Achievement

Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all-time thing.  You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time.  Winning is a habit.  Unfortunately, so is losing.  - Vince Lombardi

Opportunity

Don't wait for your ship to come in.  Row out there to meet it!

Persistence and Determination Win

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genuius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education wil not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. - Calvin Coolidge

Persistence

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perserverance.

Known by succesful copywriters and marketers:

A poorly written ad sent to the right market... will do better than a brilliantly-written ad sent to the wrong market.
Seems simple, right? Don’t try to sell ice to Eskimos, but do offer ice water in a desert.
And yet, I see countless entrepreneurs make this very same mistake repeatedly.

Don’t be this guy. He had violated the most basic fundamental in business: Do the simple stuff first.
Market Research.

Do not create the actual product until AFTER you get a pulse from your intended market.
How do you do this?  Here are just a few of the simple ways I can share with you:

(1) Go to Google AdWords. You can "test" most online markets without even signing up for the service.
It’s easy, too. The system will automatically reveal to you how many hits certain words and phrases within your target market were registered. It will also suggest other words and phrases, based on what is actually getting the big numbers.

This is free market research. Just figure out what a prospect might put into a search engine in order to be in your target audience... and see if the action justifies your foray into this market.

If the words and phrases you come up with are not among the most used, Google will tell you, and help you find the better ones.  And... if your AdWords best efforts come up with pitiful results... then you are fishing in an empty pond.
Time to move on.

(2) Get your hands on a copy of the SRDS. (That’s "Standard Rates and Data Service".) These are the phonebook-sized catalogs of all the mailing lists available to rent, and all the magazines that take ads.
Even if your business is strictly web-based, this is the book that -- once you take a few minutes to understand it -- will heap massive wealth and rewards on your head.

Because this is the book that instantly tells you which markets are hot, and which are not.
What’s more, if you’re too cheap to buy the service (sign up at www.srds.com and they will send you a brand new updated version quarterly), you can check the SRDS out for FREE at your local library. It’s in the resource department.
They’re not hiding it.

You don’t even need a recent one, in most cases. If your prospective market has existed for a while, you can get your answer from even a years-old SRDS.

All you need, at this basic stage, is a thumbs up or thumbs down on how "hot" the market you're targeting is.
There’s either a mob of cash-rich people who actively buy stuff in the market you’re considering... or there aren’t.
That’s all you’re looking for right now.

Research job is complete. Even if you had to take a bus across town to the library, your total time expenditure has been
minimal.  And you’re not out any serious money, except for bus fare and lunch.

Of course...
... if your research had revealed that your target market was a profit-rich riot of unmet needs (with scant competition and lots of low-hanging fruit)...
... then you've just identified a niche you can go after with the throttle wide open.
This is how fortunes are made... and kept from being lost.

Basic Business Plan Outline

 
What information needs to be in your business plan? What is the order of information that will make the most sense to lenders and investors? You can answer these questions with the business plan outlines provided below.
 
What are the standard elements of a business plan? If you do need a standard business plan to seek funding — as opposed to a plan-as-you-go approach for running your business, which I describe below — there are predictable contents of a standard business plan outline.
For example, a business plan normally starts with an Executive Summary, which should be concise and interesting. People almost always expect to see sections covering the Company, the Market, the Product, the Management Team, Strategy, Implementation, and Financial Analysis. The precise business plan format can vary.
 
Is the order important? If you have the main components, the order doesn’t matter that much, but here’s the sequence I suggest for a business plan. I have provided two outlines, one simple and the other more detailed.
 
Simple business plan outline

1. Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
2. Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
3. Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
4. Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc.
5. Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budgets. Make sure you can track results.
6. Web Plan Summary: For e-commerce, include discussion of website, development costs, operations, sales and marketing strategies.
7. Management Team: Describe the organization and the key management team members.
8. Financial Analysis: Make sure to include at the very least your projected Profit and Loss and Cash Flow tables.

Build your plan, then organize it. I don’t recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary obviously comes as the first section of a business plan, I recommend writing it after everything else is done. It will appear first, but you write it last.
 
Standard tables and charts
There are also some business tables and charts that are normally expected in a standard business plan.
Cash flow is the single most important numerical analysis in a plan, and should never be missing. Most plans will also have Sales Forecast and Profit and Loss statements. I believe they should also have separate Personnel listings, projected Balance Sheet, projected Business Ratios, and Market Analysis tables.
I also believe that every plan should include bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers.
 
Expanded business plan outline
Here’s an expanded full business plan outline, with details you might want to include in your own business plan.

 
1.0 Executive Summary
1.1 Objectives
1.2 Mission
1.3 Keys to Success


2.0 Company Summary
2.1 Company Ownership
2.2 Company History (for ongoing companies) or Start-up Plan (for new companies)
2.3 Company Locations and Facilities


3.0 Products and Services
3.1 Product and Service Description
3.2 Competitive Comparison
3.3 Sales Literature
3.4 Sourcing and Fulfillment
3.5 Technology
3.6 Future Products and Services


4.0 Market Analysis Summary
4.1 Market Segmentation
4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy
4.2.1 Market Needs
4.2.2 Market Trends
4.2.3 Market Growth
4.3 Industry Analysis
4.3.1 Industry Participants
4.3.2 Distribution Patterns
4.3.3 Competition and Buying Patterns
4.3.4 Main Competitors


5.0 Strategy and Implementation Summary
5.1 Strategy Pyramids
5.2 Value Proposition
5.3 Competitive Edge
5.4 Marketing Strategy
5.4.1 Positioning Statements
5.4.2 Pricing Strategy
5.4.3 Promotion Strategy
5.4.4 Distribution Patterns
5.4.5 Marketing Programs
5.5 Sales Strategy
5.5.1 Sales Forecast
5.5.2 Sales Programs
5.6 Strategic Alliances
5.7 Milestones


6.0 Web Plan Summary
6.1 Website Marketing Strategy
6.2 Development Requirements


7.0 Management Summary
7.1 Organizational Structure
7.2 Management Team
7.3 Management Team Gaps
7.4 Personnel Plan


8.0 Financial Plan
8.1 Important Assumptions
8.2 Key Financial Indicators
8.3 Break-even Analysis
8.4 Projected Profit and Loss
8.5 Projected Cash Flow
8.6 Projected Balance Sheet
8.7 Business Ratios
8.8 Long-term Plan

 
Business plan outline advice - Size your business plan to fit your business. Remember that your business plan should be only as big as what you need to run your business. While everybody should have planning to help run a business, not everyone needs to develop a complete formal business plan suitable for submitting to a potential investor, or bank, or venture contest. So don’t include outline points just because they are on a big list somewhere, or on this list, unless you’re developing a standard business plan that you’ll be showing to somebody else who expects a standard business plan.
 
More business planning resources
Sometimes an outline just isn’t enough to write your business plan. Do you want to view sample business plans from real businesses? Would seeing a business plan template that banks prefer be useful to you? These valuable resources can help:

http://www.bplans.com/sample_business_plans/
Sample business plans – Over 500 free sample business plans from various industries

http://www.bplans.com/business_plan_template/ 
Business plan template – This fill-in-the-blank business plan template is in the format preferred by the SBA and banks

Social Media and the FTC: What Businesses Need to Know

 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is finally catching up to the constantly evolving world of social media. For the better part of a decade, the agency lagged a full Internet generation behind advertisers who saw online communications evolving faster than laws governing their fair use. Today however, the FTC is codifying and enforcing what were once only unwritten rules. As a result, companies caught crossing the bounds of appropriate online behavior now face harsher penalties than ever before.

Transparency is Paramount

As of December 1, 2009, the FTC began watching the online space for signs that advertisers masquerading as independent third parties might be taking advantage of the millions of consumers whose buying decisions are increasingly shaped by social media. The FTC is now monitoring blogs, Facebook( ), Twitter( ), and myriad other platforms for violations of new rules aimed at infusing greater corporate transparency into the online marketplace.
It isn’t only a few rogue advertisers that must revisit their online marketing strategies in light of the FTC’s recent actions.

The list of companies that have run afoul of total transparency in the social media space is long and distinguished, and includes some of the most recognizable names in the pantheon of corporate titans.
In 2006, for example, Stanley Smith and Marcia Schroeder couldn’t get enough of McDonald’s Monopoly game – so much so that they even found time to blog about it in between peeling and organizing game pieces from their Big Macs, sodas, and fries. “Some nights, we skip cooking dinner at home just to take a trip to McDonald’s so we can play Monopoly,” wrote Ms. Schroeder. “Thank goodness they have lots of variety on the menu to choose from.”
While perhaps somewhat obsessive to some, the posts on Schroeder’s Mcdmillionwinner.com and Smith’s 4railroads.com seemed innocent enough. But when it was discovered that Smith and Schroeder were actually officially blogging for McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain ended up with Egg McMuffin on its face.

Why? Because the relationship wasn’t disclosed. The digital realm teemed with commentary critical of the guerrilla marketing tactic. It wouldn’t be long before McDonald’s learned a valuable lesson about what can happen when a company is caught trying to pull the wool over millions of Internet eyes.

The New Rules of the Road

Of course, that was four years ago, when companies risked only brand and reputation damage in violating social media’s well-known, but non-binding rules. Today, the stiff fines and additional bad press that could accompany an FTC enforcement action have increased the stakes dramatically and made the new rules of the road required reading for any company seeking to engage online audiences.

Among the practices long frowned upon in the social media sphere that are now on the FTC’s radar are: “Flogging,” or creating supposedly-objective blogs that serve only to promote a product or service; “astroturfing,” where advertisers posing as ordinary consumers share raving, but often misleading, reviews; and paying social media users to knowingly post inaccurate information about a product or service.

Most important, social media users – from celebrity spokespeople to everyday consumers – who are paid to post accurate information about a product or service will now be required to disclose their deals and could be held personally liable if they don’t. If they think Twitter’s 140 character limit will get them off the hook, they ought to think again. As the Associate Director of the FTC’s advertising division, Richard Cleland, has said, “If you can’t make the disclosure, you can’t make the ad.”

Companies in the Crosshairs

What might be the most telling aspect of the new regulatory environment is a measure requiring companies to proactively discover and, when necessary, correct misinformation about their brand or product posted to social media sites. Taken along with numerous comments from FTC officials that the targets of their investigations aren’t going to be bloggers who break the rules, but the companies who pay them to do it, it’s becoming clear that Corporate America will be squarely in the FTC’s enforcement crosshairs moving forward.

For those now frantically re-evaluating current online outreach efforts, the FTC has offered fairly basic and straight forward guidance to follow moving forward. According to the Commission’s guidelines:

“The fundamental question is whether, viewed objectively, the relationship between the advertiser and the speaker is such that the speaker’s statement can be considered ’sponsored’ by the advertiser and therefore an ‘advertising message.’”

The FTC guidelines pose a clear question that will be used to determine whether an online communication fits the definition of a sponsored “endorsement:” Is the speaker acting solely independently, in which case there is no endorsement, or is the speaker acting on behalf of the advertiser or its agent to further an overall marketing campaign, in which case there is an endorsement.

The Keys to Compliance

While the FTC’s new rules do ratchet up the stakes in terms of compliance – and the legal and branding liabilities that go along with noncompliance – there isn’t much that companies should be doing now that they shouldn’t have been doing before these rules went into effect. The questionable tactics now banned by the FTC were never advisable in a media environment where transparency and accountability trump all else – regardless of whether they were legal or not.

But for the companies now scrambling to comply with federal guidelines that carry a stiff $11,000 penalty per infraction, implementation of the following approach is essential:
1. It is imperative to recognize that the enforcement environment has changed entirely. What you may have been able to get away with in the World Wide Web’s Wild West era will no longer work.
2. Educate your online endorsers as to the new rules of the road and provide them with the tools they’ll need to maintain compliance with the FTC. Ensure that they know what is appropriate to share on social media platforms and what isn’t, and provide them with boilerplate disclosure language that fulfills the FTC’s requirements.
3. Monitor what your paid endorsers are saying. Often, paid online endorsers operate as free agents of a sort in that they are not only provided a product to review, but the freedom to review it as they wish. Because you can’t control exactly what they will say, monitoring their posts is absolutely essential. Free tools such as Google Alerts, Google( )’s real-time search capability – which now includes up-to-the-minute sweeps of Facebook and Twitter entries – and socialmention.com are among the most popular and effective tools for monitoring what’s being said about a product or brand as it’s being said. Paid tools such as Radian6 and Techirgy provide comprehensive, customizable reports that can be tailored to capture messages most likely to raise eyebrows at the FTC – such as endorsements and testimonials.
4. Engage when necessary. Companies must be prepared to correct any misinformation posted to social media by a paid endorser as quickly as possible. If the FTC comes calling, it won’t be enough to simply fall back on your endorser education efforts. The agency is going to want to see that you’ve taken steps to correct the record. While it may seem counterintuitive, consumers will also appreciate your honesty – transforming what could be a trust-damaging episode into one that actually enhances credibility with key consumer audiences.

Monitor, engage, and be transparent; these have always been the keys to success in the digital space. Now that the FTC is keeping a closer eye on social media marketing activities than ever before, they’re also the best way to steer clear of the legal and brand liabilities that noncompliance could create.