Planning To Succeed? Where’s Your Map?

©2009 Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved.

The Internet marketing and affiliate marketing lifestyles are great – work when you want to, where you want to and for most successful Internet marketers, enjoy an income above any you’ve ever made offline… Pretty sweet, eh?

So why is it that so many don’t achieve this level of success? There are a number of reasons, but two stand out head and shoulders above the rest: Lack of focus and perseverance, and no or little planning.

The former can in itself be caused by a number of different factors, but again some main ones top the list: mental laziness, uncontrolled curiosity and no set goals so no yardsticks to measure progress. Let’s look at these in a bit more detail…

For most people, Internet marketing or affiliate marketing is their first self-employment attempt They’ve never tried a work-from-home business, but instead always been employed by someone else. In which case, they’re mentally lazy and unfocused compared to successful entrepreneurs. OK, maybe not every employee, just say 99.2% ;-) It’s easy to see why – just look around you at how many people whine about how hard they work at their 9-5 job. Yet study after study finds that entrepreneurs work an average of 14 hours a day, usually 6 or 7 days a week!

That equates to an employee working their 9-5, Monday-Friday job, then putting in 6 hours a night on their online business Monday-Friday, then AT LEAST another 14 hours on the weekend – and more likely 20 hours. Their full-time jobs and another 44-50 hours a week on their online marketing takes them to the level of a true entrepreneur…

Already I hear the howls – ‘I already work too hard!’, ‘I have a LIFE, you know?’, ‘My spouse/kids would never go for that!’ ‘I don’t want to spend all my time working!’. The first two are very common – and an unfortunate sign of our current state in society, where the general ‘It’s Not My Fault’ and ‘Blame everyone but me’ has created a new breed unknown to our forefathers – whiners and complainers who refuse to accept hard work and refuse to take responsibility for their actions, their kids or their current state of affairs. To those I say Keep Your Job – you’re not cut out to be in business for yourself.

The latter two are legitimate concerns – concerns that need to be explored before entering into Internet marketing. Every successful entrepreneur, online or offline, has support groups around them. Supportive family & friends, and ‘mastermind’ or ‘networking’ groups within their business community. The business alliances you build once you’re actually in the trenches, but it’s important to have your family, and especially your spouse on board from the start. They may, as in our case, be totally on board and working at the business right alongside you – that’s the optimal situation. But they have to at least understand WHY you’re dedicating your free time to this, and be on side with your goals and aspirations – otherwise jealousy and disappointment will create stumbling points in your path, often insurmountable ones.

Don’t expect your significant other to remain understanding and supportive if you don’t show them where you’re heading with your online biz, or if you don’t update them regularly on your progress. Be honest about setbacks too, or you set you BOTH up for disappointments down the road…

As to not wanting to work that much, that’s natural – and the reason most people never get ahead of the pack. We’re trained to expect instant gratification, and the concept of paying it forward, working a ton extra now to have a better lifestyle later, is pretty much foreign to our culture. But the truth is that success takes a LOT of time, especially in the early years. Assuming you’ve done well in those years it becomes less demanding as time goes on, but economic events like this recession tend to force you back into long hours again, if only temporarily.

And ‘temporarily’ is an important phrase here – after all, if you don’t have set goals and signposts set up along the way to measure your progress, you’ll never know what point you’re at, will you?

That brings us to my question ‘Where’s your map?’… If you were driving to downtown Tokyo for the first time you’d consult a map, of course. If you were sailing into waters you’d never seen before, you’d be consulting your charts (nautical maps). So when heading into unfamiliar territory like your own business, why would you take any fewer precautions?

I’m not talking about the process maps you see for the big promotions online, or even your decisions to do this today and that tomorrow – I’m talking the map to your own specific dream lifestyle. So how do you start?

Make time to relax and brainstorm with yourself about what you want in life. Not the usual generic ‘I want to be rich’ or ‘I want to be famous’ but concrete goals specific to YOU. Start by picturing a day in your life 10 years from now. Where do you live? What do you wear? What do you drive? How do you spend that day – what activities fill your day, and what is the source of your income? How is your evening spent? And will the next day be the same, or different? If different, how so?

Write down your scenario – even if it’s just in point form. Ad I’m serious when I say do this alone at first, as the idea is to discover what YOU really want. Put it down on paper, read through it, consider it some more and make any alterations you feel are appropriate until you feel it’s ‘just right’. When you’re finished, you should have a detailed itinerary for your average couple of days ten years from now.

Don’t share the info with anyone yet… But instead, now go through what you’ve written and cost is out. What would you need to have, what would you need to be making, in order to maintain that lifestyle comfortably for an indefinite period of time? Look at it from every angle, and be sure you’ve included it all – what would you need in terms of assets (houses, cars, etc.), investments and income…

OK – got that? Now add 50% for taxes (35% of total income as a figuring rate), then double the total to allow for inflation. (Hopefully that will suffice, as it allows for an average of 7% inflation per year for the 10 years.) When you’re done, you’ve got a rough idea of your requirements 10 years from now. So where would you have to be 5 years from now to be on track for that? Write it down.

Now look at the 5-year picture, and ask yourself where you need to be in two years to be on track for that goal. Again, write it down. Look at the 2-year, 5-year and 10-year projections and you should be able to see the logical progression from one to the next, and the necessary pattern should be emerging.

To finish it up, where do you need to be 1 year from today to be well on your way and on track to start that progression? AND what CONCRETE STEPS do you have to take, starting right now, to get to that 1-year point successfully? (Add maybe 25% to that one-year goal to allow for setbacks either during that year or further down the road – we all have to pay homage to Murphy!) Decide on the exact steps you’ll take for the next year to get to that point, and write them down.

Ask yourself if you have the training, tools, time and money required to complete that first year. If any of those come up short, write down your plans to ensure you have what you need by the time you need it…

So now you have the start of your map – where you want to be in 1, 2, 5 and 10 years, and the exact steps you’re going to take to get to year one. Now involve your family, spouse, significant other or whomever your decisions directly impact. Explain it as best you can, and be sure to point out it takes time and money to get to where you want to be, and that it takes a lot more of both upfront than it does down the road. If they raise concerns or doubts, neither get angry nor defensive – consider each point and see if you can reasonably counter it or allow for it. If the person is your life partner, make sure your goals aren’t in conflict with theirs – otherwise you’ll need to find a compromise that works for you both before continuing on.

Once all and any concerns are dealt with, write out one more copy of the steps you intend to take over the next year, and put short summaries of where you’ll be in 3 months from today, 6 months & 9 months. These are your benchmarks, the markers that tell you if you’re on track and let you measure your progress vis-a-vis your own goals. Especially note what you want your income to be, your online presence at that point, the size of your opt-in list, etc.

As an aside, between now and 10 years from now your goals will change, your resources will change, your skills will evolve and the internet marketing and affiliate marketing industries themselves will change. Don’t worry about that – each year on the anniversary of your start you’ll redo this process, using your current plans as the basis and revising as necessary.

Next, very importantly, on a separate sheet of paper write down the markers you’ve set for 3 months from today, and tape that to the side of your monitor, or just above where you usually work on your laptop if that’s your weapon of choice. If there’s nowhere else, tape it to the top of the mirror in the bathroom or the door of the fridge – the important thing is to have it where you’ll see it every single day, and preferably as close to your working space as possible.

And that, my friend, is your map – that one-year set of concrete steps to take you toward where you want to be. In the long run, it’ll turn out to be your most valued tool since it’s what will keep you on track, and motivate you when you start to slide a bit.

Oh, and if you’ve just read this and decided it’s too much work, go back to the paragraph on why most people aren’t successful with their own business, and re-evaluate your plans, ok?

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