Starting Own Business Online – Create a Plan
If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail. This is a well-known quotation and it could not be truer when you are starting your own business on the internet.
With so many strategies, techniques, and media available to you and so many people claiming that you must do this or that, that you must follow this “secret” or apply this latest technology, it can become very difficult to follow the right direction to make your business grow. It can become difficult to follow any direction at all!
Every day your mail inbox gets tons of emails about so many things you should do that you can easily spend most of your time just reading e-mails, e-books, watching videos or listening podcast.
Everybody claims to have found the “secret” that you must apply, follow, or implement to reach success. Moreover, the people that support or make those claims are professional marketers that can easily convince any of us to buy their stuff.
In my opinion, you probably just know everything you need to reach the success you desire, you are just afraid to take action. Afraid of doing something wrong, afraid you are not using the secret technique that will make possible to generate a large amount of money overnight, afraid your friend will laugh on your efforts, afraid of yourself. As a result, you procrastinate and you still spend the majority of your time looking for the next big thing.
Forget all those e-mails. Forget all the hype. Get out from your computer, take a notepad and a pencil, and write a plan. Your first plan is the most difficult, but you just need to write, in the top of the page, your goal for the next year. Then write all the needed steps, month by month, to reach that goal.
For the first month, go into more detail and write what you need to do every week. For the first week, write all the necessary steps for each day.
There you go. You know now what you need to do tomorrow. Stick with the plan, do what you wrote in it, and at the beginning of every week write the detailed daily plan.
When you go back to your computer, do what you wrote on your plan and not what the e-mails you receive tells you. Do not watch more videos; do not download more e-books. Do what is in your plan. Your goal is just a few months away.
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H Jorge,
Very practical and straight forward advise you have here.
Especially the last part when you wrote:
“When you go back to your computer, do what you wrote on your plan and not what the e-mails you receive tells you. Do not watch more videos; do not download more e-books. Do what is in your plan.”
Too many times I had draft a Plan and then got distracted when I log on my PC to do what my plan told me form the latest pre-launch, offer, discount…etc from the mail. It took a lot of dicipline to draft your plan and most important of all, stick to it.
A few months back, I set up my mobile to alert me everyday with the following message:
“Stick To The Grand Plan! Forward Motion Is Everything.”
On top of that, I used Google Doc to work out my plan, within my plan document, I have a section where I “dump” whatever “new ideas” that distract me and simply leave it there.
Things had been moving faster since I do that.
Thanks for your advise here again.
Cheers
Jason Ser
P/S: I think your post here is really valuable, ever thought of joining the [100 Comment Post] Challenge started by Jacinta Dean recently? Is a web social event where she invite 100 people to make meaningful connection by leaving valuable comment on each other blog post.
Hi Jason
Thanks a lot for you comment and your visit.
You’re right about something very important that I don’t mention explicitly in the post: discipline.
I discuss about discipline a lot with my wife, because she is one of the most organized person I know and she can work without interruptions, according a plan she devised before, and get her work done by the time she planned. On the contrary, it’s a hell to me to stick with a plan, because I usually get dispersed very soon and of course by the end of the day I didn’t 90% of my plan :p
But I’m working to correct that, and one of the first steps is to define a time of the day for answering emails and surf the web, that kind of things. And then I try to have the email closed and the phone disconnected when I’m working. Usually it results. Main problem is open email first thing in the morning… I must stop doing it
Regarding the challenge I’m going to have a look at Jacinta blog.
Cheers
Jorge
Hi Jorge,
Thanks for your reply.
Hahaha, I am exactly the same as you. Opening mail 1st thing in the morning. Let’s kill this obsession together, you and me.
I have just wrote a page on my blog about Jacinta challenge. You might want to take a look and tell me what you think.
Cheers
Jason Ser
Hi Jason
Just joined the challenge and left a comment there.
It’s funny, every time I create a comment on a blog with KeywordLuv installed I got a error message from that site. Yes, from yours too. Is a 505 Internal Error, so I think I’ll not install KeywordLuv for now.
Cheers
Jorge
Hey Jorge,
Well, let’s don’t let it be a hindrance.
I am sure Jacinta won’t mind to have one plug in missed.
Be sure to give your link of the post you want to joined for the challenge, and comment on JACINTA’s blog post for the challenge.
Her blog is at
creatingmybusinessonline.com/the-100-blog-comment-challenge/
See you on the challenge.
Cheers
Jason Ser
P/S: I will try to find time to see whether we can sort out the keyword luv plugin issue,
Hi Jason
In your blog I got the error but my comment was posted. In Jacinta blog I can’t really post a comment. I’ll try to mail her.
Cheers
Jorge
Hey Jorge
You hit the nail on the head, it’s time to STOP learning and START earning!
Your post gave me many great tips, I am going to focus on my plan this week and hopefully finally realize the path I wish to follow with my online business.
Unfortunately at the beginning of any business, you have to make some sacrifices, dedicate quite a bit of your time and take action, or you will never reach your goals.
It’s tough at the start, but one day it will all be worth it.
Good luck with your plan, Sally
Sally Neill´s last [type] ..Katey Shaw- Blog Hopping and Twitter
Hi Sally
Thanks a lot for your visit.
I wish someone did hit me on the head some time ago, I feel I’ve been learning for more than two years! Sometime I’m learning what I already learned and forgot again, bah…
You have a lot of people waiting for your plan, though… so get quick about that, people are anxious.
Cheers
Jorge
Hi Jorge,
This is something that I know I need to do but oftentimes just don’t. It’s very basic but there are a lot of things that get in the way but if like you said you just stick to it and focus then you will get a lot of things done. It’s important to keep a timer when doing your tasks too. I find this has helped me a lot. Either way, we have to keep going and continue to remind ourselves everyday why we are doing this. Take care!
Anna
Anna Haller´s last [type] ..List Building Update
Hi Anna
Glad to see you around. It’s really hard to stick to a plan, especially when you’re expecting making money in the short term. It’s easy to forget the plan and go out chasing some “magic button”. Unfortunately, usually this just means we spend more of our time not doing what we must, and by the end of the day we didn’t make any money and we lost precious time.
Using a timer is very important and can increase dramatically your productivity. Just remember to keep you mail inbox closed and your phone turned off.
Cheers
Jorge
Amen Brother!
Not planning and even not taking action will get you no where fast.
I used to be afraid of taking action because I was unsure of what I should be doing because of the information overload issue. Writing down a plan was the best thing I could have done. Now I admit that I am not the best at planning but at least it gets me moving forward and taking action.
I really like using the mindmapping tools to create my plan. It is very easy to modify as my plans change.
I have had to come to realize that I can not make everything I do be perfect and I will never be able to satisy everyone that comes to my website. I do not that I will be able to help some people and make enough money doing so.
- Rick
Rick Byrd´s last [type] ..Twitter Has A New Feature
Hi mate
It’s impossible to satisfy everybody, but if what you share helps at least one person that you’re making the difference.
I also like to use Mindmap tools to help me plan and I use plenty of Excel files to keep the numbers updated and measure what I’m doing.
Keep planning, keep taking action. The most you do the better will become, for a long time I spent too much time trying to create a perfect plan that, obviously, toke me nowhere. Now I plan not for perfection but for having action done and results appear. Also with time, tweaking here and there, adjusting according the numbers I get, the plan is turning more and more reliable.
Cheers
Jorge