Business Building Online

If you have never heard of strategic planning, now is a good time to open your eyes and ears. Too many entrepreneurs have failed to do proper business planning. The biggest missing link in many online businesses is this – proper management of resources.

You see, when I first began, I always wondered how people could jumpstart their online businesses so quickly. I also wondered why it was that only some could do it and many struggled. It was as if there was this black box inside their business model. After all, people would repeat their espoused process, then end up with results that were completely different from theirs.

I run a training business that I could say is fairly successful. But we took around four years to build this business because there are many things in the business that required us to look at ouselves. Then, as we ‘evolved’, we had to slowly push part of the responsibility to middle management. Middle management was important because without it, our ability to grow would be severely impeded.

Yet, I find that most people have this ridiculous dream that building a business without properly planning roles and tasks… I mean honestly, do you think you can make a million dollars in an online business knowing how vast the scope of work is? Even building a blog or setting up a website can be tedious! The question is, how detailed are you in looking in the strategic plan for your business?

One of my idols is Peter Senge. He is the author of the book The Fifth Discipline. In my opinion, that is one of the most powerful concepts I’ve learnt. It essentially talks about systemic thinking and how different things connect with each other in a systemic relationship. In your online business, you have to be clear about the system that you are operating, if not the business will not be operated by you: you will be just another puppet, putting yourself back into the same employment situation you were in before – you would have created for yourself another JOB.

So much for financial freedom – now you can call it “financial freedumb”.

Building a solid business plan comes straight from the conceptualizing stage of business. If you have the idea, you need to hone it. Not just that, you even have to look at competition and see where they are headed. Competitors are moving targets – most of the time, they are progressive as well. You need to look at strategic models of planning and put yourself into it so you can enhance your business for the long term.

More to come on strategic business development.