Planning Your Online Business For Success

When you first start a business there are many things to do but there just never seems enough time to get it all done. This is a common problem with businesses in general, not just new businesses. It is critical for the success of your business to have a business plan right from the start. A plan will keep you organized, focused and less stressed out.

Making the plan:
Your concept: Decide on something you love to do and are prepared to work at. It can be a product-software-book or anything that there is a demand for. If you have a special talent or experience in something then you may want to offer a service. List several options.

Your targeted market: find a market that has a high demand for your proposed product or service. It is preferable to find a niche market (specialized market) with high demand and low supply. It is important to do your research on this aspect of your business. Find out the demand by checking out the search tool at Overture (Yahoo Search). Then check the same keyword phrase on Google and see how many websites are there. This will be your supply. Your ideal niche will be high demand and low supply. If your market shows a lot of supply and looks quite saturated then consider if there is room for specialization within the market.

Your next step will be to name your business. Put some careful thought into this because once you name your business you cannot suddenly change. Your business name should be memorable relevant and easy to brand. Bear in mind that this will be your future domain name for your website so the search engines should also find it easy index. To do this you should use a key phrase or keyword that would describe your business.

Now for your plan: this is critical for the success of your business and should be written down. Here is what it should say:

How to organize your time
Set realistic goals
Budget your resources

Organizing your time: This is one of your first n foremost steps in planning your business.

Decide how long you should spend at your business per day. Try to discipline yourself to put in a certain amount of hours per day. If possible try to find at least 3 hours per day minimum to put into your business. Try to set aside this time at a certain time per day to easily discipline yourself.
List your daily tasks
Prioritize them
Write a weekly schedule and a daily schedule and try to stick to it.

Setting goals:
Set weekly goals
Monthly goals
3 month goals
6 month goals
Yearly goals

Set realistic goals that you can manage to achieve. If you set unachievable goals you will get disheartened and eventually end up quitting. Take each goal one at a time and decide what steps you will need to take to achieve it. Write it down and work through the steps. Use your weekly and daily schedules to do this. Every evening before you turn off your computer make a list and schedule the next days work, at the end of every week work out next weeks schedule.  In this way you will not stress yourself unnecessarily and you will be properly prepared.

At the end of each week assess how many of the weekly goals you have been able to accomplish. You may surprise yourself. However not all goals may be accomplished in one week. Some take more time and others less; some may not be feasible at all. Always be ready to adapt and adjust.

Budgeting your resources: it is very important to always make sure your business does not run out of money. Budgeting your finances and planning your budget will help you ensure this. This is the #1 reason for new businesses failing and 90% of new businesses do fail. However this is not going to be you.

Decide how much you can realistically afford to invest in your business on a monthly basis and put it aside. Remember no business can survive without a certain amount of funding.
If possible have a separate account for your business that is not involved with the normal household expenses. Try to keep the 2 budgets separate. Do not borrow from either account.
Decide how much money each of your goals will cost to achieve and try to allocate this and not spend on any other project.
Make a marketing budget and try to stick to it. Start small and work up.
For the 1st 3 months do not expect to make a profit and budget accordingly.
For the next 3-6 months reinvest any profit back into the business.

With these steps you will be able to plan, run and develop your business more easily. Always remember that to succeed you will need to work hard and not lose sight of your dreams and goals. Some days will be hard and you will make many mistakes. However always learn from your errors and build on your successes and you will build a flourishing enterprise.

May 2, 2006 – 5:24 pm by Constantin Chersin