Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail
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A cliche, and really I confess I don’t like cliches very much. Most of the time they sound great but they’re like telling someone who is trying to lose weight that if they would eat less it would solve their problem; kind of silly. But, of course often very true. Not having a plan is really a lack of belief or commitment.
I confess planning is skill that I have only recently brought into my online business. Let me clarify, not that I didn’t make a plan, I just didn’t follow it. At a certain point I would lose interest, or another plan would seem more worthy and I’d jump ship.
3 Whole Responses
My guess is that the relatively few responses to my “do you follow a plan?” question is probably due to the fact that most people trying to make money online aren’t following a plan (do correct me if I’m guessing wrong - but don’t forget there was a bribe valued at $100 for a decent comment) but how else could all the gurus be selling so many latest greatest ways to make money online plans?
The Folks Who Did Raise There Hands
All three of the responses were excellent, I’m sending a DVD to all of them.
Now I’m conscious that I must have a plan in everything in my life, because if you have a goal and little steps to achieve your goal is the right way to success.
Do you stick to it?
Everyday. 8+ hours a day. When I first started it, it was really rolling. Now, I am having to deal with the other things associated with implementing an idea: new domains, a website, pay processors, sales letters and copywriting, etc. Now I am realizing that the actual conception of the product is not as much work as getting the other stuff around it in place before it launches.
Why do I think it’ll work? Nothing is guaranteed but I have a better shot at it because as Newton says, I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. I’m leveraging off existing success stories.
Thanks a lot for the comments. I’m inspired by them. I’ll be in touch to get your mailing address - which I won’t be selling to any third parties. 
My Conclusion About Planning
I’ll add planning to my list of topics that everyone knows they should think about more but there is so little thrill in the topic, that no-one bothers.
My current list of these topics:
- backup - disaster recovery
- business systems
- planning
Since none of these topics can be wrapped in a “you’ll make $7000 by Friday” ribbon, they just aren’t sexy enough to get any significant attention.
It’s exciting to create a goal and then sit just dream about it with out putting a plan in place. Don’t forget though, the real Secret, is to take action towards a goal by following a plan.
plans have been essential for me. at the beginning of 2003, my wife and i were staring at the prospects of having our first child, while mired in about 20k of credit card debt, having no savings to speak of.
i read ‘the millionaire next door’ and ‘rich dad, poor dad’, made a plan to change our relationship with money, and 4 years later, we have a successful investment property, make healthy roth contributions religiously, and don’t carry any credit card debt.
my advice in regards to planning is,
1. research other successful approaches.
2. glean what you are comfortable with, and make a list of these tools.
3. make a list (kind of like the baking a cake list analogy) go into extreme detail
4. pace yourself. rome wasn’t built in a day.
5. if you’re married, have bi-weekly ’staff meetings’. that is, make sure that you and your partner are on the ’same page’ at all times. if not, re-evaluate your goals together, as you will only be as strong as your weakest link.
well…it worked for me.
I think that for a lot of people it is hard to plan because they are so new, they don’t know what to plan for. That was my situation a month ago, and I think that would probably be a good topic to delve into.
@ Jamie: “if you’re married, have bi-weekly ’staff meetings’.” … best advice ever. Our financial situation has improved dramatically since we began having these types of meetings. The decisions we make together are far better than any we made separately.
@ Graham, I think you are right. Finding someone to trust that is actually trustworthy is probably the hardest part of “standing on the shoulders of giants” as K would say.
It’s not just those making money online that fail to plan - most businesses fail to plan and they suffer for it.
The reason it sometimes seem hard to plan something new is our tendency to feel that having written the plan we must stick exactly to it. What we should really do is set the plan then adjust it as we gain experience.
[...] of a Plan- I was over at Jon Symon’s Art of Money blog and he has been asking questions and giving out prizes worth roughly $100 for what he considers to [...]