Do you have an idea or do you have a plan? I believe this concept alone can make or break an entrepreneur. If you think about it, a lot of people who want to start their own website or service only have an idea. They say "I think I have this great idea, it could make a lot of money" and most of us are guilty of that kind of thinking. The fact is that there's nothing wrong with that. The bad part is that some people get stuck on just that thought, like a lot of people say they're pretty much just dreaming. Well this guy has an idea, and he's dreaming, well what's next? And this is where people stop, turn around, or get stuck. We all know that anyone can have an idea, but making a plan takes brains and they can get pretty in depth.
Well where am I going with this? After you think about your idea, think of a plan. That's the next step to take, and making a plan is taking action. I think a lot of people fail to realize that making a plan is the only necessary step to take. If you want to start a website but you don't have a plan, then you won't get far. When I say a plan, I mean an actual plan. As in you know what every single page on your website will have on it, and exactly what the website will need. This doesn't take a day or a few days, it takes weeks or months depending on what type of website you have in mind. This should mean that you are so confident in the idea, and you're so dedicated to it that you write down exactly what the plan is, how it will work, what makes it work, and how you want everything to come together. Are you going to start a blog, read a few articles about having good content then get lost in your own work? Or are you going to sit down, write down how you're going to target your niche, how you will get the content, how you will build the software, what benefits they will have, what features you can add, etc.
Successful people are successful because they planned to be successful. If you don't plan to win then you're not going to win. So if you don't plan to complete your project, or your website, and you only have an idea then you will ONLY have an idea and nothing more. The importance of this is that the plan is the next biggest step after you have the idea. Your plan will motivate you, keep you in sync, and become the best check list you could have. You need to have a plan no matter what you're doing. If you're selling and buying items, what are you going to buy, what are you going to sell, and how are you going to sell it? Oh no that's not it, also who are your competitors? What are their prices? How much do you estimate you can generate from real calculations and data? If you want to get serious that's what you have to think about, and that's what you have to do. If you find something you can sell for $30 profit and it's obvious, then that's great, maybe you can do it a few times and make a good return. However if you want to be consistent with it, if you want to know why your sales are declining and how you can find a solution, then you need to make plans and be prepared.
I really feel that a lot of people don't really explain the importance of actually taking the time to create an accurate and measurable plan. Everyone says after you get your idea, take action, and tweak accordingly. It really should be after you get your idea, that you create a plan, take action, and tweak accordingly. Don't get me wrong creating a plan IS taking action, but people somehow seem to just completely forget about that step and dive right in. The more detailed your plan the better, if you can take smaller pieces of your plan and mash it together to make bigger pieces then that's even better, as long as you know exactly what you have to do when it's time to take action. Meaning that if you have an idea for a website, and you might have written a small plan but nothing overly detailed, such as you know what the websites pages will be about and where/how to get the content to place on the pages then you're good to go. Whatever suits your style but a plan will definitely help, the more detailed the better is the way it usually goes though from my experience.
I'm going to stop it there, but remember that making a serious plan takes effort and time, so if you're very confident in your idea then this will be no problem but if you're not? You're going to have some serious trouble getting started and possibly wasting your time in the progress. If you know you need a business plan, sophisticated software, or to find people to help you, well start with those first because that's what you need to do and be hearing. You know what you need to do, you just need assurance of it, you need to hear and know that "This is what I need to do" instead of repeatedly reading and telling yourself that you "Need to take action" because creating some sort of plan IS the first action you should take and it's very important. Also before you go finding partners and software developers it would be best to know exactly what you need because they need to know that and clearly understand, so it's important that you clearly understand it and can translate it.
Well I just kind of wanted to rant about that because so many people ask what they need to do to get started and they already know what to do. They just need to act on those instincts and reassure themselves of it but not by the traditional ways like asking other people and getting general feedback such as "take action", it needs to be more straight forward. Well what do you guys think? They need to do the research that they know they need to do, and I'm not talking about asking forums what they need to do, but actually saying "I need to do this first, then this, and this". You might have an idea for a website, but you're asking about how to create a website and you don't have a plan. You have an idea and you're asking people "How do I create a website? What do I need to do", then once you know how to make a website you give up or fail because you had no plan, and you had no idea what exactly you were going to do on that website you just had an idea of what you were going to do.
Well give me your thoughts guys, I know it was long but thought it was a very important topic that people should start touching on a bit more.
Well where am I going with this? After you think about your idea, think of a plan. That's the next step to take, and making a plan is taking action. I think a lot of people fail to realize that making a plan is the only necessary step to take. If you want to start a website but you don't have a plan, then you won't get far. When I say a plan, I mean an actual plan. As in you know what every single page on your website will have on it, and exactly what the website will need. This doesn't take a day or a few days, it takes weeks or months depending on what type of website you have in mind. This should mean that you are so confident in the idea, and you're so dedicated to it that you write down exactly what the plan is, how it will work, what makes it work, and how you want everything to come together. Are you going to start a blog, read a few articles about having good content then get lost in your own work? Or are you going to sit down, write down how you're going to target your niche, how you will get the content, how you will build the software, what benefits they will have, what features you can add, etc.
Successful people are successful because they planned to be successful. If you don't plan to win then you're not going to win. So if you don't plan to complete your project, or your website, and you only have an idea then you will ONLY have an idea and nothing more. The importance of this is that the plan is the next biggest step after you have the idea. Your plan will motivate you, keep you in sync, and become the best check list you could have. You need to have a plan no matter what you're doing. If you're selling and buying items, what are you going to buy, what are you going to sell, and how are you going to sell it? Oh no that's not it, also who are your competitors? What are their prices? How much do you estimate you can generate from real calculations and data? If you want to get serious that's what you have to think about, and that's what you have to do. If you find something you can sell for $30 profit and it's obvious, then that's great, maybe you can do it a few times and make a good return. However if you want to be consistent with it, if you want to know why your sales are declining and how you can find a solution, then you need to make plans and be prepared.
I really feel that a lot of people don't really explain the importance of actually taking the time to create an accurate and measurable plan. Everyone says after you get your idea, take action, and tweak accordingly. It really should be after you get your idea, that you create a plan, take action, and tweak accordingly. Don't get me wrong creating a plan IS taking action, but people somehow seem to just completely forget about that step and dive right in. The more detailed your plan the better, if you can take smaller pieces of your plan and mash it together to make bigger pieces then that's even better, as long as you know exactly what you have to do when it's time to take action. Meaning that if you have an idea for a website, and you might have written a small plan but nothing overly detailed, such as you know what the websites pages will be about and where/how to get the content to place on the pages then you're good to go. Whatever suits your style but a plan will definitely help, the more detailed the better is the way it usually goes though from my experience.
I'm going to stop it there, but remember that making a serious plan takes effort and time, so if you're very confident in your idea then this will be no problem but if you're not? You're going to have some serious trouble getting started and possibly wasting your time in the progress. If you know you need a business plan, sophisticated software, or to find people to help you, well start with those first because that's what you need to do and be hearing. You know what you need to do, you just need assurance of it, you need to hear and know that "This is what I need to do" instead of repeatedly reading and telling yourself that you "Need to take action" because creating some sort of plan IS the first action you should take and it's very important. Also before you go finding partners and software developers it would be best to know exactly what you need because they need to know that and clearly understand, so it's important that you clearly understand it and can translate it.
Well I just kind of wanted to rant about that because so many people ask what they need to do to get started and they already know what to do. They just need to act on those instincts and reassure themselves of it but not by the traditional ways like asking other people and getting general feedback such as "take action", it needs to be more straight forward. Well what do you guys think? They need to do the research that they know they need to do, and I'm not talking about asking forums what they need to do, but actually saying "I need to do this first, then this, and this". You might have an idea for a website, but you're asking about how to create a website and you don't have a plan. You have an idea and you're asking people "How do I create a website? What do I need to do", then once you know how to make a website you give up or fail because you had no plan, and you had no idea what exactly you were going to do on that website you just had an idea of what you were going to do.
Well give me your thoughts guys, I know it was long but thought it was a very important topic that people should start touching on a bit more.
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