I am sure you have heard of the old saying “failing to plan is planning to fail
I am sure you have heard of the old saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” That is entirely the point of developing a plan – TO NOT FAIL. A plan takes all of the guesswork out of the equation. If you follow a detailed plan, developing your online business will be a very fun and rewarding experience.
This phase can be broken down into three steps.
- Writing Your Plan Objective
- Determine Your Goals
- Do Research and Write Your Plan
The first step of developing a plan is writing a Plan Objective (or overview). A Plan Objective, in this case, simply states what it is your online business will do and accomplish. This statement is not detailed and should no more than two or three sentences. If, while developing your plan, you start to go astray of your objective you can either redefine your objective or rewrite your plan.
Example Plan Objective:
“To build an extension of our brick-and-mortar business to compete in the online marketplace.”
The second step is determining what your goals are that support your Plan Objective. Again these are not very detailed descriptions, but simply describe how it is you are going to go about satisfying your Plan Objective. You can have as many goals as you like but always remember the K.I.S.S. system – Keep It Simple, Stupid. Keep it simple enough for somebody you know that knows nothing about your business can easily understand what you are hoping to accomplish.
The third and last step in developing a plan is doing research on the tools and resources you need to reach your Plan Objective. Since your are trying to build an online business, you will need tools and resources to support it.
- What specifically will you need to get a website, be able to edit that website (CMS), keep track of your customers (CRM), inventory and orders (E-Commerce)?
- How do I get my website indexed in the search engines?
- How do I advertise on the internet?
- What do you need to be able to create a blog or forum or create an email marketing campaign?
- Will you have to hire more staff to handle the online portion of your business?
- What are the best social networking website on the internet?
- How much will all of this cost per month/year?
Be as descriptive as possible when you write step 3. Lay everything out and leave no question unanswered. Once you have step 3 completed, you will be ready to head on to the next phase of developing a successful online business, designing and developing a professionally done website.
Our next post will be about designing and developing your own website. It will include some tips on how to get it done and some traps to look out for. Please subscribe to this blog so you can get all of the details.
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