2009 could be great. Anybody have business plan ?'s I'll answer

[DeePower]

I know there are several other people who specialize in business plans as well.

Here's an article to get the discussion going.

It’s almost 2009, time to make a fresh start: A fresh start in your personal relationships, with your family and your business. What’s been holding you back? Why aren’t you building your business as fast as you would like? Have you been wasting precious hours on activities that don’t turn a profit? Frittering away your time by checking email over and over, visiting favorite forums and discussion lists? Or maybe just sitting there wondering ‘what do I do next?’

At the end of 2009 what will be your accomplishments? Will it be the same old, same old, or will you be able to say 2009 was your most profitable year ever?

A business plan isn’t just for bankers and investors. It’s a management tool that simply tells you where you’ve been, where you want to go, and how are you going to get there. Realistically a business plan can be used for any part of your life. Think about it. If you’re starting a diet, it’s important to know what your eating habits are (that’s the “where you’ve been” part of a business plan.) You then set goals for weight loss, say 20 pounds in six months (that’s the “where you want to go” part). And finally you determine what specific strategies and action plans will achieve that goal (“the how are you going to get there” part.)

You can be an Internet marketer, a writer, a home business person, or involved in the corporate world. You still need a business plan.

Get started by thinking about your company, business, or job, if your business plan is for your career.

You need to consider answering questions like:

What is your business, how did it get started, what major problems did you face in 2008? How did you overcome them? What products do you offer? Who are your major customers?

What did you accomplish in 2008? You can include what happened in your personal life if it impacted your business. Sometimes we have to focus on one area of our lives at the cost of another and that’s okay. As long as we don’t use it as an excuse. And as long as we know we’re doing it.

What were your disappointments for 2008?

The next step is to look at your financial picture. This schedule is simple, just list your revenues by month, by each product category and your expenses for each month by category. You don’t have to be extremely detailed oriented, top line is fine.

For example: you could have three ebooks you sell, four products you sell through an affiliate program, and some miscellaneous consulting. List each ebook and the sales per title and each affiliate product. Then list the expenses.

Here’s what you’re looking for: Did one of the ebooks outperform the others? Did you spend lots of time promoting an affiliate product with not much in the way of results? Look for seasonality, perhaps one ebook title did great in the spring and fall, but sales dumped in the summer. Did you have lots of affiliate products but only one had major sales?

Relate the sales to the expenses. Did your best selling ebook also cost you the most in advertising? Or did you have a sleeper- a product that slowly took off without a lot of effort or expenses? How much effort did you expend? If you had to start a mailing list or newsletter from scratch you might not have seen much in the way of sales in 2008. The payoff, hopefully, will be in 2009.

How did you feel about the performance of your business? What aspects did you enjoy? What functions do you dislike?

Now take this information and summarize it in no more than two pages. Don’t get tangled up in verbiage. Don’t worry about your grammar and spelling. This document is for your own usage. If all you do is list bullet points, that’s fine.

Congratulations! You’ve now completed the first part of your business plan.
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Dee

[lassitermarketing]

Great post. I have done this for years for my main business and last year did one for my information products business. It's amazing how when you set a goal and track something you know exactly where you are and where you are going.

I also add a step - I set strategic goals for each product or service. Could be monetary or some other goal. Then I add 4-5 tasks that I must perform to achieve that goals with deadlines. Such as "Add 15 new adgroups to AdWords for product A" by January 21. I find if I break it down into tasks, it's easier to get done for some reason. Not so overwhelming.

This past year my goal was to grow my info product sales to $5,000/mo. I doubled that when I started to focus on the tasks finally in June.

Now I know I have a model that works, the key is to scale it. To make more money get more product out in the market place AND have a similar plan (for me it's a monthly sales goal) for each product to hit my new revenue goal for 2009.

[ofir]

Great post.
I will rewrite my goals (based on 2008 experience) and hope for the best!

[rocklobsta]

I definitely need a business plan for 2009.
I intentionally stopped working in August this year to start researching into Internet marketing.
I gained a lot of knowledge since then and I now feel comfortable to start getting more serious about advertising and marketing. Today I have started promoting a website (see my sig) and am yet to get a sign up. It will happen though because I have sold my soul to this industry now and I will commit myself to it.

I think the hardest thing, but the best thing to do is just start something and stick with it. It is hard though when you are subjected to so many choices and options and for each one I come across I feel compelled to read about it. I then end up getting sidetracked - I move on and keep reading.
I have always been like this though and I have always been a procrastinator since I was a kid, especially with school work.
I guess my goal for 2009 is to earn an income I can get by on (300-500 AUD p/week).
I look forward to learning from people here that have been in the industry for a long time and I will be proud of myself when I reach my goal.

[GeorgR.]

my plan is to make THAT much money that we can finally move to southern spain and kiss the weather and crouchy germans here goodbye

Then i do the marketing lying on the beach in the sun on my notebook.

I am on the way, i am on the way...who knows what 2009 will bring

[DeePower]

My business plan is to introduce 4 new products in 2009 (write another novel, get a screenplay sold, get 4 freelancing assignments with national hardcopy magazines, and sell a book proposal, okay so it's sell 3 book proposals and write the books - I should be a busy girl in 2009).

I've got one product completed with fresh bonus material I've written, and materials that affiliates can use. I'm struggling with the pricing but I think I will have an intro price of less than $50, do a soft launch in early December and then a full launch in January.

BUSINESS PLAN LESSON TWO

Set goals and objectives and break them down into strategies and action plans.

My objectives for the product launch is to sell 1000 copies in 3 months, that would be end of March because I'm not counting on December.

I started working on the product in August finished in mid -October and got some endorsements. Tweaked and revised based on suggestions and added materials. I knew I needed some good bonuses so I wrote 2 short (5000) words reports, both compliment the main ebook. And decided to give away PLR content as a bonus as well.

Then wrote the bonus book to get my list going and the autoresponder series. I also bought a set of PLR for an autoresponder series and am slowly rewriting them and adding them to the autoresponder.

Registered two domains, one for the giveaway and one for the product. They're up and running. Although I haven't promoted the product web site yet, but I will through article distribution, squidoo pages, hubpages and guest blogging. Anybody want me to be a guest on your blog?

My action plans for the rest of November is to load the bonus PLR (My partner and I wrote all that too.) in a password protected area and recruit affiliates.

Send out 50 query letters to screenplay producers.

Send out 10 article queries to magazine editors.

Outline one book proposal.

Dee

[lassitermarketing]

Originally Posted by rocklobsta

I think the hardest thing, but the best thing to do is just start something and stick with it. It is hard though when you are subjected to so many choices and options and for each one I come across I feel compelled to read about it. I then end up getting sidetracked - I move on and keep reading.

Focus is the key. You have to pick one project and focus on the tasks related to that project until it's complete. THEN move on to the next one. I made the mistake of starting too many things and couldn't finish any.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Dee, I got kind of an advanced one that I am struggling with. It's not that
I don't know what to do, it's that I don't know how to determine which will
be the most optimum solution. Having never gone the physical product route
before, I am faced with having to make some decisions based on no prior
experience.

It essentially comes down to what media type to use for the product (CD,
DVDs, manuals, combination of all 3) I know that if I put out a survey,
based on having done surveys for other stuff in the past, I am going to get
answers all over the board. There isn't going to be one overwhelming
response. Ultimately, I am going to lose potential customers no matter
what I decide. It all comes down to minimizing those losses. And because
small surveys are so statistically insignificant, ultimately you end up just
taking a crap shoot with your final decision.

For example, I can survey the people on MY list, but I can't survey the
people on the lists of my JV partners. Well, I could, but not without their
permission and cooperation. And then there is the ethical side of, is it okay
for the list owner to share that info with me? Will his subscribers care?

I know, I'm putting more thought into this than I probably have to, but if
this was just a digital release, it's not an issue. In this case, it is.

So I'm wrestling with what's the best way to go about coming up with
my final decision. Do I base it solely on surveys? Is there someplace
online with stats on what the most preferred media is for physical make
money products? I personally haven't found any.

Anyway, if this is too much to tackle, I understand. I'm just throwing out
some ideas here to maybe get myself thinking a little bit more.

Eventually I'll figure this out.

[DeePower]

This is more of a management consulting question than straight business planning. A manual involves expense with printing paper, cover design etc.etc. DVDs and CDs not so much. If you don't have to offer a manual I would suggest you don't. If it's a requirement go through lulu.com or directly through Lightning Source. Lightning Source is a print on demand printer. It costs about $100 to set up an account and about $5.00 to print a 250 page trade paperback size manual. Because it's print on demand you can have them printed after they've been ordered and paid for by the customer. The orders are filled pretty quickly but not on the same day.

Of course if you plan on selling several thousand manuals within a short time period you could have them offset printed. You can get an idea of the pricing at booksjustbooks.com

As far as surveying your list or a JV partner's list you could by offering a freebie and then sharing the consolidated results with your JV partner. Sharing the info I don't think would be a violation of privacy of the subscribers. BUT are you sure that the people on the lists who are used to buying digital products are the same market as for those who buy physical products?

I am going to be offering our new 30 Day Action Plan Earn Money Online as a physical product so it can be sold on Ebay (by other people as affiliates not by me). So I share your problem.

Dee