Purveyors of conventional wisdom would have you believe that the very first thing you ought to do when setting up a new business is to create a business plan.
It doesn’t matter whether you are selling odds and ends on eBay from your living room or something larger and more complex. Maybe you want to create your own coaching business, or become a virtual assistant or have an online social media consultant practice. Whatever your aims, generating the ideas first, creating a product that sells to a targeted niche, and have a team of advisors surrounding you is your best plan of action.
Business plans are excellent and necessary. Far too few of us self-employed and freelance people use them. Business plans not only ’show you the money’ before you get started, but they’re equally important to the goal setting and visualization process as described by super-millionaire, and The Secret entrepreneur John Assaraf.
They force us to spell out our objectives. We have to assign numbers to our expectations and assign a time-line to our goals. They become our roadmap and keep us on track.
But I suggest that you can’t make a business plan that is worth anything until you’ve done your homework.
And that means knowing what you want to do and how you want to do it. And determining that there is sufficient demand for your product to generate enough income to cover your costs and allow a profit.
In other words, before the business plan comes research.
Don’t be discouraged by the word ‘research’ either. This process is outline in simple ways in the OBE Pro “Build Your Online Business (B.Y.O.B.)” guide in Chapter 3.
If a body of knowledge already exists, it makes sense to tap into it and save yourself some work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics and other such sources, for example, publish a great deal of demographic information. Some of it is very useful.
But it is also likely that as a creative online sole-proprietor, meaningful statistics don’t exist about your specialty. Consider this: Online Business Coaching has experiened over 3000% growth over the past 4 years alone. In 2004, there were less than 1,000 Executive Business Coaches in the world. Today, there are about 16,000 registered through their international accrediting agency.
Here’s another point to ponder: Did the job title of “Social Media Consultant” even exist 2 years ago? No, it didn’t. The Internet is changing the ways the world does business…and is becoming the new economyfor home business solo-professionals.
Many micro-businesses target a very specialized niche. And many owned by creative types exist to sell a product or service that don’t follow well-worn prototypes like the examples just talked about.
It is particularly difficult for people to find meaningful published data if you’re not versed in where to look. That means that the data is available, and will take only about 20 minutes to research if you just know the simple methods on how to find it.
If you fall into these categories, you’ll have to generate your own information.
Don’t limit your research to purely business data. You are building a life as well as a business.
Are the demands and conditions of your proposed business compatible with the life you want to create?
For example, illustrators often work on short deadlines – meaning that sometimes they have to work far into the night to complete a project on deadline. Plus, some clients are demanding and some do not pay on a timely basis. After all of that, can you still “love it” enough?
Or, maybe your business is such that sales fluctuate during the year. How will you make it through the lean months? Can you handle the uncertainty of a fluctuating income?
So, how do you find information?
First, if other people provide services similar to yours, talk to them. Use resources like OBE Net. You will gain a lot of information quickly just by talking to other people and surveying their opinions. Their answers to your questions will save you a lot of legwork and open your eyes to factors you may not have considered.
Try to talk to at least 10 or 12 top performers so you can get a range of viewpoints.
You can also find them through trade associations, schools, word-of-mouth. If the locals are reluctant to share information – perhaps because they see you as direct competition – look for similar people in a different locale.
Second, create the information you need. And here’s a secret, as you create the information, document it. Write down everything. Because what you create today, can be shared with others (for high perceived value) later.
Mimic and simplify what large businesses do. Reduce their methods down to a level that is practical and affordable. Online business today can always start simple (and cheap) and grow virally when your product or service is outstanding. Great content is the best word of mouth you can have.
For example, perhaps you want to survey potential clients and customers to get feedback.
If you are a creating a micro-business on a shoe-string, it may not be affordable nor practical to commission a focus group. But you may be able to speak to potential targets informally or use direct mail to send a simple survey.
Eventually you’ll have to ‘put your toe in the water.’ Try it out in a small way – so you won’t lose much if it doesn’t work – and observe the results. Then experiment and modify as needed. Once it works to your liking you can plunge right in.
This approach, known by the technical term “trial and error,” can be applied to any facet of your business.
After all, even the largest producers test market new products before rolling them out.
Put some parameters around your efforts. Decide, in advance, how much time you want to allow and how much you want to budget.
Then test, test, test.
Use trial and error for every aspect of your business. Experiment with different ways of packaging your services, different rates and prices, different types of marketing, etc.
You’ll soon find that certain approaches work better than others. Eventually your experience and data will suggest viable strategies.
And then you’ll be ready to create your 20 year lucrative business plan.
By the way, OBE Pro offers the D.L.P. (Your Definite Life Plan) FREE to all new subscribers of OBE Pro. This guide will help focus your life objectives and desires before you ever put a single number on page.
