Fail to plan, Plan to fail - The importance of a business plan for you blog or business

Jul 30th, 2007 by David Murphy-Colonna | Scroll down for comments

Whether running an online business or even a regular business, it is always important to have a business plan. Although it is so easy to throw yourself out there on the internet, try a few things, and see if they work, there are certain things you should do first before you crash and burn. The first of which is to make a business plan.

You may be saying to yourself, that planning your business is boring, slow, and holding you back when all you want to do is start making money. Although it seems this way as first, in reality you will find after making your business plan and following it, you will move right ahead of your competitors who more often then not, are all over the board because of lack of preparation.

The first thing that you need to remember, is that writing things down actually works. You may have all of these great ideas during the day and you think that you will get to them “later” or when “you have time,” but in reality you forget them or go about them in the wrong manner because of lack of preparation.

So before you even start to make your business plan, remember to get your self a notepad, and get in the habit of writing things down, this will put you on the right to track to starting your business plan. (I plan on writing about the importance of actual writing soon.)

Now, when I say business plan, I don’t mean the full out blueprint with graphs and pie charts included, that people pay, to maybe even millions for someone to develop for them. I am talking about a few steps you should take before you start your online business or blog. Here are 3 great steps to get you started in making your business plan, that will put you ahead of the game.

1. Take A Look At Yourself.

First, you need to step back, take a look at yourself and identify what your own expertises and skills are. From there, take a look at what your expectations of yourself and your business are and how you are going to use your skills to take you there. Do you have enough motivation and time to pursue this business? I don’t recommend jumping into things before you think this through at least somewhat, even though i think spontaneity is a great asset to have.

You know yourself the best, so it is up to you to take a look at yourself, acknowledge your skills and decided if they can take you where you want them too. If you think they can, thats great, get started with step number 2. If not, maybe you should start developing personal characteristics or skills that you think will put you ahead of the game, as well as working towards a better personal business situation for yourself.

2. Perform Some Market Analysis

There are so many tools available online, as well as being able to do your own research by browsing through related sites. You need to be able to have an idea where your particular market stands. Knowing things like how many visitors you are going to be able to get to your site, or how much you are going to be able to charge your customer for your services are valuable pieces of information you should obtain when starting your business plan.

Know your market, know the trends, and know the developing interests in your market. Performing your market analysis will help you start to make some goals for your business plan as well as keep you motivated with target numbers and innovation milestones.

3. Know Your Customer

After understanding the state of your market, you need to understand your general customer. You have to understand who you are selling or providing to. For example if you are selling “denture grip paste”(which usually pertains to older people), you aren’t going to use new slang terminology or hip marketing techniques to reach your customer. Focusing on your customers’ needs, wants, desires, and showing you understand them and are willing to help them achieve their goals or solve their problems will enable your business to move forward, rather quickly. You need to understants your customer, bottom line!

Knowing who your audience is going to be and how to reach them is very important in your business plan. Start thinking of advertising schemes as well as business design to cater to your audience/customer.

Although I love spontaneity, and I love to think that the great things happen in a blink of an eye, in which some cases they do, it is definitely important to plan for your business before anything else. A business plan not only lays out the plans for your business, it keeps you on track and focused and also lets you set goals for your business and even yourself. As you start your business write things down, look at yourself and your market and get to work.

Remember as the title says, fail to plain, plan to fail. Now go get to planning.

David Murphy-Colonna posted this article under Business Planning on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 10:15 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.