Calling all Warrior Heroes - Newbie in Overload

*Exactly* my point Woody. Very few people do offer it. Yet it's essential to success.

For me personally, I'm a very simple person. So my plans don't get too ticky-tacky into expenses and nit-picky stuff the way more "formal" business plans do.

For me the most fundamental aspects of a sound IM business plan are these:

1) The Market - Who are they? Where do they hang out? Do they already self-identify as an audience/community? Are they already buying? (critical)

2) The Competition - Who are they? What are the most successful competition doing with their websites, promotions, etc.? Where are they getting their traffic? What are they selling and for how much? HOW are they selling it? (the true million dollar education)

3) Business Model - Meaning the model you will use for Traffic - Offer - Conversions. Is it based on a proven model within the niche, or is it based on your own theory?

(Hint: If you can begin by duplicating a proven successful business model as your fundamental model, your customer behavior will be fundamentally the SAME as whatever successful competition is already using that core model... Translation: Customers will buy from you, assuming your own additions to the model are magnetic to the customer)

4) Ultimate Positioning - What is your "X Factor"? What is your powerful branding? What will make your customers SWARM you?

These are the fundamentals in my experience. All the techniques you can possible learn serve these things, not vice versa.

Figure these out first and you're off to the best possible start in this industry.

Ken

Every person has their own way of coming up with a business plan. Bev
has her way, I have my way. I've incorporated some of Bev's methods but
not all of them.

There is no ONE way to make a business plan. There are some basic
things you SHOULD do but nothing is written in stone because every
business is different.

For example, somebody who decides to go into freelancing his copywriting
services is going to have a completely different business plan from
somebody who decides that they're going to get into niche marketing
and sell digital info products for one or more niches.

And that business plan is going to be totally different from somebody
who decides they're going to buy up domains and either sell them at a
premium price OR build sites on them and flip the sites. Through outsourcing
the whole creation process, you can actually flip many in a short period
of time.

But there are some basic things you should do such as working out an
expense budget and a projected income based on reality...not pie in the
sky dreams.

For example (and I know I shouldn't get into this here because it can get
so complex) but let's say you decide that you are going to go into the
information services selling digital info products.

You would choose a niche based on research. Preferably, you'd want to
choose one that has already proven to have a demand. But that doesn't
stop people from taking chances. At one time, every niche was brand new.

After choosing your niche (and the research involved is extensive) you
would decide what product(s) you are going to market to that niche. In
a good niche, you should have a product line so that your income isn't
reliant on just ONE thing.

For example, in the IM make money niche, you might sell the following
products:

Adwords book
Article Marketing book
List Building book
Copywriting book

These would probably be priced at a modest amount ($27 to $47)

Then you would plan out a higher end product line working your way up
to online seminars, membership sites and coaching.

You'd probably build a list either giving away a report or selling a low end
product. Either way can work.

You'd build trust with your list so that they purchase other products from
you.

But this can only be done with niches where there is room for growth.

However, that is only ONE model.

If you want, you can get into many NARROW niches and sell products
across the board for each one.

The key thing to doing all this is to determine what you will spend and
how much you realistically plan to make.

You will also take your skills into consideration so you will know what you
can do yourself and what you will outsource to others.

And then there are different stages to your business plan.

For example, somebody just starting out who is broke has no choice
(unless they get a loan) but to do everything on their own.

However, as the income comes in and you're exceeding your expenses,
you will then budget some of that money to outsource things to other
people so that you can scale up and make more money.

Business plans aren't static. They evolve over time. Of course if you've
found yourself a good thing and it's making you a lot of money, you may
decide not to branch out. However, you should always be looking to see
that your model is still a viable one.

Why?

Because contrary to what people believe, things DO become obsolete when
new technology comes along or laws changes.

Take the MFA sites of years ago.

Those who didn't adapt when Google put the kibosh on them went out
of business if that was their whole model.

Here's the bottom line.

Before you build one site...before you write one ad...before you create
one product...before you do ANYTHING...you should have a firm plan in
place for what niche you're going to tackle, how you're going to tackle it,
how much money you can budget and how much you can realistically
expect to make in 30, 60, 90, 120 and so on days.

This means keeping very good records on everything. If you don't know
where you've been, you can't possibly know where you're going.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough and haven't covered nearly everything.

But hopefully you get the idea.

Business planning is VERY involved if you're going to do it right.