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Many of you may have heard of the 1 Page Business Plan. A smart, and now rich man, once determined that business plans were too long, and that often times VIP’s and decision makers don’t even read past the first couple pages of your business plan. In response to this problem he created the 1 Page Business Plan brand. He wrote books, trained others, and made a fortune I am sure. Although his assumptions were correct that many people will not read more than a page or two of your business plan, there are still a number of reasons why you should not simply write a 1 page business plan.

Credibility – Whether a banker or investor actually reads your entire business plan is besides the point. Handing over a nicely bound and professionally written business plan to your banker will provide immediate credibility that you have done the work. On the other hand, if you simply write a one page business plan, which is essentially an executive summary, it will look like you have not done the work and the research to validate your business endeavour. The business plan gives the banker or potential investor the impression that you have at least considered items like your competition, your marketing plan, and your business model.

Business Plans are for Internal Use – The purpose of a business plan is not only to appease a banker or investor, rather a business plan can be valuable for internal use. If you have a simple one page business plan you will probably run out of direction for your business after week one. Your business plan should be an internal road map for you business that is constantly changing and adapting with the competitive environment you find your business in.

The Purpose of an Executive Summary is to Intrigue the Reader – If your executive summary or one page business plan is successful, it will intrigue the banker or investor to ask for more questions or more detail about your business. If all you wrote was an executive summary, what extra detail can you provide? A full business plan will allow you to provide interested parties with additional detail regarding your business.

Ultimately there are a number of reasons why you should write a full business plan. The value of a one page business plan or an executive summary is that is compels the reader to ask for more. It should be intriguing and should supplement a document that provides the reader with more detail on any aspect of the business that they wish to learn more about. Keep this in mind as you consider taking the easy way out when writing your business plan.

Business planning is one of the most critical steps to online or offline business success. It is so much easier to work from a well researched and well conceived blueprint, when running a business, than it is to work without direction. When you work from the air, without any guidance or sense of direction, you get blown with the wind. You get lost in a sea of problems. You become overwhelmed, overworked, stressed, and rudderless. You are in the doldrums. Please, do not put this on yourself!

When you have a good busines plan you can follow it to achieve your life’s dreams. You can modify it as you work from it so that your plan remains relevant at all times. A business plan is the route map to your wildest financial aspirations. All the more reason why you should pay diligent attention to its preparation.

A busines plan is a strategic document that manifests the principle of thinking before acting. As a strategic document it details the long term plan to be followed, covering a period of 3-5 years. A business plan is also a tactical document in that it is best constructed at a detailed level that makes the forecasts reasonably accurate over the first year.

Yet preparing a business plan is no straightforward matter because it isn’t just sufficient to have a plan. You must have a reliable and realistic plan that is based on both strategy and tactics, or on both concept and pragmatics.

Many obstacles stand in the way of constructing a business plan, and this article discusses four of them… being unsure of how to implement a plan, failure to recognise the need for regular updates, ignorance of product planning, and ignorance of marketing planning. The article also proposes solutions to these and other business planning problems.

Implementation

What is implementation? Why must we implement a business plan? How do we implement it? Implementation is the process of acting on a plan. We follow it and apply its findings, while watching the business environment for any significant changes. When there are changes we take them into account by modifying the plan. If the changes are minor we make only tactical changes. If they are major we make strategic changes.

It is one thing to plan, but it is a completely different matter implementing the plan to achieve the desired results. To succeed we must be disciplined while remaining flexible. We must also be objective in our assessments so that we can accurately monitor progress, and we must be ruthless in correcting deviant behaviour. Sometimes this means sacking incompetent personnel and hiring better ones. We shall deal with other implementation issues later.

Updates

Why must we update a business plan? A plan must always be up-to-date if it is to remain relevant. You don’t want to follow an outdated plan or it will lead your business astray. An updated plan is one that responds to environmental changes by listening for such changes and using them to adjust its methods.

The necessity to keep a plan relevant means that we must conduct business planning every year. The plan must cover a 3-5 year period in order to incorporate strategic elements. But what are the details behind updating a business plan? We shall discuss this later.

Product Plan

A business sells products to make money. As such it must engage in product development or acquisition. What is a product plan? Why do we need a product plan? How do we develop a product plan? How do we implement a product plan? We shall deal with these questions soon.

Marketing Plan

Marketing is about bringing customers to your business. Without customers your business can’t survive. You can’t get customers if they don’t like your products or services. Therefore product planning must be driven by marketing considerations.

First you determine what your potential customers want and then you give it to them in the form of products or services. But what is a marketing plan? Why do we need a marketing plan? And how do we develop a marketing plan? These questions will be addressed soon.

Now let us turn to the answers to this and other questions mentioned above… Unfortunately, we do not have enough space in this article to address the aforementioned questions. So we have prepared a special page with all the answers you need. Before directing you to that page let us first summarise what we have done here.

Final Remarks

This article has discussed a number of key problems that you will face when you try to construct a business plan. The problems include…

1. Your lack of skill in implementing a business plan.

2. Your failure to recognise the need for regular updates.

3. Your ignorance of product planning.

4. You ignorance of marketing planning.

The article also points at the solutions you must undertake to resolve these problems. The link to these solutions is provided below.

Did you realize that you could start your online business by getting your product to sell or become an affiliate marketer. Learn about and get your web host and domain name. You will need to get an autoresponder for your business. Put copywriting at the top of your list to research because it is what sells your products. A marketing, advertising and budgeting plan should be written out and tested. All of these are very important for your Online Homebased Business success.

Focus Get Started!

web host

A web host company provides space on a server for your website. web hosting services are not the same in every company. Customer support, disk space, bandwidth size and control panels can be different. Single page hosting to complex sites are available. Look at other business websites and get ideas to create the look you want for your website. Free, inexpensive and or higher expense hosting are choices to investigate.

There are many hosting companies to choose from which can make this decision frustrating and complicated. While choosing your web host consider the purpose and reason for your internet marketing home business online.

DOMAIN NAME

Every site needs it’s own domain name. The name you give your website is it’s address too and you are the only one who has that name. The domain name gives the ability for any internet user to find your site. They have an extension on them .com, .net, .org and others. You do need to register your domain name. You will pay a fee for the domain name which includes a certain length of time you can use the name. You usually can renew the name. Most domain names are not bought.

Your domain name is important to your home based business success.

AUTORESPONDER

An autoresponder makes it easy to follow-up with a visitor after they subscribe to your offer, newsletter or bonus. The autoresponder will then deliver messages about your product automatically to your visitor. Each message is written and set up ahead of time. This reduces work for you.

A free autoresponder service is usually given in exchange for advertising by different companies on your messages to your visitors. Autoresponders with no advertising have a monthly charge and more features.

GOOD COPY

Your online Homebased Business website should be easy to read with good and clear wording. It should not be confusing. Make it simple, precise and nice to look at. The way you write your sales copy will make the visitor interested and buy your product. Failure to pay attention to writing and communicating will bring low sales. Keyword research is extremely important. Choose correct keywords for your website.

You can get people to write sales copy for you and pay them. Get a ready made website put up with great copywriting already on it.

BUSINESS PLAN

Your online business plan should include budgeting and marketing. How much money you are going to spend, on what and in what length of time? A marketing plan would include paid advertsing strategy, writing articles, a blog and social media. Will the purpose of your advertising to be sell a product or get your name known? Start small with your advertising and track all of it.

You need to decide where, when and how you want to build your work from home business Online.

IN CONCLUSION

The key to your online homebased business success is learning the fundamentals, sticking with them and practicing them. Choose your product. Learn about web hosting, domain names and autoresponders. Do not underestimate good copywriting or correct keywords for your site. You must have a written business plan. Look into affiliate marketing too. Focus on one thing at a time. You can do this with determination and persistance. Look for forums, tutorials, and message boards to help you find answers to your questions. Make decisions and take action to start your home business. Don’t wait, get going, just start your busines now.