Developing a strategic business plan is something often overlooked by the overly enthusiastic internet entrepreneur! Understandably the excitement of developing your own money making business online can sometimes cloud your better judgment and this quite often is the case! However the value of a good plan in terms of how fast you grow your business can not and should not be ignored!

Here are 3 pitfalls that await any aspiring internet entrepreneur who fails to first devise a plan for developing a money making business online!

Proper Skills NOT Acquired

As an internet entrepreneur there will be certain skills you’ll need to acquire along the way in order to effectively grow your business! It is up to you to determine what it is you need to know and do to make the most out of your efforts and time! Planning in advance will reveal to what you need to master and when and this therefore will allow you to grow both personally as well as financially! Without the necessary skills you stand little chance of succeeding online!

Strategy NOT Set

Both a short and long term strategy must be established in order to build yourself a reliable online income! Here too without recognizing the direction you’ll want to take and how to best get there you’ll likely ‘flounder’ in your attempts to make money! Identifying your niche and how best to promote within it is a great start! You’ll also want to establish goals and time frames within which you expect to achieve the goals you have set! Developing a plan is the absolute best way to efficiently coordinate your efforts to get the maximum results!

Unrealistic Expectations

The typical internet entrepreneur has high expectations which is all well and good however your goals and expectations must be realistic! Do your goals match up well with the resources in terms of time, skills and even financially that you have available? If not is it within your power to make the necessary adjustments to make your resources measure up to your goals and expectations? You will not be able to answer any of these questions without first assembling a plan of action which identifies what you’ll need to grow your business online! Unrealistic expectations are merely dreams that will forever go unfulfilled!

Developing a strategic business plan is a vital component of any online venture often overlooked by the typically excited internet entrepreneur! As boring as this process may seem it is a necessary part of developing a money making business while also minimizing surprises and mistakes! Failure to plan your direction and strategy in advance only serves to impede your ability to grow your business! In fact it also opens the door to needless frustrations that can easily undermine your motivation as well! The point to leave with here today is this, a money making business doesn’t just happen, you must have a plan! For those who are too impatient to do so, think of it in terms of looking both ways before you cross the street, failure to do so only invites trouble!

Strategy noun: long-term plan or policy; art of war; art of moving troops, ships, aircraft, etc. into favourable positions (Oxford Dictionary)

“The important decisions, the decisions that really matter, are strategic. They involve either finding out what the situation is, or changing it, either finding out what the resources are or what they should be. Among these are all decisions on business objectives and on the means to reach them.” (Peter Drucker, “The Practice of Management”)

Strategy. A term used in the theory of games to describe the set of choices a player will make in each possible set of circumstances. (A Dictionary of Economics)

How an organization interacts with the stakeholders in its business environment through its current and planned portfolio of products in large part defines its business strategy. (Robert J. Thomas, “New Product Development”)

From these varied definitions we see strategy as something that involves identifying where resources are and where they’re needed, and the art of deploying those resources favourably; deciding on business objectives; and above all it is certainly about choices.

My clients have all been able to grow their businesses and in the early years, a lot of this growth is tactical and not strategic. That is, most business owners work very hard in their businesses to drive growth, and they’ve been a key part of that growth.

At some point though, every entrepreneur needs to stop and consider if that is how they wish to continue working and growing their business.

When do business owners mostly start thinking about strategy?

When they have to make more decisions about resources
When they have to decide whether to pursue new opportunities
When they need to make decisions about how big the company could be
When growth in the business has reached a plateau
When they’re in trouble
When they’re overloaded
When they’re confused
When they want to fast-track their progress
When something significant changes their life
Sometimes, it’s when they have an ‘Aha!’ moment

Challenging circumstances lead most business owners to think about strategy, and then strategy itself can be challenging!

When you’re ready to start developing you business strategy, you need to look at the process from several different aspects:

Know what it takes to build a high-value business, and make sure you have one
Know how to select a best-fit strategy, that’s right for now
Know which business model will optimise growth, suit your lifestyle & give you leverage

Have you been following the “overnight” meteoric rise of a Canadian indie band called Walk Off the Earth? They are currently experiencing fame over their viral cover video Somebody That I Used to Know. You’ll be massively entertained by the energy and creativity in their music videos. You’ll be even more fascinated by their marketing savvy.

The methods that make a video go viral are the same methods that you can use to make your business go viral.

Success in the music industry can be foreshadowed by a video that goes “viral”. And, if you are into videography, your business could be dramatically boosted by a viral video you create. But even if you never create any videos, you can use the same strategies promoters use to make a video go viral to promote your business.

The goal of creating a viral video is to blow up a business. This, of course, means that there can be a strategy to make it happen. And you can easily employ these same strategies to blow up your business. Contrary to popular notion, not all viral videos happen serendipitously. There are companies devoted exclusively to making videos go viral on behalf of businesses.

Since there is a strategy for making videos go viral, wouldn’t you like a little bit of that jamba juice for your business?

The greater part of a successful marketing campaign is first getting the attention of a large audience. How to get the attention of a large audience is what all businesses can learn from, whether they do it by creating a video or not.

Here’s how a little known Canadian indie band called Walk Off the Earth created a major marketing and YouTube sensation “overnight”.

Gianni Nicassio, the creative energy behind Walk Off the Earth, his band members and crew have spent the better part of a year doing “covers” — recording their own versions of popular music videos and posting them to YouTube. They’ve garnered hundreds of thousands of views for their covers and most intentionally for their own original songs by linking themselves to the hottest musicians on YouTube.

The strategy has worked. It has worked because of four key elements:

1. Raw talent honed over years of making music

2. Passion for making music translated into a sharable product

3. Marketing know how

4. Going to the office every day and getting it done.

Some might say they got lucky by having the actor Russell Crowe tweet about their “brilliant” performance on their cover video Somebody I Used to Know by Gotye. But in reality it was just a matter of time.

Walk Off the Earth has done everything right. They studied what worked for other bands/brands and they got busy. They’ve relentlessly followed the formula for success they had identified. If Russell Crowe had not discovered them, some other celebrity would have. The luck came, not in whether they were going to be discovered, but rather who was going to discover them first.

Social media has been a major factor in Walk Off the Earth’s success strategy.

Walk Off the Earth has made excellent use of social media. If you take a look at their videos, you will see how they creatively entice viewers to:

1. Subscribe to their YouTube Channel

2. “Like” them on their Facebook business page

3. Encourage viewers to post comments by responding to their commenters

4. Follow them on Twitter

In many of its videos, Walk Off the Earth creates a post-video piece that is just as entertaining as the music video itself. It keeps the viewer watching while it encourages the viewer to subscribe, like, follow and comment. Brilliant indeed!

Band leader Gianni listens to his audience. The band creates new covers based on YouTube commenters’ requests. And the band is rewarded with loyal fans and even more exposure when more and more fans repost their videos through social media.

Social media has worked for Walk Off the Earth. As of this writing, their viral video cover Somebody I Used to Know has garnered 23,901,428 views in just 11 days.

What does it take to make a viral video?

To become popular, “Like”-able and ultimately go viral, a video usually has a combination of a few key ingredients. People are drawn to things that are unique, new, provocative, edgy, passionate, entertaining and humorous. A “pattern interrupt” is often an important component.

In Walk Off the Earth’s video, the pattern interrupt is that five people are simultaneously playing one guitar and making beautiful music. It’s new, unique and entertaining. It leaves people wondering “How do they do that?”

Their genius did not stop there however. They astutely chose an original tune to cover that has itself been one of the most viewed videos on YouTube for some time. People discovering or going back to listen again to the original will also find Walk Off the Earth’s version. The viewer’s next step is to listen to more of Walk Off the Earth’s videos and become hooked on their music. And thus, a fan is born.

And Walk Off the Earth’s popularity and profits begin to rise. Mainstream media clamor for interviews. Publicists and promoters want to sign them. Advertisers want to advertise on their videos. Tour dates, a recording contract and more interviews are bound to follow. When will Ellen DeGeneres have them on? Creating a buzz is the first step.

Your business can go viral too. And for your business to “go viral”, you don’t need 20 million people coming to your website. You just need a few thousand to create the success you want. Take a look at what a couple of guys in this Canadian indie band have done. Follow their strategies for your business. Emulate their work ethic. And you too will create the success you deserve!

You have certainly either read about, experienced firsthand, or heard from others how difficult it is the majority of the time, to really get something accomplished regarding business strategy, change or a new way to do things, in a Corporate Environment.

The majority of entrepreneurs are running either a solo business operation or they have a small group of employees working with them. This permits the entrepreneur to create their strategic business plan in an easier environment and to implement their plan with less challenges. If there are issues there are specifically three:

Taking the first step and creating a strategic business plan (over 75% of small businesses do not have a strategic plan)
Working with an adviser or mentor who is pulling you to aim higher (over 80% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy)
Having the accountability to stay on course and constantly measure where you are and where you are heading (over 85% of organizations do not execute their strategies in a successful manner)

In order to be of service to you and provide you with the type of information you must have to be successful in your business, here are some descriptions of the types of planning which are often utilized in running a business and why they are necessary. This is not a complete list. It is a sampling in order to show the difference in a Strategic Business Plan versus some of the other types of plans which are critical to success as well.

You are welcome and in fact encouraged to add the types of planning you feel are not represented and describe why they are necessary by commenting in the area provided.

A Business Plan – defines the purpose of a business, often includes financial information specifically if being written to obtain funding, describes the legal structure of the business entity, provides a foundation in writing for ideas.

A Financial Plan – describes the money story, includes budgets for past year(s), current year and forecast, especially important if seeking funding.

A Marketing Plan – creates the methods for the business message to get to the outside world specifically to your market, details the chosen areas such as social media (which may have its own plan), direct mail (which may have its own plan), advertising (which may have its own plan) and more.

A Staffing Plan – details the needs of the business to permit growth by hiring or outsourcing personnel for specific purposes and by when, includes the requirements for the roles and more.