Blueprint to Success

Back in my days of banking one of the first things I asked for when someone came to me for a business loan was their plan. Or some sort of plan of action if it was an existing client asking for more money. No plan usually meant no money. I read a quote somewhere “failure to plan is planning to fail” and as a banker I saw varying degrees of this day in and day out.  For me, my success has always come from working a plan and making slight adjustments along the way. I would start off with the end goal in mind and work backwards to determine the series of mini-steps that would lead me to my goal. This same process has worked for me every time it did not matter what I was doing from meeting corporate objectives forced upon me to personal goals such as completing a 1/2 marathon.

What is a good plan or Goal? One that is S-M-A-R-T.

S - Specific - you should have a definite end result i.e. I want to weigh 180 pounds by x date and I will accomplish that by doing x activities and will achieve x milestones by such n such a date,

M – Measurable – your plan should have specific things that can be measured to determine progress. If results are not materializing as they should then adjustments must be made,

A- Achievable - your plan must make sense and be achievable…it’s ok to make some stretch goals but equally important is to be realistic. So many good plans come to an end because of unrealistic expectations.

R- Realistic - is that goal or timeline of yours a pipe dream?  Give your head a shake.  And come back to reality.  The millions if not billions of dollars spent on anything from get-rich quick to lose half of your weight in 30 days cater to the entitlement mentality that many suffer from these days.  There are the occasional miracles, grand-slams, hail marys that happen but success is in the percentages.  Work the sure thing every time and success is all but guaranteed. 

T- Timely - Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else. – Peter F. Drucker The difference between success and failure is time.  Take note of unsuccessful people more often than not their excuse is “I don’t have time”.  Ask them to do a time diary and you will see exactly what their source of failure is.  The plain and simple truth is that there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year we are all given these parameters.  So try to manage your time in a fashion that will give you the most productive output.  Find the thing that will ultimately give you the sense of urgency to complete your plan on time.  Do this step and you will manage your time a bit more wisely.

Start a business the same way you train for a marathon

Several years ago, my wife took up running and completed several half-marathons.  I had always teased her saying that completing one would be easy.  She challenged me to complete one and I said that one day I will.  I didn’t particularly enjoy running so there really was no desire to even try.  Until one day she said “I’ve entered you into the half marathon” not one to waste good money already spent I committed myself to running…or did I?.  My idea of training was a weak one at best comprising of a few one maybe two mile jogs and one 6.5 mile run the week before the race.  Being a relatively fit individual I thought I’d be fine.  Boy was I wrong!

Race day.  Gotta admit, really enjoyed the adrenaline rush of lining up at the start with 1000′s of participants.  Crack of the pistol and I was off clipping along at a fairly decent pace and on track to finish within my goal of under 2 hours.  I reach the halfway point and WHAM! it felt like someone took a sledge hammer to the side of my knee…long story short…I hobbled in to finish in 2 hours and 14 minutes.  Not bad I guess for someone who doesn’t run.  The pain lasted a month and was a good reminder of why I don’t like running.

Not reaching my goal of finishing under 2 hours nagged at me to enter the half marathon again.  This time I had a plan.  I researched a bit on how to become a better runner and learned that you need to build up speed and endurance.  So with this basic knowledge in mind I developed a 3 month plan to help me beat my goal of finishing a half marathon in under 2 hours.  The basic formula was to build on the prior week’s foundation.  I started with short 1-2 mile runs every other day and on the weekends I would do a long-run.  My short runs focused on speed and my long-run focused on endurance and pace.  Each successive week my long -run would be lengthened by a mile or two with my last (the weekend before the race) long-run totaling 11 miles.  This plan helped me finish the race in 1 hour and 54 minutes with no after pain.

How does this translate into starting an Online Business?  Step One – you need a plan.  If you don’t you’ll fall into the trap that many newbies suffer…stops and starts leading to frustration and failure.  Step Two – you need to set out goals and milestones to help you get to the finish.  How do you finish the race one stride at a time.  Stay tuned for future posts to help you get started.