sound research, you better start learning. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT , think you are too good or too smart for planning and research. If you have that mindset, stop reading right now. Even though I have harped on the importance of research and planning, I have purposely left this stage relatively empty . I hate when people tell me how to conduct research or how to plan, as I have my own weird methods, so I don’t want to waste your time telling you how to do your thing. Find the methods that work best for you/your team.

I’ll be honest — I’m the most unorganized person you’ll ever meet. I never plan for anything. That said, I still had a rough sketch and timetable for my event. It wasn’t much, and it doesn’t have to be much. A simple print-out of the event guidelines, a few dates/ranges scribbled here and there, and that was it. I’m a driven guy, so I could count on that drive and desire to win to push me. If you need a little more planning (this works well with teams, but can also work well for a single person), try Trello — a free online to-do board where you can collaborate with others, assign tasks, set due dates, and add notes (see below). I’m not a big fan of agendas, but many groups find it very helpful to set a meeting agenda whenever they are going to be working on the project.

For a Glass-worthy paper, you will spend twice the amount of time researching than you will actually writing the paper. That said, researching is uberly important. For example, for my IBP event, I have a folder on my computer full of PDFs from research, paper revisions, audio from meetings and calls, charts and graphs, etc. I even found an amazing e-book with a few chapters especially pertinent to my paper, emailed the publishing company, and received a hard copy (free of charge) in the mail a couple of weeks later. When I conducted research, I always brought a notepad with me, so I could jot down any tidbits, figures, etc. that could’ve brought potential benefit to my paper. I get easily distracted, so to combat this during my paper time, I went to my local library to do all of my work. I think this helped a ton when it came to getting stuff done in an efficient manner, and I would recommend you/your team to find a quiet “paper place,” somewhere you all meet when it’s time to finally get down to business.

“Thoroughly document your [research] while it’s going on. You won’t remember everything you did when trying to write about it.” — Lena Kellogg; LV DECA President

Stage 3: The Paper

Ah, after weeks/months of planning and researching, it’s finally time to start seriously drafting your paper. A word of advice: don’t get too attached to your first, or second, or third (you get the idea) draft; it will suck. I know an advisor, we’ll call them X, who has a particularly harsh way of letting you know that your paper is complete garbage: X will call up each team, one-by-one, and ask to see the draft. X will start making small changes, and if they believe that they have made too many adjustments, they will simply CNTRL+A and DELETE your work. Tough love. But, that’s so crucial in the drafting stage — of anything, DECA paper or college essay. As a serious competitor, you need to channel your inner X; try to read your paper through the lens of X and make changes just as a harsh third-party would. That’s how winners work.

A quick pro tip, no matter if you’re working alone or as a group, enlist the help of your advisors, friends, trusted family, and outside sources to give you feedback on your paper. For example, I enlisted the help of several business professionals and an advisor that wasn’t even mine. However, make sure to explain to them that they need to be 100% honest in their critical feedback. People you know will often give you sugar-coated advice, and this will do more harm to your project than good.

“Make sure that you have someone other than yourself go over [your paper] and make sure it meets the guidelines in every way it needs to.” — Brian Josephson; Oregon DECA President

How Important Is My Paper?

This is an awesome question. After all, your paper isn’t the only thing that is scored. Depending on your event, your presentation can count for as much as 50% of the overall score, meaning your paper also counts for 50%. However, the paper in a thirty-pager will count for 60% of your score, making the paper that much more important. Attached is a chart presented at a 2016 Power Trip workshop by Ms. Annie Hulse from Oakton DECA, so all credit goes to her.

Even with the recent changes to the written event guidelines, the graphic below still stands (just ignore the page length headers)!

Executive Summary (ES)

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR PAPER! Many judges won’t have time to read your entire paper, so they will read your summary in-depth and skim the rest. Therefore, it is paramount to have a killer ES. I can’t stress this enough. Start with a bang, sell the problem and solution (but hit hard on the problem), and focus on what makes you stand out (UVP). When writing the summary, which should be the last thing you write , imagine that your ES is the only thing your judge will read (which it could be), and you need to sell him on your idea with that ES.

“Your ES is the most important feature of any written [event] that you compete with.” — Secundino Garcia (Cooper); Michigan DECA Member

Let The Score Sheet Be The Blueprint

I don’t care if you’ve written hundreds of business plans in your life. I don’t care if you’ve taken Entrepreneurship XXX and know the components of a solid business plan by heart. Do not think that just because you were told that a certain section isn’t important that you don’t need to include it in your paper. Oh, by rearranging these sections, I’ll certainly stand out! That’s a common thought, but erroneous in every way. Marry the guidelines of your event! Know them better than the writers. This is a competition, and the guidelines were provided for a reason. Judges are sticklers for judging a paper off the guidelines. A super awesome thing to do at this moment would be to print out the guidelines of every event that you are considering (see below for where to access the guidelines). They are that important. In your paper (and presentation, but we’ll get to that) be certain to include the exact vocabulary from the rubric and guidelines in your writing.

Content or Appearance

An age-old debate between research hounds and perfectionists: should my paper be content heavy or aesthetically pleasing? Personally, I have seen more success from a hybrid. Include the most important details, and be thorough on those details, for every section and elaborate on the vital portions (consult the rubric for point values to determine these), but don’t slack on the visuals — make your paper pretty ! No judge will read — or even skim — a paper that is 95% black-and-white text. Include meaningful, colorful graphs to ease the reading. If you can, substitute text for bullet points or flow charts. Once you decide on a logo and font, maintain a consistent color scheme and font usage. For example, I included my company’s logo as the center header on every page, and the footer with the required page number was in the color scheme of my company. Make sure, though, that you aren’t adding visuals just to add them. They have to add substance to your paper. A respectable content-to-visual ratio for every page (that isn’t financials) is 75:25.

“Use charts and graphs in your paper (especially in the ES). It’ll make [your paper] easier to read for the judge.” — Allie Barry; Missouri DECA President

Penalty Points

Penalty points will literally ruin everything. In my state, if you get more than ten penalty points on your paper, you probably aren’t medaling (top ten). Please, please, please, please, please, PLEASE quadruple-check your paper for penalty points before you submit it, and enlist the help of a few classmates. Some common mistakes that lead to penalty points are as follows: exceeding the number of pages, leaving out a section, not having all pages numbered, not using current, up-to-date guidelines (see, I told you guidelines were important). Penalty points are awarded for “stupid mistakes,” and they’re very easy to avoid, if you pay close attention (see below where to access penalty points).

Stage 4: The Presentation

Ah, my favorite part of DECA competition: presenting. No matter how good your final paper is, the presentation will be the single factor that differentiates you/your team from the competition, so spend ample time on it. As with many associations, your paper is (probably) due a few weeks before your state conference. If this is the case, work like heck on your paper until the due date — don’t even think about your presentation. Once you’ve turned in the paper, turn your full attention to the presentation. However, for ICDC, your paper isn’t due until you actually get to the conference, so you could theoretically make changes to your paper while in a hotel room, but I’d advise against that.

Script or No Script?

A big question with presentations is always should I script it or not? Honestly, this is a personal decision. It is often said, though, that if you are going to memorize your presentation all the way through, you need to have it down to the “Happy Birthday” level, where you are comfortable belting out your script in the most stressful situations. At the ICDC level, don’t bring notecards to a pitch; this will show that you take the pitch seriously. If you are going to fall at around the 2 level on the flowchart below, at least memorize the general structure. Personally, I scripted a dramatic, effective introduction and closing (and tried, futilely, to script the rest).

Make your presentation aesthetically pleasing! Create engaging and visually appealing materials. Like your paper, make sure to incorporate the same color scheme and font use through your visuals. A nice tool to use to create materials (if you aren’t fluent in Affinity Designer, Photoshop, or AI) is Canva. At competition, you’ll find that PowerPoints are the outliers. A lot of competitors opt to go the trifold, or more obscure, path. However, the time you take to set up and take down your materials counts against you, so practice setting up and taking down before showtime. While different visuals definitely can help, make sure that they are appropriate and engaging. When presenting, be sure to interact with your visuals. If you are using technology, don’t count on WiFi or outlets! A lot of convention centers’ WiFi is sketchy, and your presentation booth will rarely have outlets; charge everything the night before! When I presented, I used a traditional PPT and a clicker (if you’re going to use a slide deck, make sure to have a clicker). I also made business cards with my name and company logo, and I handed the judge a card before I wrapped up. Nice touches like this definitely leave an impression on your judge! If you are going to provide handouts, which could allow the judge to more easily follow your pitch, make sure to print and bring backups. It’s far better to be proactive than reactive! To hear more tips from an ICDC judge, click this link .

2018–2019 Update: DECA updated the general written event guidelines, and with that update, new rules regarding presentation visuals were implemented. Only visuals that are able to be hand-carried into the presentation will be allowed! This means no wheeled carts or other items that assist in carrying your visuals will be allowed. If you can’t hand-carry a visual, don’t bring it! Additionally, no “alternate power source,” such as a small generator, will be allowed.

Judge’s Questions

You have fifteen minutes to give your pitch. However, you should not take up that whole time presenting. After your pitch, the judge(s) will have a few questions they will want to ask you. These questions are not meant to trick you. The judge will usually ask for clarification on parts that you glossed over or will ask in-depth questions on a certain topic, and while you’re not obligated to leave time for questions, it’s always recommended. I ran tight on time during my final IBP pitch at ICDC, and I honestly think that was the deciding factor between first and second — oh well.

Don’t be nervous when answering questions! You are the authority on the subject. No one should know your problem area, market, and solution better than you. A way I prepared for questions was to practice pitching to friends and family and field questions from them. Often times, a part of your presentation/paper may make perfect sense to you but is confusing in the eyes of an audience member. When answering questions, give a concise but full answer: don’t spend too much time on any one question, but make sure to completely answer the judge’s question. If you aren’t completely sure of the answer, just say something in the ball park, but sound confident; the judge will believe you! And please, have a respectful tone when answering. I know, you probably covered that section that he is so confused about very well, but don’t have a rude tone while answering. It’ll show.

Team Presentations

If you are teaming up for a project, there are some specific presentation tips that I’d like to give.

Handshaking

Please, give your judge a handshake before and after the presentation. That’s the polite thing to do in every situation — in DECA and out. A simple handshake will go miles. A couple years ago, I developed a killer handshake technique that uses a DECA acronym:

Stage 5: Game Day

It’s finally here! After months of hard work and preparation, it’s finally time! I have only two tips for this stage:

Give It Your All and Have Fun!

Seriously! You have nothing to lose. Go out there and crush it! You’ll do great!! And…RELAX! It’s okay to be nervous; you should be (after all, you spent months on this paper), but don’t present nervously. Take a few deep breaths before your section is called to present.

Eye on the Prize!

Throughout it all, don’t lose track of your end goal: DECA Glass. Glass is super hard to win, and you have to earn it. No matter if you win or not, be proud of yourself! Many members don’t dare compete in a written event.

More from Andrew Weatherman

2018–2019 DECA, Inc. Executive President of the High School Division | Duke 2023

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