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Why You Must Start With A Plan
© 2003-2005 By Kevin Wirth - all rights reserved worldwide
Word Count: 1650
Updated 02/11/05
Recently I was talking with someone who wanted to start selling a product. I mentioned to him that the first thing he needed to do was sit down and figure out how he wanted to approach it – create a simple sales process and strategy. He knew what he wanted to sell, and he wanted my help, but he couldn’t stop long enough to tell me who his target clients were.
“I just keep calling and try to bring down my numbers” he said. I asked him ‘what numbers’? and he blathered on about some fuzzy, nebulous and meaningless ‘metrics’.
“I know that it’s a numbers game, and the more people I call, the closer I’m going to be to making a sale”, he said matter-of-factly.
I could not nail him down on anything about his customers other than they needed to be CIO’s, CFO’s, or Marketing Directors – but that was just his starting point – he had made the mistake of running ahead of himself.
Why is that?
Because he had 'targeted' a list of people who worked in executive positions and probably had lots of disposable income, but this was just part of his target market profile. And, he was willing to make HUNDREDS of calls to find just one person who might be interested (I'd sure hate to be that poor soul...). I call this wild flailing, not targeted marketing. It’s just not the smart way to try and make a sale because without a profile on who was likely to buy what he had to sell – it would be a miracle before he found a likely prospect.
You don't usually go looking for diamonds in a swamp. Sure, there's always a chance your might find some there, but that doesn't mean you're looking in a spot that is most likely to yield the results you want.
When I suggested that he put together a simple plan and strategy before he continued on, he stopped just long enough to insist that “I just don’t have time to do all that stuff – I’ve gotta be making calls and making money to support my family”, he stated matter-of-factly. He brushed me off with theimpatience of man being interrupted from doing important work.
I visualized him banging his head against a wall – because that is what he was doing.
“We’re just starting out here," he continued, "we don’t HAVE a process yet because we don’t have time to develop one – we’re building it as we go along.”
He referred to my suggestion to create a plan first as an ‘administrative task’ that he simply didn’t have time for. He needed to be in action, making some sales. He didn't have time for that 'other' stuff.
He was in the “just do it” mode. Ever seen someone do that? It's as if being in action was all that was required to get the desired results. And coming up with a plan first was, to him, a huge waste of time.
Hey, I can pound nails into wood all day long with the best of them, but that does NOT mean that at the end of the day I've created a servicable doghouse or table. I need to understand WHAT I'm building first, but more importantly, I need to know how to build it. Being in action simply isn't enough.
And it was very clear that nothing I had to say was going to change his mind. He was much more focused on WHAT he thought he had to do and wasn't really giving much thought to HOW. So, I left him to flail on (and he did). Since I could tell he didn't understand how important it is to have a plan BEFORE he got started, I didn’t press the issue. Instead, I determined to write this brief report for you so that you could learn from his mistake (and his misfortune).
Here was a guy who (ironically) claimed he didn’t have time to waste – he had to be 'in action'. That’s sort of like the person who doesn’t have time to put gas in his car before going on a long trip. He's much too focused on getting to his destination to be bothered with a silly thing like gasoline. How much sense does it make for someone to say "I just don't have time to put gas in my car because it takes me off my focus, which is driving to Seattle".
Uh, right.
There are SOME things you really do need to MAKE time for if you are serious about driving somewhere. It's always smart to check your fluids, your tire pressure, and it wouldn't hurt to pack your wheel bearings either if it's really LONG trip in an older vehicle. And if you're going somehere you've never been before, it wouldn't hurt to spend 10 minutes online with MAPQUEST either. Oh, and - you might want to take time out to call AAA and get signed up with them too.
My friend who was in too much of a hurry to stop and make a plan was doomed to succeed only a little bit, if at all.
Here’s why.
I’m going to use the metaphor of building a house to illustrate just how important it is to have a plan in place before you get started with any serious undertaking.
Let’s say you decide you want to build a house, and you appoint yourself the general contractor. Since you have no prior experience building a house, you decide to hire someone to help you. This person says ‘Sure, I can help you build your house’ and the following week he shows up with everything you need to build that house - 2x4’s, shingles, windows, wiring, plumbing, siding, and concrete – which he conveniently piles in a heap on your lot. “There you go” he says, “all the materials you need to build your house are right here. Bye” and you find yourself in mid-sentence as his truck roars down the road into the sunset.
Has this person really helped you? Do you really know what to DO with all these materials to build a house? Not really. The one thing you really need if you have the slightest hope of turning those materials into a house is: a blueprint. In other words – you need a plan before you hammer a single nail. Let me put this another way:
It's not a very bright idea to create the blueprint for a house WHILE you are building it (especially if you've never built a house before).
Remember my friend in the beginning segment of this report who was too busy to build a plan, and insisted that we must build it ‘as we go’? I hope by now you understand why his approach was doomed to fail from the start.
It really does not matter what you’re building – to do it right, you need a plan that draws from as much experience and wisdom as you can find. It's even more true when you want to start up an online business.
Step 1. Define your target market. Another way of saying this is – define your niche and the people in that niche you want to reach. I constantly talk with people and advise them how important it is for them to understand who they are trying to reach. Trying to reach everyone on the planet is a surefire recipe for disaster. Many people tell me they don’t know who they're trying to reach et, and won’t know until they get going. 'It's too soon to know', they tell me. At which point I have to stop advising them, because until you do this, your chances of online success are pretty limited.
Step 2. Define what product or service you will provide. Product or service? What kind? What are you good at? What are your interests? Ultimately, you must define what it is you have to offer your prospects and customers. You have to define what it is you want to do, specifically. Not ‘sort of’.
Step 3. Define your goals. You really do need to have some specific goals in mind. What do you want to create? How many people do you want to help? Meet? Work with? How much money do you want to make. A simple business plan would help.
Step 4. Define a simple process. I don’t care what it is you are doing – a process will help you be more efficient at what you do. Define step by step what you think you have to do to achieve your goals. A process helps you to memorialize actions that work, giving you a 'success baseline' that you can always return to if you decide to tweak your process or try something different. Write the process down and review it frequently to make sure it's working. If your process isn't helping you achieve your goals, tweak or change it altogether.
Step 5. Define a starting point. You can’t build Rome in a day – so determine what you will be able to realistically provide your customers with initially, and then make plans on where you want to go from there. Don't bury yourself - start out small. Plan for success.
Step 6. Work with others. Leverage the expertise of others. It's always MUCH better to share the load and leverage the time and skills of others to produce a produt or pull off a promotion. Be willing to share the benefits and the profits in situations where you would otherwise have none (this is one the primary principles behind Kevs-Korner).
Step 7. Define your success. It's also important to define what results would indicate that you have achieved your goal. This could be building your list of subscribers by a specific number each month or bringing in a specific amount of income. It could also be measured in terms of how many articles you wrote AND how many places published them each month.
Additional Resources:
Blueprint for a Comprehensive Business Plan
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Kevin Wirth is the owner of KEVS-KORNER ezine, a free online newsletter offering articles, tips, resources, and insight on over 150 different marketing tactics. He is bringing together a growing community where you can work with others to create and market products online. To discover how Kevin can help you grow your online business, and get a free gift just for visiting, please head on over to www.kevs-korner.com.
This article was first published on KEVS-KORNER February 8, 2005.
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