February 21, 2007
Business Plan and Start Up Newsletter Issue #1038- Internet Businesses Aren't For Lazy People - Really
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Business Plan And Start Up Newsletter
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February 2007
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Written by Shaunta Pleasant
President, TL Manage Inc.
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Everything banks, lenders and the SBA look for! Produce your business plan quickly and easily... For entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Find Out More...
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********Table of Content********
Internet Businesses Aren't For Lazy People - Really…
Spray and Pray: The Substitute for Strategic Planning…
A Few Cool Helpful Notes...
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Internet Businesses Aren't For Lazy People - Really
By Gray Rollins
Everyone wants to be their own boss. What a lot of people dreaming of an internet business don’t know is that they will likely work many, many more hours at their internet business than in a 9 to 5 job. Not only are the hours long, there are no paid holidays and no free donuts in the break room.
An internet business requires discipline and hard work above all other things. The business may not require much money up front to get started, and it may not require a lot of technical knowledge, but if the hard work and dedication aren’t there, the business has little chance of succeeding.
To get an internet business off the ground generally requires a lot of research into the market that is being pursued.
This may take a great deal of time and seem pointless, but in order to make money, an entrepreneur has to understand the market, the competition, and how the market for the item or service has been growing and changing.
Once the market for the product is understood, there is getting out there. Having a strong web presence is vital to making an internet business work, and it can take a lot of time.
Even if the business owner doesn’t have their own site and is operating through other sites, the presence still has to be there.
Marketing a site or a service is one of the most time consuming tasks to an internet business, and will continue to take up time and resources even after the business has been established. Even at the top of the internet food chain, Google still has to advertise.
Once the research and marketing has been done, unless it is a purely affiliate business, there is still the matter of providing the product or service. This can be time consuming as well, depending on what is being sold.
Most internet business gurus suggest having a front end product to sell as well as selling as an affiliate.
This means providing something on some level, whether it is physical items that have to be shipped or digital goods that can be emailed. Maintaining the system, even when automated, takes time and patience.
Even using an automated system like Clickbank to sell digital items, there is still the matter of monitoring the mini-site, fixing broken links, keeping the information current, making sure that the checks that come are correct, and marketing the product to take advantage of affiliates willing to sell it.
Add up the time to maintain just this one aspect of a business, and a front end product alone will rival the time spent at a day job.
In any internet business, no matter what is being sold or how it is marketing, things change fast. The bottom may drop out of one market to be replaced by others. A site making money for affiliates closes down or changes its pay structure.
Any number of things can happen that can change the business forever. The business has to be able to adapt and change right along with supply and demand. This requires steady research and having more than one egg in the basket.
It also requires diligence and creativity to keep expanding and coming up with new markets and new revenue streams. Sure, there’s no boss, but it’s still not an easy road. Is it worth it? You’d better believe it.
Gray Rollins writes for MarketingEffects.com, a site that provides free marketing videos to help people with their online business. And be sure to visit if you're looking for an excellent system for becoming a successful affiliate marketer.
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Spray and Pray: The Substitute for Strategic Planning
By Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Business today is driven by acronyms such as ERP, QA, TM, SAP and the list goes on. One of the less frequent is SP or Strategic Planning. However, I am now convinced that that SP should mean Spray Pray. Let me explain.
During the last almost 10 years, as a business coach and executive coach, I can now predict with almost 100% accuracy that 90% of the business owners at any event drive their businesses through 2 actions. First, they SPRAY all their activity from marketing and sales to customer service and employee training around them and then they PRAY that these actions will stick.
Just this week when speaking to another salesperson of another very new business who was having some difficulty in reaching potential buyers, I heard some confusion. I asked: "Is there a strategic plan including a market plan, sales plan and a strategic action plan?"
The salesperson quickly replied "No." Given that this business had just invested in over $100,000 in equipment, space, etc., I quietly shook my head.
How much easier would it have been had the plan been created to clearly identify the target market through the creation of an executable strategic plan instead of using the spray and pray tactic? Strategic planning is the basic key to working smarter not harder.
For many small business owners, strategic planning is not on their radar screen. The belief is that planning takes far too much time and these very busy, time obsessed, business owners do not have time to invest on strategic planning for future change.
And heavens forbid for them to consider any providers for business plans services and advice such as consultants or business coaches because they are fine doing what they always have been doing. The only problem here (beyond denial not just being a river in Egypt) is that they will continue to get the results that they are currently receiving.
Strategic planning is essential in today’s highly global competitive market place. New businesses are finding competitors copying their ideas or new franchises with similar business models hanging their shingles just down the road. If you want to take your business to that next level, then take the time to create an executable strategic plan with a market plan, sales plan and financial plan supported by a strategic action plan.
Of course, you could continue with spray and pray and hope for the desired results to be realized. But, then, most of us know that hope is truly not an effective strategy.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. is a business coach who specializes in strategic planning with offices in Indianapolis and near Chicago. She writes, speaks and coaches people in businesses to quickly double results through the creation of an executable strategic plan.
One quick question, if you could secure one new client or breakthrough that one roadblock holding you back from success, what would that mean to you? Then, take a risk and give me, Leanne, a call at 219.759.5601 to experience incredible results.
Visit http://www.processspecialist.com/ and explore everything from free articles to connecting with Leanne.
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A Few Cool Helpful Notes
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