Fail To Plan? Plan To Fail!
by: Aaron Hoos
One of the biggest challenges faced by the home business or small business entrepreneur is to provide direction to their company. Many people simply start up a home business in their spare time with the hope that it will make money and eventually allow them to quit their job.
Unfortunately, successful home business owners will tell you, that's not how it works. You need to provide direction to your business, whether it's big or small.
A big company has a CEO and board of directors to provide that direction. A home based business has just you: probably the same person that makes the coffee and sweeps the floors!
So how do you create goals and provide direction for your company? There are many ways. Here is a "quick-and-dirty" way to create an action plan that will help you develop solutions for your home based business or small business. In fact, it's exactly the method I used this this winter to develop my 2006 marketing plan.
1. Decide what you want to do. For example, let's say you want to sell more widgets.
2. Decide the metrics you want to use. For example, let's say that you are going to measure the number of widgets sold between January and March.
3. Determine where you are now and write it at the top of your page. Let's say that you sell 10 widgets per day, now.
4. Decide how many widgets you want to sell. write that number at the bottom of the page. So in our example, let's say that by March 31st we want to sell 20 widgets per day.
5. Connect the current number and the goal with a line down the side of your page.
So right now our page looks like this:
Today: 10 widgets/day
---------------------
-------------------------------
Goal: 20 widgets/day by Mar. 31
6. Now fill in the middle with ideas and brainstorms to help you. For example, you might want an print-based advertising campaign or a pay-per-click advertising campaign or an affiliate marketing program.
7. Assign due dates to each item.
So now our page looks like this:
Today: 10 widgets/day
---------------------
-by Jan 25: PPC ad campaign
-by Feb 15: affiliate mkting prgm
-by Mar 15: print ad campaign
-------------------------------
Goal: 20 widgets/day by Mar. 31
8. Begin taking action on each item until March 31st and determine if you've reached your goal!
The story is told of 2 salespeople. One set goals and one didn't. The salesperson who didn't set goals proudly boasted that they made $250,000 that year. The salesperson who did set goals admitted that they only acheived half of their million dollar goal.
The moral of the story: if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get anywhere.
About The Author:
Aaron Hoos is a freelance writer specializing in business and financial topics. He writes e-books and articles that can help you make more money in your online or offline business! Visit www.aaronhoos.com for more information.
March 2006
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