Some Tips On Goal Setting
There are times when goal-setting can appear like trying to find your way to a destination you have never been to without a map. Accomplishing your goals for your online business is a matter of getting from ‘here’ to ‘there’. In order to achieve any goal, you have to first know exactly what you’re trying to achieve.
Most large and long-term goals are made up of smaller, short-term goals or objectives. After you have written down your long-term goals and broken them into smaller components, it’s time to identify the action steps that will move you toward accomplishing them.
Identify Clear Action Steps for Each Goal
Start with one long-term goal and its corresponding short-term goals. Try to think of which key activities would create the results you want and begin listing these steps below each goal. Action steps generally fall into two categories. The first involves planning and preparation, such as discovering the “how to” do something by researching and educating yourself. The second category involves taking action to implement a step.
As you begin to execute your action plans, don’t let yourself become consumed by your planning and preparation steps. To be able to achieve anything in life you need to take action. Reading a book, studying a course, and searching the Internet for information – these quests for education and knowledge by themselves will do nothing to help you achieve anything. In order to get results you must put that knowledge into action.
Obviously, as you move forward and begin to gain more knowledge you may discover that you have to add additional steps to your plan in order to accomplish a goal. What is important to focus and push forward on are productive action steps; the actions taken that will yield the greatest results.
You will want to identify action steps to be taken daily, weekly, and monthly.
Your Daily actions will be those actions you will do every day. Some examples would be posting to your blog; commenting on other people’s blogs and in forums; doing keyword/niche/market research; working on the article you publish each week, etc.
Weekly actions are usually a bit larger in scope and take a little longer to complete. You may also have to take daily action to complete each of your weekly steps.
Monthly actions are those steps you will do to keep yourself on track. You might take a day and review all of your actions from the previous month in detail. How well did what you do lead toward accomplishing your goal? Did you find yourself doing things that should be added to your steps, or, eliminated as wasteful time?
Did you accomplish your daily, weekly and monthly goals for this month? Are there any steps or goals the need to be changed or updated?
After you have done this, review the steps for each goal and place them into the order in which they need to be accomplished. Some steps will need to be done before others. Add steps if you realize you need to, eliminate or combine steps if you can. Ask yourself if your steps appear to flow naturally.
When you feel comfortable with you plans as they are laid out, set a general timeline for completing each of your steps. At this point you need to be very, very careful and realistic about what you can achieve and what you want to achieve versus what you have time and resources to achieve.
Not accomplishing the results we wanted by a certain date, even if due to circumstances beyond our control, might cause us to lose hope. Do the timelines you set for each step, when added together, allow you to accomplish your goal by the date you originally thought? If not, revise those dates until they make sense.
Remember, working toward the achievement of your online business goals is a process. To accomplish most goals is going to require consistent and persistent effort. Achievement will also involve specific action steps taken day after day, week after week, and month after month!
Build an Online Business – Start with Your Dreams
Before you begin to develop your own online business, you should have decided why you want to do so. It will be much easier for you to accomplish your objectives if you have clearly defined goals and dreams to motivate you. You will discover that one of the hardest things you’ll have to do as a new online marketer is maintaining your focus. This will be easier to accomplish if you have set clearly defined goals.
Your long-term goals are represented by your dreams. Short-term goals are the steps you will take to get there.
Dare to Have Big Dreams
When you dream of the future you want, nothing is impossible. Don’t limit yourself in deciding what you want, because the most vital thing that will keep you driving toward success will be your dreams.
What are your dreams that you want to accomplish as you start and build an online business? Are they retiring from the workforce as soon as possible, or just having some additional income each month to meet current obligations? Being able to put your kids through college, or just pay their pre-school tuition? Buying a new car whenever you want, or having the money to repair the one you own now? Buying that dream house, or just knowing the rent/mortgage is paid each month? Do you want to travel around the world, or simply be able to put gas in the car to get to the grocery store?
Can you remember some of the dreams for your future that you had as a child? It seems that as we aged we started to get comfortable with, and little by little, began to settle for what we have; or, life got in the way; or, unforeseen circumstances struck; or any number of things happened and gradually we began to stop believing that the dreams we had as a child would ever actually come true.
It’s time to start dreaming again.
Without dreams, you’ll have nothing to work toward and no reason to continue to push yourself through the tough times you will encounter in your business. A dream will provide you with the drive to achieve what you really want in life. Keeping your dreams alive and in front of you will help fuel your eventual success.
Whatever your dream, just make sure that you have one.
Responsibilities of the Online Marketing Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the practice of lending your creative talents and ideals to new business ventures. This could involve the starting of a brand new online business, or, finding new opportunities for your existing internet business. Running an online marketing business has elements of both.
Initially, when you start an online business you are making all of the decisions and laying the groundwork for what that business will eventually become. Once your online business is established, you will be looking for new opportunities to expand and deciding the best way to incorporate these opportunities into your business.
Some of the areas you will find yourself responsible for include planning, organizing, controlling, and communicating.
These four activities, when done properly, will provide a solid foundation that will serve you well in the future.
To start with, planning is probably the most important responsibility of any entrepreneur. A great idea, by itself, will be nothing more than a great idea without planning how to make it a reality. Research needs to be done to determine if your business idea is feasible.
After gathering information, you need to decide if you will pursue the idea now or if you will file it away for the future. If you decide to pursue the idea, what’s the next step? And the step after that? And after that?
You must plan ahead so that you know what to expect as you move forward. Not only will a plan provide you with a ‘how to’, you can periodically compare your current actions and results to the plan. This will serve in helping you keep on track. It will also let you know if the plan needs to be revised to meet changing circumstances.
Once a solid plan of action is in place, the next responsibility is organizing. This involves gathering the resources you will need to accomplish each step in your plan. Do you need materials, software, education, other people’s expertise? Do you know how you will utilize these resources? In order to reach your specific targets, you must know how to organize especially if you’re trying to coordinate several things going on at once.
Another responsibility of the internet entrepreneur is controlling the process to insure that you stay on track. A huge issue facing every online marketer these days is focus and the lack thereof. Because of the pull of family obligations, emails, online offers and opportunities, online videos, the television, our friends, the news, weather, sports…the list goes on and on – maintaining a focus on your business and goals is a real challenge. It is easy to get involved with too many activities which lead the vast majority of people to simply get overwhelmed and explode!
Although you may spend the majority of your online time working alone, you must still be an excellent communicator. Good communication skills are needed to deal with your clients who may represent different age groups, backgrounds and levels of experience with their own online business. If you are good at communicating, all of your messages will come across correctly, completely, and clearly. This is essential so that everyone understands the message you are trying to convey. Most of your communication will involve writing, but at times it may be verbal. You will also need to utilize reading, and sometimes, listening skills to understand your customer’s needs and wants.
If you can master and be comfortable controlling these responsibilities you will be well on your way to becoming a successful online marketing entrepreneur.
A Review – Newbie’s Guide To Online Fortunes
This e-book also carries the subtitle: ‘The Simple & Easy Guide To Starting Your Very Own Online Business ASAP!’
Within these pages, I will provide you with what I found to be valuable step-by-step information, lead you to resources I think provide real value to you, and, every now and then let you know what I think about some of the information I have discovered that I believe you can just as easily live without.
These comments represent my personal opinion only.
This ‘Guide’ is a resource that you can live without. The hard drive storage space I used for this download has since been freed up. I did print it and took the time to read it, so now I have to find another way to use the back side of the 180 pages it took. Oh well, not the first, nor the last time this will happen. So, try to avoid making the same mistake as I did.
It appears this ‘guide’ was written in 2004. At best, the information in it is outdated. The author is unknown, which was definitely a smart move on their part.
Like a vast majority of other ‘how to’ guides, there is no ‘how to’. As an example, you are told that once you have decided on a domain name to check that no one else is using it – but given no instructions on how to do that.
The document contains countless spelling and grammatical errors which will drive you nuts after a while. There are several instances where the text will read “like the following:”, or, “some of them are:” with nothing to follow, no list, no examples, nada.
There is one topic the document addresses that might be of benefit to some people who are positively stuck for an idea for starting their online business. If you, and no one else in the world, have any suggestions, then you might consider looking at this section.
You have better ways to spend your time than with this guide. Don’t waste time downloading, printing, or reading it. And for goodness sake – do not suggest to anyone else that they do.
Just my opinion.
Business Ideas for the Entrepreneur
Many people today have a sincere desire to start and run their own business. For a variety of reasons they would prefer to be their own boss rather than continue to work eight, or more, hours each day in someone else’s office or factory. There are any numbers of business opportunities available from an online marketing business; to providing a service of some type; to owning your own franchise.
If you are thinking about starting your own business, there are some obvious important factors that you want to take into consideration.
One of those factors is the type of business that you would like to eventually own. As an example, would you like to have a pet grooming business, your own payroll or bookkeeping service, or develop a retail store selling a certain product? If you are serious about starting your own business, it’s a good idea to choose to involve yourself in something that you know and love. For instance, if you have a love for small boats, you may want to start your own marine, a boat detailing service, or a repair or supplies location, etc.
In addition to type, consider the scope of how that business would be operated. Most small businesses are considered locally owned and operated, while others operate online reaching a much larger market. A number of business owners decide to have both a physical location as well as an online presence.
The way you plan to run your business is an important consideration which may determine whether or not you should open one to begin with. For instance, if your business will have an online component, but you don’t know how to make that happen, you may need to take additional training classes or hire outside sources to make that happen. Maybe you’ve decided to open a retail business but there are no suitable, or affordable, locations available. Now what?
How large of an enterprise do you want to be running? For instance, if you want to open up a retail store selling hobby supplies, how many employees you will need to hire to staff your store? Will you need to hire any at all, or will you run it yourself? If you plan on operating the business by yourself, what happens if you get sick, or want to take a vacation? At some time in the future you may want or need to hire help. At that time you may be faced with additional payroll costs, including taxes. You may be required to pay for additional, such as workman’s compensation.
Another thing you should do before starting your own business is examine your current financial situation. All business ventures require some startup cash, some will require more than others. If you don’t currently have the financial resources needed to start a business, you will have to look elsewhere for financing. Do you have family members, friends or other financial resources you could turn to? Some financial institutions such as banks and credit unions may be willing to lend you the financial backing you need. Although, in today’s credit environment, these sources may be extremely reluctant to finance any business venture, especially a brand-new effort.
These factors are some of the many issues that you definitely want to think about as part of determining whether or not to start your own business. Once you have examined and determined the answers to these questions you can begin to do some serious research.
Today, opportunities can be researched and explored easily using resources found on the internet. Conducting online searches, a person can uncover a multitude of business ideas that may, or may not interest them. A fledging entrepreneur will benefit a great deal from the information they will find online.
Because of the sheer number and variety of business ideas and opportunities you’ll discover, you may become overwhelmed with ideas and find it hard to choose the one you like most. To help with this decision, and to narrow down your choices, don’t leave out using and trusting your instincts. For instance, if one business idea seems to appeal to you and just “feels right”, add it to your “possibly” list, but, if you have second thoughts about it, disregard the idea.
Once you have narrowed down your choices to a reasonable number, investigate each opportunity further by gathering as much information as possible about what it really would be like to do that for a living.
One of the best methods to do this is to actually talk with individuals who are already doing what you are considering. Meet with them in person for coffee, call them, e-mail them… find some way to have a heart-to-heart with them to get the insider’s knowledge of what it really takes to own and run that business. Spend as much time as possible discussing the challenges and negatives. You would rather find out about these things upfront rather than after you’re heavily involved in your own business.
Every year, many individuals arrive at the decision to start their own businesses. Many end up with businesses that prove to be profitable for years into the future. The decision to startup a business is yours, but it’s a decision that should never be made on a whim, a fancy or the spur of the moment.
You should definitely discuss your business venture with family members that will be affected. You might even decide to discuss it with a small business planner (the local chamber of commerce may have this resource) and possibly even with your financial planner, lawyer and accountant. Owning a business may be a lifelong dream, but if you don’t take the time to thoroughly think it through and plan it out, your dream can quickly turn into a nightmare.
Starting Your Own Online Business
A dream for many people is the idea of owning their own business and being their own boss. They can picture in their mind the ability to set their own hours, flexibility to take time off when they decide to, the freedom to choose to work on what they want, and, perhaps most importantly, the financial freedom they can see themselves having when their business succeeds.
However, owning your own business is not for the faint of heart. It will require an investment of time, hard work, money and some sacrifice to get any business from startup to a level of success. At least initially, owning and operating your own business can be more time consuming, frustrating and difficult than working for an employer.
Starting and running a business can be one of the best, or one of the worst, decisions that a person will ever make. The old saying that “Nothing ventured…nothing gained” is certainly true, but when applied to being an entrepreneur, you would be wise to look carefully before you take the leap into business ownership.
Your dream can quickly turn into a nightmare by simply plunging ahead into the great unknown with your venture. Doing so may sound like a romantic notion or an adventurous “poor boy makes good” journey, but the harsh reality is that not being prepared for what you will encounter can easily lead to your business failing and you losing money.
Before making the decision to start their own business, a smart person will do their best to know the risks, as well as the rewards. That means doing some homework and a great deal of soul searching.
To help clarify the decision as to whether you should start a small business, you should look at and seriously consider some of the pros and cons of business ownership. Experts stress that this is a critical step and will help make the decision as to whether or not a small business is right for you easier to make.
Tags: Add new tag, online business, online business startup, start an online business
Start You Own Online Business – Seriously?
So, I keep asking myself…”Are you sure you really want to do this?”
Maybe I’m making things more difficult than they need to be – but, then again, I’ve gotten plenty of help it making it seem that way. After all, I’ve been told (“pitched to”) that I can start my own online business with no ideas, no product, no list and…this is really cool…no computer. How does THAT work? Perhaps I’ll purchase this product…right after I purchase the three-hundred and forty-eight other products that promise to have the answers I need to start my own online business. That’s assuming I have any money left.
It seems that ever since I opted-in for that first free start your own online business report, I have been inundated with e-mails. Everybody and their brother, including a few sisters, and, I have no doubt, one or two distant cousins thrown in for good measure all have “The Answer” to my success.
This information overload hasn’t been completely worthless, however. After spending countless hours wading through hundreds of e-mails and numerous reports containing thousands of words I have learned that an online business consists of identifying a market (need or want), selecting a product or service to offer that fills that need or want, selecting a location to market that product or service from (web site), advertising the availability of the product or service, then, providing continuing value to those who make a purchase. Duh! (Oh wait…I already knew this from 1) having previously owned a brick-and-mortar retail
business, and 2) because I’m been a customer once or twice recently.)
This is so profound I must take some time to give it the consideration it deserves. I better check my e-mail too.
Welcome to my blog about starting your own online business.
Thank you for visiting my blog about helping you to start your own online business. I will be posting more information on this blog soon.
Tags: online business