(Excerpted with permission from SABO – Starting A Business Online, an eBook) To buy the COMPLETE eBook go to http://ripoldlife.com/sabo/ or to get it free simply click on the 1st ad at https://LAD15.com/sabo
You must have a plan, an idea, a direction which you want to go, in order to be able to accomplish anything. In business, this is extremely important and necessary. Whether that business is “Brick & Mortar” or an online home based business.
It doesn’t have to be a formal business plan, as you are not going to need a bank loan to start online. Businesses online cost pennies compared to the expenses of a physical biz.
But YOU DO NEED A PLAN.
Are you ready to start your own business? Are you really? Do you have what it takes? Do you even know what it takes? Do you really want to build a business? or just earn an income online? They are vastly different.
A Plan can help answer those questions.
You can earn an income just by referring people to other people’s businesses, (like LAD15.com/sabo) and take the commissions and run. You needn’t have a business at all to do this, yet you could still earn income. You also may choose to do a combination of things (as many online do).
Or you can actually start your own business. Starting your own business can be a very exciting time. It can also be a very scary time.
It is filled with uncertainty, and doubt, and dreams, and hope, and fear, and celebration, all rolled up into one.
You can mitigate these items by sorting some things out before you start.
This is called the planning stage.
What do you WANT to do? What will you enjoy doing?
How much will it really cost you, in both time and money? Not just the upfront cost, but ongoing costs, in both time and money.
You see, at the beginning, there are only questions. And that’s a good thing. They will help you adjust your business to you, specifically.
There is no one-size-fits-all. That’s a lie propagated by all the fools out there claiming to have the best answer for you. They Don’t. I don’t. You are the only one who can determine if you really want to sell vitamins or potions to heal the sick, when they may or may not. You have to be the one to decide if you want to put in the time and expense necessary to learn and practice building websites or blogs. Or is it something else you want to do? Play music, cure cancer. You can even turn mistakes into a profitable business, teaching or coaching others on what NOT TO DO!
For any business to be successful, it must make money. Make more than you spend. It’s that simple and difficult, at the same time. If you are going to call it a business, the primary goal must be to make more than you spend. Otherwise, you really want to start a government or a charity, which do not use the same rules as business.
For some, this is the only goal. That’s OK. For most (around 90%) of the companies out there, this is their primary focus. For the remainder, it is to further “their cause“. But if they want to keep getting their message out, they need to have a way to pay the bills for generating that message, so they too, must make more than they spend, or beg (charity) or forcibly take it (government).
Currently, it is estimated that 98% of people who try to start a business online FAIL within their 1st year (only 60% offline).
The reason is quite obvious. FAILING TO PLAN.
Failure to Plan is, in fact, PLANNING FAILURE
By understanding and implementing this one fact, you can quadruple (4x) your chance for success. Knowing this in advance; Why would anyone NOT do it?
In a traditional business, if you don’t have enough of your own money, or choose not to use it, you apply for a business loan. Most reputable lenders will require that you provide them with a business plan of some type. They want to see how much is going to go out, and how much will come in, the time frame for these actions: operational costs, cash flow, customer acquisition, management, etc. They need this info down on paper to review, to make a decision, on whether your business will be viable enough for them to get their money back (the loan) plus interest (profit). Banks sell MONEY! For a profit. That’s their business. And they don’t even use their money to do it. They use customer’s money (savings, 401K, CDs, etc.).
(Side-note: Many banks have proven recently, that they really don’t do it too well…….Failure to Plan?)
You should do the same thing, but not for a bank or investor, do it for yourself.
Plan for setbacks. They will happen. Plan for change. It will happen. Plan an auxiliary fund. You may need it. Plan steps to measure success. Plan celebrations for accomplishing those tasks. Once your plan seems workable, Get started. Then adjust your plan to accomplish more or less depending on how things are going.
Don’t try to write “the perfect plan”. It DOES NOT EXIST!
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Keep this in mind when you run into Analysis Paralysis.
Analysis Paralysis is when you keep analyzing and analyzing to the point where you never take ACTION, or are paralyzed with the fear of the unknown, or the fear of failure. All of life in the future is UNKNOWN. So you will NEVER know what’s going to go on in the future. Take the Now as a gift. It is, after after all, called the PRESENT.
Learn from the past. Plan for the future, but act now to make it happen.
People only undertake the fear of starting something new when they are MORE AFRAID of staying the same.
Most of us would be afraid to run, at full throttle, blindly, through the woods or jungle. One might break a leg, or get a stick in the eye. It is “safer” to walk slowly and cautiously. That all changes if you are being chased by a bear or a tiger, who thinks you may be lunch. You are currently being chased by bill collectors and expenses–RUN!
Even WalMart (the world’s largest retailer) has customers come into their store and leave without ever buying a thing. Or worse than that, they only buy the loss-leader, and nothing else. (Note: a “loss-leader” is an item that a retailer sells for less than their actual cost, just to get customers into the store to buy more profitable items while they are there.)
It is a science that stocks bread, eggs, & milk at the back of the store). So don’t sweat the fact that people will come to your site or blog or store and NOT BUY what you are selling. This time.
Maybe they will next time, or with followup
(see autoresponder section). Full Book SABO Starting a Business Online is HERE
An easy (and cheap) way to see if you really are ready, is to have some business cards printed up.
If you are going to be in business, even an online business, get business cards!
Real, physical, “I can hand them out” business cards.
This will accomplish 2 things right up front.
1. Make you feel like you are really in Business
2. Let others know you are serious about your Business
The card can just have your website and email printed on it;
or you can go the traditional route of Business name, your name, contact phone, email etc. You decide.
You can get free software to print them up yourself (you will still have to pay for ink and card stock) on your computer, or get them done for you, better and cheaper, at VistaPrint.com (around $10). If you don’t want to “waste” $10, don’t go into business. ViralPrint is also a good source.
The actual process of thinking up what you are going to say on a little 2 x 3 1/2 inch card might be the first serious step many will take in the planning stage. Since many will “not bother”, that will already put you in “front of the pack”.
NOTE: If you do 10 or 15 little things that improve your chance for success by a mere 2% each, you will have improved your chance for success by 20%-30%. Many start-ups don’t think that way.
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The PLANNING stage will help you sort through the millions of ways to earn a decent living from home.
Do you need a website? Should it be a blog? Do I want to sell? What about training? (Both getting and giving?) Should you sell vitamins? Do you want to take pictures? Are you good at writing computer code? Graphics? Writing sales copy? Outsource? Sell training or affiliate products? Will my product do better as an audio? Video? Membership drip-feed? Physical products? or as a combination of these things or more? Who is my Target Market ?
Will They Buy? Do they already BUY similar items?
A good honest plan will help you figure all of that out.
Along with costs of BOTH time and money.
(Your 1st “mini-plan” should be when to be finished with your plan,)
Many people just plan to “get rich“. My guess is that would be right around the 98% mark. (see the correlation between this and the failure rate?)
Instead, take the approach to have all of your initial investment back within 90 days or 120 days, or whatever works with your plan.
Then try to improve that by 25% each month. And soon you will be making it real.
Online business start up costs a fraction of what a brick and mortar business would cost. Pennies on the dollar!
If you spend $300 to start your business, your plan should have it so that you can realistically recoup that $300 within 90 days (or $100/month). Break it down even further: to recouping $25/week. Same thing, but in bite-size pieces.
Once you have recouped your initial investment, and there will ALWAYS BE AN INITIAL INVESTMENT, simply grow that by 25% each month.
In the example above, to grow by 25%, the first month (after 90 days) you would need to grow to $125/month. Then to $156/month, and so on.
Your plan might want that to be weekly. That’s OK, too. It is YOUR PLAN.
There are numerous ways to accomplish this steady growth.
Here are a few ways.
Improve what you are doing (sales copy, price, etc) to get 25% more paying customers.
If you had 10, you now want 13.
If you can’t or don’t want to do it, or don’t know how, you could outsource it (any task you want) to places like elance.com or odesk.com. If you are good at anything, list your services for hire at elance or odesk.
(2018 Editor’s note:- both have now been combined as UPWORK)
If you do a search for either of those, you will find many people running businesses teaching how to use these services. Before you buy anything, know that the sites themselves have training available to you for free.
Reduce your failure rate by 25%. Use an autoresponder to further educate the visitors you are already getting. Reach out (advertising, affiliates etc.) to 25% more people, or a percentage based on your success rate. If you are currently converting 1 in 5, improve that to 1 in 4, and get 8 to see the offer, or 8 more.
Just so you know: Improving a conversion rate from 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 is a
20 % IMPROVEMENT!
Start with an Idea: What do you want to do?
What would be YOUR DREAM JOB? Regardless of education, background, etc.
How will you accomplish it? (online, offline, website, blog, affiliate, etc)
What tools will I need? (computer, software, domain, hosting, autoresponder, advertising, 800 number, etc)
What will be my initial costs?
What kind of profit margin do I have?
How many sales to break even?
How many sales to replace my current income?
What time frame can I realistically expect?
How much time can I devote to this? (including learning, building, training, marketing, fulfillment, customer service, etc.)
And any other questions you may want to add or delete. It is your plan.
Please keep in mind that “sales and commissions” are from what you personally can control. DO NOT add in things like “my downline will get this much for me”. They will never treat it like you do. Some may do better, many will do worse. DO NOT PLAN FOR OTHERS, only for you.
That’s where some of the lies come in (see LIES chapter). Matrix “trickle down”, and “MLM growth” are a sales ploy and NOT TO BE USED IN YOUR PLAN.
Please finish reading this entire book (maybe twice or more) BEFORE actually writing your plan. You can certainly make notes, but wait to get all the info before making your plan.
Once you have your plan, and feel pretty good, not perfect, just pretty good about it, then get started. A plan is a guide. It is NOT CAST IN STONE.
You write it. You can change it. That’s the beauty of Starting A Business Online, or off.
Plan for “down the road” NOT to have all of your eggs in one basket. As you begin FOCUS on just one thing at a time. Use shared hosting (the kind for $5/month), and free tools, when available (and there are a lot available), when starting out. As you grow, put some of the profit BACK INTO YOUR BUSINESS.
Grow your own security with other people’s (your customers) money, just like the banks.
This is a planning thing that many online and offline fail to do: Diversify your hosting, your mailing lists, your products and services. When you plan this way life presents fewer stumbles. If one business/source/supplier goes out of business, your income is not completely shot.
And it all started with a good realistic workable PLAN.
As Colonel Hannibal Hayes (The A-Team) used to say
“I love it when a Plan comes together”
And so will you. But only IF YOU HAVE A PLAN.
***** End of Copyrighted material – SABO – Starting A Business Online ******
(Excerpted with permission from SABO – Starting A Business Online, an eBook)
To Get the COMPLETE eBook go to http://ripoldlife.com/sabo/
Smart People Read EVERYTHING. As a result you can get SABO for free by clicking on https://LAD15.com/sabo and reading the #1 AD.
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