The Best Advice I Could Give A Newbie (Or Anyone Trying To Make Money Online, For That Matter)

I hear ya. It took me a little longer than I had planned to get my act together...

Excellent, Excellent I sure with all newbies out there could read this - thanks for sharing

"don't let the idea of writing a plan scare you away"

It's so easy to do this. It's exactly what I let myself do when I got started.

Sub-consciously, I thought, "Write a business plan? That sounds like a lot of hard work. Let me feed my conscious mind a ton of perfectly legitimate-sounding excuses why I don't have to do that right now."

And you know what's weird? The right time just never seemed to come around. Hmmph, imagine that...

But what I did have going for me, what everyone needs in their original plan, no matter how simple it is when they start, is...

A learning plan

Philosopher/Author, Eric Hoffer, famously said,

"“In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to work in a world that no longer exists.”

I started out just reading anything I could get my hands on. That's okay, but what I learned was - strategically planning my learning had a much greater effect on my productivity. I determined what the most critical thing to learn was and studied that and only that until I was ready to move on to the next most critical thing.

Because I had that plan, I realized that running a business was a key component to what I was doing, so I started to study how to do that effectively.

It turned out that everyone said the same thing - you must have a plan.

That's when it finally sunk in for me. So I developed one, rough as it may have been, and then continued to refine it as my knowledge increased.

Everything changed for me when that happened.

Great points, Michael.

I really think you open up a lot of minds.

You laid this out so easy to understand. Talking
too some many people at seminars, we always
get the idea of a plan.

Most don't understand the importance of this.

It is your roadmap in the beginning of what
to do next.

We hear people say,,, what do I do now.

Sit down and set up your plan, you have to know
what you want when you turn your computer on.

Great post.

Oh man, this is something I'm guilty of not doing. I think that's pretty common with many of us that are unfamiliar with all the ins and outs of running a business and tend to "caveman club" their way through life.

When it comes to woodworking or building projects around home, I can envision the whole thing in my mind, I can imagine where all the screws go, what sizes everything needs to be, what order I'm gonna cut, assemble, and paint each part, etc. It comes to me naturally and then I write it all down, make a few sketches and build away!

But when it comes to carrying out a business plan, there seems to be lots of uncertainty & second guessing as well as a million shiny objects to get in the way. That makes it pretty easy to doubt yourself & not be sure which direction to go. So you don't really know what your business plan is gonna be in to begin with.

So sometimes, (at least for me) ... it makes sense to sorta toss up some ideas, get them going, and get a feel for what's working and how I did it. From that, I can develop a business plan to follow through with all my future activites. Sure, I guess that's the school of hard knocks way of doing things, but sometimes you gotta do whatever's working for you.

Hey Tony,

What you've done so far is great. It's already more than most will commit to doing. I commend you for taking action and getting the ball rolling. Great things are around the corner as long as you continue to learn.

Here are a few suggestions to help you fine tune your plan. But first, let me warn you, I got overwhelmed when I learned some of these things and you may find yourself feeling the same way. It's important to realize that we only feel that way because we're being stretched to think outside of our comfort zone. If you never feel overwhelmed, you aren't growing. It's perfectly normal and, as long as you manage your thoughts and emotions and realize this is a marathon, not a sprint, you'll handle it brilliantly...

Here it is -

Most of us don't have a lot of experience with goal setting, (I had none at all when I started) so when we hear it said that we should set goals - we tend to not fully grasp the concept at the level it's intended.

We think to ourselves - set goals, okay, I'll do that. What goals can I set? - and then we sit down and do what makes sense to us - we create income goals, traffic goals, list size goals, ect.

And while these are all necessary goals to set, they aren't the most important goals to set first.

Let's use the house analogy.

If we were going to build a house, the first thing we would do is decide what style house we wanted and where we wanted to build it.

Do we want a 4500 sf, two story, 4 bedroom, 3 bath Colonial with an attached 3 car garage and a game-room above it, sitting on 3 acres of land, 2 miles from the ocean...or...Do we want a 3300 sf, 3 bedroom, 3 bath Cape, with a 2-car garage and a wrap-around porch, sitting on 20 acres out in the country somewhere?

In other words - what does the framework look like?

What type of windows it has, what color paint you'll use on the walls or what flooring you're going to put in each room are all important decisions and need careful consideration, but they aren't the foundation, or framework, for the home. They're the accessories.

We'll fill those in as we go, but to start, we need to build a framework and then work our way in from there.

Now how do you apply this to your specific business?

First, identify what type of business you're in (location). In other words - your products or services are designed (or will be designed) to serve whom?

Next, determine how big you'd like the company to be when it's running at its peak (style). Will this be a one man show or will you eventually need to bring in employees to help grow the business? In what format would you like to provide your products or services - audios, videos, books, one on one coaching, seminars, ect.?

Let's imagine for a moment, that you were in the music market. You've done the above mentioned steps and have these specific goals set -

• You've decided that you're going to set up shop in the 'beginner guitar lessons' niche.

• You're going to eventually be a two-person operation - You and your assistant, who'll be in charge of answering emails, keeping the books straight, ect.
• The products you will offer are - a free video series teaching them how to properly train their fingers to navigate the neck of the guitar - 2 month's worth of killer video lessons for $19.99 - A monthly subscription to your intermediate guitar lesson site, full of new lessons as well as archived ones, for $39.99/mth - advanced skills lessons, including direct access to you for questions/help, ect, for $97/mth.

With these goals in place, you can now move on to 'how to make this happen.'

- When will my first product be complete?
- How will I market my services, meaning, what will my sales funnel look like? What format (video marketing, article marketing, ect.) will I use to capture their email address, when will I ask them to buy, when will I offer the next product, ect.?
- What do I need to learn to be able to create these products and ensure that they're high-quality?
- How much time per day will I devote to learning?
- How much for creating the products themselves?

Once the free report is created and you have the first product ready to go, now it's time to set goals for list building, traffic, income, ect.

Without the original framework, the foundation for your business, the list building, traffic, income goals have no substance and won't lead to great results.

Work from the outside in and break each section down as you go.

You'll find that once you get used to it, it's very easy. You'll either know exactly what to do or you'll know how to find the answers quickly.

Also, as Michael was kind enough to mention in his post, make sure that your goals are flexible. You're just beginning. You can't possibly have all of the answers now. As you acquire more knowledge, you'll make adjustments where need be.

The hardest part is deciding to learn what the right way to build a business is and then committing yourself to doing it.

You've already done the first part, if you decide to do the second - you'll be wildly successful.

I wish you the best and feel free to check back in and let me know how you're making out.

Good luck, Tony!