Keep It Simple Strategy
When the phrase “business plan” comes up, most people think of long, complicated documents that cover everything about your business and what you plan to do for the next few years.
I’ve purchased a few business plan software programs over the past few years, and I’ve never been happy with any of them. They always wanted you to put together this huge document intended to get financing for your business.
I run an internet business from my home. Because of the low startup costs, I don’t need financing!
And I don’t need to spend two weeks putting together a plan…that’s likely to change 3 months down the road when I get more in depth information and test different sales approaches.
That’s why I’ve recommended “The One Page Business Plan” by Jim Horan several times on this blog. While you can purchase it from a bookstore or from Amazon, it is more of a set of worksheets than a book. Plus it comes with all the worksheets on a CD so you can print them out or fill them out on your computer. Very, very useful.
Lately I’ve started noticing that this book is good for overall business planning when you first create your plan, but it is really too much for the regular updates you make.
The Internet sometimes changes very quickly and you need to be flexible enough in your plans to change quickly.
For example, you may be testing different sources of traffic…and you find you enjoy Adwords advertising significantly more than using joint ventures.
I have a couple of clients like that. Even though they do joint ventures at times, they prefer the complete control they have through Adwords…so this emphasized much more in their overall business plan. They spend more time on PPC than they do finding JV partners.
I have other clients who HATE everything about Adwords. No I don’t mean dislike. I mean they really hate it. So they spend a lot more time going after JV partners and search engine optimization with no attention at all paid to Adwords.
There really isn’t a “one size fits all” promotional plan…although I wish there was a single way that always worked best for everyone. We’re all unique. Luckily, there are more than enough ways to advertise online so something will fit you.
But let’s say your original plan uses a marketing strategy you don’t like following. You can always hire it out of course, but that may meaning investing more money than you originally intended. Or you can change just the marketing portion of your plan.
This of course could be done using the above book by only working on that section (it is rather easy to edit if you do the documents on your computer for easy changes). Or you could simply do a very simple business plan on a napkin.
You’d be surprised at just how many products and businesses have been written down on a napkin!
The below questions are some of the vital answers you have to have to develop your business. The key element of your business (the ultra compelling promise) should easily fit on a napkin even if you write in large print. The rest of it may take you a printed page.
What ultra compelling promise does your business make?
What keywords do you target audience use to search online?
What websites are your future customers already visiting?
How will you tap into this traffic (participation, advertising, affiliate, content, etc.)?
What are your primary business goals for the next year?
What steps will you have completed to reach the yearly goals within the next 30 days?
What steps will you compete this week?
Obviously your weekly and monthly steps will have to be changed regularly to keep up to date. You’ll also find additional sources of advertising as your expand your business along with testing to find out which promise appeals the most to your audience.
You can add a lot more complexity to your plan, but I find keeping it simple works best for me. Normally on my schedule I also have a few upcoming products I’ll put together (based out of feedback from this blog and my client’s questions) along with the topics of upcoming blog posts and print newsletter issues.
I concentrate on keeping my business plans very simple where I know exactly what I’m doing each day to stay focused on the plan.
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12 Responses to “Keep It Simple Strategy”
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Good writing. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed my Google News Reader..
Matt Hanson
This was some great advice on creating your business plan. I do believe that your business plan should be so simple that you should be able to write it down on a napkin!
I think often times, we make business too complicated.
Thanks again for sharing this advice and you’ve definitely just won a loyal reader of your blog.
Melvin Perry
http://www.list-building-videos.com
Terry,
Thanks for sharing this.
I personally think that one of the things that holds online marketers back is the propensity to try to make everything more complex than it really needs to be. There are the basics – traffic and conversion – and so many people try to juggle 50 different things – many of which never add to their bottom line.
Sean
Terry
when I read your lead in sentences, I immediately went to respond so I could recommend “The One Page Business Plan: for the Creative Entrepreneur” – then discovered that’s what you were recommending also. I just finished my plan with Jim Horan’s method having struggled for months with various other strategies including SCORE’s.
This is especially good for any “ADD types” and various learning styles. It asks the right questions, gives great buzz words and examples, and makes you think in logical steps. Plus the CD with sample documents is a great jump-start.
Thanks for interesting newsletter.
Marian Joyce
I also utilize the One Page Plan. It is so simple. It helps to make an overwhelming idea of a business plan into a simple process.
Thanks Terry for mentioning the one page plan. It changed my business so much back in 2000 when I found it that I eventually signed up as a licensee for it. My clients enjoy using a special software program and just sit at their computer and finally “do it” — their plan that is
You mention finding other ways to use the plan… that’s great! I had a client who after creating their plan, said, I could create a family plan with this method… just by changing the words for each of the 5 sections plan around. True.
Here are some more ideas…
3 or 6 month plan for new business owners
1 year plans
5 year plans
exit strategies
career plans
big project plans
website project plan
department plans
use it to create a job description
family plan
The list is endless.
If you’d like to offer your clients, readers and students a class in the process, “give me a holler”. OR they can request to listen to an audio I created a few years ago at the website above.
Again… thanks. I enjoy your “stuff” and have cassettes from you from “way back when”.
When someone comes to me to tell me they live in a small town and that’s why they can’t grow their business… I tell them your pizza story
Then I tell them “no excuses” — get their rear in gear and let’s make them successful.
Maria
It was such a coincidence that I was writing a business plan for my technology products. I was still hesitating if the contents were sufficient to get investors interested. After reading this post, I went through my presentation slides and documents again and realise it was indeed more complicated. There are more redundancies and beating around the bush. I have since clean them up.
Thanks for this awakening!
[...] time. Most of them have great ideas, they plan everything out but they don’t do anything… Keep It Simple Strategy September 1, 2008, By Terry When the phrase “business plan” comes up, most people think of [...]
I’ve seen you mention this book 3 times between your blog and your newsletter, so I finally ordered it today!
I have found that having focus and a plan can be difficult when starting an internet business.
But thanks to your blog and teaching Terry, I’m becoming much more focused.
How true this is Terry! Keeping focus with a simple plan/strategy (along with outsourcing) is what has got me and my business where I am today.
I think it is true, I admit to doing it myself, that when we are newbies we try to over complicate things. I think things really started to change for me when I got my Internet Marketing Blog as this gave me a base to centre my business around, similar to what you have going here!
Keep up the good blog,
Ray Johnson
I agree that most people are much better off with a short business plan. Business plans are also never done. They are meant to change as circumstances change.
Jim
http://www.jimestill.com
I totally agree with what you say regarding “ready made” business plans. So many of them seem to be designed with a “one size fits all” frame of mind. While that may have been the case a few years ago, the landscape has definitely changed a lot over the past few years and a more flexible and tailor made solution is often in order.