Are You Planning For Success?

May 2nd, 2007

Beginning an internet business can seem like climbing Mt Everest in tennis shoes to some of us.  You have to make a lot of decisions as to what you are going to market, who you are going to market to, how you are going to market your product and/or services, how much you are going to charge, etc. As the old saying goes, A journey begins with the first step, so does starting your business begin with your first step 

Usually, there are basically two types of people that want to start a business, planners and the action personalities.  The planners will create all types of plans forever, but will be hesitant to take the first action step.  Why?  Usually it is due to a fear of failure of their plans. 

The action personality wants to start the business today and to heck with the planning, Let’s just get this business going.  This person may succeed over time, but they most likely will spend a lot of extra money and wasted time in accomplishing success unless they are extremely knowledgeable about their potential customers.

Now to succeed in starting your business, and to hopefully be successful in your business, you must combine these two traits if you are working alone.  If you are partners with someone, made sure you both are not the same type, planners or action personalities.

Planning must be your first step.  I know if you are an action person, this is going to be very hard for you to do.  I speak from experience. It is very hard for me once I get an idea of something I want to do, to stop and plan the steps out.  My attitude is usually, lead, follow, or get out of my way.

However, a good friend of mine by the name of Joe Carbo, who was very successful in the mail order business many years ago (he has since passed away), wrote a very successful book called The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches.  While there were many excellent tips in the book, the one that hit me the hardest was to make your plan as detailed as possible. Now at the time, I was not a stranger to planning as I had already headed up and started three companies for other large corporations. So I had done a lot of planning already. But the tip took me to a more detailed step. 

Just as an example. If you wanted a new car, don’t just wish or plan for a car, but put this information about every detail of the car on paper. The car model, color, body style, every accessory, etc.

Now carry this over to your business planning.  Don’t just say you want to be doing $100,000 in business your first year.  If that is your goal, break your $100,000 down into your goals for the each month, then each week, then a daily average.   AND PUT IT ON PAPER!  Why?  So you can measure your progress.  Now you can establish the same type of planning for all your other needed functions.  Planning who you are going to market to, their gender, age group, ethic group, location, etc. And then continue all of your planning in the same style, being as detailed as you can.

One of the steps, I have taken in planning projects for many, many years, is to develop a daily schedule for accomplishing an end goal.   Let’s say, I was opening a new store location.  I started from the opening day I wanted, and worked backwards to the current time and scheduled every function that needed to be done by a certain day in order to accomplish my goal.  When did planning need to be started, when did site approval need to be done, when did construction need to start, when did every phase of construction need to be completed, when did merchandise need to be ordered and delivered, people hired, etc.

By having this time of detailed plan, I could make quick adjustments if someone wasn’t meeting the schedule. And I was always able to come in on schedule and in all case on or under budget. Why do most construction projects fail to meet their deadlines? Because, in, most cases, while there is a plan, it is not detailed so it can be measured on a daily bases. If you don’t meet your daily goals, you won’t meet your weekly or monthly goals.  And before you know it, you are at the year’s end and guess what, you missed your goal.

So make your planning detailed and then ACT ON IT.  Adjust as you must, and you will accomplish your goals. Once you have done this type of planning a few times, it will become second nature and will relieve a lot of stress and unplanned surprises.

Good luck and good planning.

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