Planning for Success - Your Website Business

We are going to start with some assumptions about where you are right now in your efforts to start a new website business. You have been thinking about this for awhile; You have already googled the subject or service and probably have seen lots of sites that "kind of" look like what you have in mind (but not quite); You've thought about the start-up costs, but are not sure what they are; According to the email ads you've gotten you don't have to do much work to get your business up and running pretty quickly; You are really good at, or know a lot about the service or product that you are going to sell.

The items above are really important. Be sure you know your product or service well. More than well. You are going to spend a lot of your time with this subject, be sure that you love it. If you are thinking about starting an internet business only because it seems like a way to may more money with less effort, you are not.

If you have made it here, you are serious about starting your own website or internet based business. So, for the most part we will be giving you the basics for getting your business up and running with more clear choices and also with a plan.

Start with Planning

Sometimes we get so excited with our idea, that we forget about the business part. And, the business part is really the most important in enhancing and increasing your traffic flow.

Basic Business Plan

You are going to need to start with a basic business plan. You will find the template for your business plan posted in the forms portion of our website, but if you want to do a quick and dirty business plan that is fine too. My favorite to do quick and dirty is to use lined paper and have a cup of coffee somewhere quiet where I can think. I have listed the subject of each section and highlighted the header with a brief explanation of what you want to fill in:

Product - List in as much detail as possible what the product, service or information is that you want to sell. Be as detailed as possible here.

Self Resources - How much time do you really have to spend in concentrated effort getting this project going. You want to list how much time you can invest and break it down. It is easiest to go from hours per day, days per week, weeks per month and months per year. Example: Let's say you can spend two hours per day of concentrated effort on your business, that is 10 hours per week. In consulting, we figure there are about 27 hours per week of high volume work time in a week. That is not counting getting ready to work, preparing materials, etc.Now for the month figure. If you are going to put in 7 hours per week (we'll figure a higher volume than the 4.5 it actually works out to), and we always figure on four week periods, then you are going to be working 28 hours per month on your business. What that means is that you'll average about 336 hours per year out of the 1080 high volume work hours available. (Seemed like you had a lot more time didn't it?) Well remember this is a really important set of numbers to keep around. Now that you know how much time you are working with you can pretty easily figure out the next question.

Outside Resources - Are you going to send out regular brochures both email and snail mail? Are you going to need to make copies of items? Are you going to need to buy or make product.

A sub-category of this group is the people you will need to make your business work. Are you going to need a writer, someone who can get your webpage going, someone to handle your invoicing and product or do presentations for you. This is the place to list all of that.

Spend some time adding to your basic business plan. Items that go on this list are everything that involved the "What" of the business. You will probably do as I often do, wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea. Be sure to keep a pen and pad by your bed!

Miscellaneous Items - Don't you just hate that term. You are going to want to include in this section every anticipated problem that could arise. You will only have to do this once, but you really do want to have a plan. If there is an earthquake, tornado, or other natural disaster and you need electricity to make your products or provide services, you want to have a plan. If you get sick and can't work a few days or attend an important meeting you want to figure out before you are on the way to the hospital who you can train to sell, talk, or train for you. Everything that is going to need a preplan needs to go in this section. You don't have to put the solutions here, just the problems that could arise. The solutions will be included in your marketing strategy.

Once your business plan is complete you will be all set to begin your marketing strategy and will have completed another step towards creating a successful website and internet business.