There are two types of people trying to earn money online. The first type is trying to cover a cash shortfall, and not out to make money in the long term. The second type has a long-term goal seeing it as a business, and have the vision of seeing the business supplement or replace their current income stream. If you are in the latter group then here are three reasons why having an online business strategy is essential.
1. Consistency: This goes just beyond having a steady income. In order to get that steady income you must have a plan in place to get it. That requires, on your part, steady work towards that goal. Without a strategy in place you are more likely to flit from place to place and from job to job, perhaps not even completing them. Consistency is needed for anyone in business to reach their full earning potential.
2. Reduces distractions: One of the most challenging things about working online is that it is very easy to go off on a tangent. We’ve all done it. You know what you want to do in the morning, but by afternoon you’ve been working constantly, so it seems, and have achieved nothing. The truth is that what has happened is you’ve been pushed away from your goal for whatever reason. By having a strategy in place, and then sticking to it and reviewing it you are more likely to have productive work done by the end of the day, rather than non-productive work.
3. It gets you where you need to go: It goes without saying that we all have some kind of goal when we start an online business. Fuzzy goals lead to fuzzy results. Just saying I want to earn lots of money is not enough! Just saying I want to earn x dollars a month is not enough. The key is you have to know how you intend to earn that money as well. The chances are that by now you’ve been exposed to more than one way to earn money. What you need to do now is work whichever way you’ve decided on to its full potential. Change the sentence to “I want to earn x dollars a month by doing this type (insert marketing strategy here) of online marketing”, and see how your thinking changes. Use that to start writing your plan.
An online business is just like any other business. You need a product or a method of earning money such as affiliate marketing, and you need a strategy, which means you need a business plan. If you have a plan then you’ll be more productive and get to your goal that much faster.
