For the last few days I’ve been re-reading Good to Great by Jim Collins and the chimps (his researchers). If you’re in business and you haven’t checked it out yet then go get yourself a copy. Not only has it made me take a long, hard look(again) at my business, but it has also given me some killer ideas for what makes a successful website.

I’ll be talking about those ideas over the coming weeks in another exciting development. It’s time for Craig to start his video blog and talk about himself in the third person!

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but technology and my bad video making skills have been standing in the way. While my skills haven’t improved a lot, they’re just going to have to do. Anyway, this is going to be a very informal and relaxed video blog. But don’t worry…I will be wearing pants (we’re not getting that relaxed…).

So, if you’re interested in quick tips on improving your website (and business), then subscribe to the RSS as I hope to have the first ‘episodes’ on the way soon.

In the meantime, you can check out Jim Collins’ website for some good immediate material. Because I know how frustrating waiting a few days for one of those old-fashioned book things can be!

Starting a website can be a frustrating experience. The fact is it takes a while to build up content, visitors, and communication. I’ve spent time building up content at the expense of marketing and it makes me feel a little lonely. When you’re blogging your heart out and find very few comments, it can be a little discouraging.

But building something worthwhile takes time and we have to be prepared for that.

Why?

As much as people like to romanticise business and show overnight success, that’s usually not the way it works. I was reading about Sam Walton’s story recently and he said he was always amazed at how people saw Wal-Mart as an overnight success. The fact was he’d been building up his retail stores for about 20 years before it took off.

I know the Internet is full of promises of instant riches but the people that chase them end up with empty wallets and nothing to show for it. The people how work diligently and persevere are the ones that make the real success stories.

How?

If you know what you’re doing has potential, helps people, and can bring in an income you just need to keep doing it. Looking with rose tinted glasses doesn’t help, but neither does pessimism either. You need to find a careful balance between realism and faith to keep you going.

It helps to talk to other entrepreneurs and also follow other success stories. You need to know that it’s possible if you just hang in there.

Homework

Check to make sure you’re creating a real business and not just chasing another get rich quick scheme. Also have faith in yourself and what you’re doing, it’ll be worth it one day as long as you don’t give up.

It amazes me how many small businesses never bother to plan or work out where their business is going. But then I see the results of those businesses and it all becomes clear.

If you don’t have a strategy for your website and business, you’re literally going nowhere. The people that have an idea in their heads of what they want to achieve and how they’ll do it are moving in the right direction. The ones that actually bother to write it down blow everyone out of the water.

These are what success stories are made of!

Why

We all know most small businesses fail. We’ve seen the statistics and don’t want to become one. Well if you look at the reasons for failure, most of them can be tied to poor planning and management. What does that mean? They didn’t have a strategy to be successful.

Having a strategy isn’t about being successful anymore, it’s about surviving! It just so happens that having a strategy also makes for hugely successful businesses. Not a bad benefit, eh?

How

Planning doesn’t have to be the complicated techniques laid out in business books. It can be quite simple, but it still takes a little bit of thought and effort. I’m sorry, but Santa still hasn’t trained the elves how to do all your planning for you, along with make your products and services…you still need a little involvement in your business.

But all you need to plan is two things:

1. A goal
2. A plan to reach that goal

At the end of the day, it’s not that tricky! Work out where you want to go and how you’ll get there…surprisingly simple isn’t it?

Homework

Write down your goals and actions you’ll take to get there. For a more comprehensive idea of what to do, check out the new article in the Free Members Only Section: Action without Strategy wears out the Hamster.

The most important thing is to just do something, anything, that will contribute to building your website.

It’s Friday and I don’t know about you, but this is when I usually look back and wonder what I achieved during the week. I check my nice little Action Plan and see what I managed to tick off each day.

While this is good and I know I’m making progress, sometimes the little things can get in the way of the big picture. So today I spent some time reanalysing my long term goals and planning for the future.

I think it’s important for all small business owners to do this, especially when it comes to your website. The website can often slip down the list of priorities as other ‘more urgent’ things spring up. My aim is to stop you mistreating your website like this and give it the attention it deserves.

Think of me as your significant other that harasses you because you just forgot our anniversary…again! Though it’s up to you whether you imagine me throwing plates at your head…

Why

Taking a step back and deciding where you want to take your website is an important first step in the improvement process. Without an idea of where you want to go, you’ll never reach it. Quite frankly, if you don’t know how important planning is we’re probably wasting our time here.

So let’s get to the real stuff.

How

Setting long term goals for your website isn’t the trickiest thing in the world. You just decide what you want to achieve with it in the future. Bear in mind, the more you want to achieve, the more effort you’ll have to put in. Which is really where I want your mind to be. Right now, your website is not living up to it’s potential.

When I plan I look at two areas: Objectives and Goals. Everyone seems to have a different method for planning, but here’s mine. I like to keep it nice and simple to ensure I’m not planning for the sake of planning.

First you come up with your objectives. These are in an unquantifiable form like make more sales, increase website traffic, etc.

Then I take those objectives and work out how they can be made into measurable goals. So in a years time I want to have x amount of sales and x amount of unique visitors a day.

So now I have my objectives and goals for the coming year. The next step is to fill in the steps it’ll take to get there. So I do my 6 month, 3 month, and 1 month goals.

The final step is to assign actions I will take to reach these goals. Again, I work back from a year and work out what I need to do, right back to the coming month. So now I have a list of the most important actions I will take each month.

I always plan more accurately in the short term and am a bit more vague in the long term. Those months will fill themselves in at the end of the month when I go through and plan out the next months actions in more detail.

The result is a Action Plan for the next month with the most important actions listed in priority. I realise these are the actions that will grow my business so they should always get the focus before the daily problems that tend to appear.

Make sure you’re getting closer to achieving your biggest priorities every day, before getting sidetracked with the latest emails or surfing the web. This is the way to growing a successful website and business.

Homework

Guess! Take some quiet time over the weekend and go through this planning process for the next year. Then on Monday, get started on your biggest priority of the month.

I was corrected recently in a forum and told that in business you should appeal to as many people as possible. This was in response to a comment I made:

I’d rather be hated by 50% of people and loved by 50% than cause no feelings in 100% of people.

Well I stand by my comment and I think it’s a good guideline for your website.

It’s also interesting to note that all that ‘free’ advice you pick up in forums can be more costly than paying someone who knows what they’re talking about. After all, how many millionaires are going round forums giving help?

Exactly. But I digress…

Why

It’s hard to differentiate your business while keeping everyone happy. It simply doesn’t work. A grandmother isn’t interested in the same things a teenager is. A hardcore environmentalist will have conflicting views with a capitalist. We’re all different, that’s just life.

We’ve heard so much about product niches recently, especially online. Well don’t forget the emotional niche as well. If you’re too busy trying to impress everyone with the same thing you’re missing out on taking your business to the next level.

How

Now you don’t really have to go out and try to make people hate you. You can if you want, it’s worked for quite a few people. But you can differentiate yourself in other ways. The important part is you don’t worry about keeping everyone happy. Pissing off a few people can be a good thing.

One thing I use is going after bad web designers. I’m quite happy to state that most web designers have no clue how to make money on the Internet. They may make pretty websites but when they start giving advice where they aren’t qualified, I get a little *grrr*

Can you be an advocate in your industry? Can you use your personality to make you stand out? Can you berate and anger 90% of the world while 10% will walk over hot coals to support you and buy your products?

Homework

Based on what was different about your business, how can you take it to the next level? How can you make your website take the high ground…or the low ground? Though, whatever you do, stay away from the middle ground. That’s where businesses go to die!

And for those that want more, there’s another 4 pages about this is the free Members Only Area.

 

 Pareto Principle: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard about the Pareto Principle before. It’s the theory that 20% of the effort achieves 80% of the results. It can be applied from many different angles but I want to talk about work efficiency today. So, 20% of the work you do, achieves 80% of the results.

I constantly see small business people rushing around doing the menial tasks that won’t improve their business. Sure, the floor may need to be swept, but is it really contributing to your sales? Then they ignore the tasks that are more long term, business growing necessities. For some reason it’s in their head that the unimportant daily things need doing now, while the really important tasks like planning and marketing can be put off till tomorrow.

Just because it doesn’t have a deadline, doesn’t mean it isn’t important. And by focusing on these more important tasks, even a little bit each day, you can grow your business at an incredible rate. Plus, you’re the boss, you should be putting deadlines on yourself to get these things sorted.

Now I can hear you saying, “but the floor needs to be swept too!” Yes, fair enough. But does it need to be done right now. If you have a choice of sweeping the floor or sending five emails to potential customers, what is more important? So send the emails (that was the correct answer by the way), then sweep the floor. If it doesn’t get done today, will it kill your business? If you don’t have any more customers, that will kill your business.

So go through your daily task list (please tell me you have one) and work out what are the most important things to do. Prioritise them and carry them out in the correct order.

That’s how you take care of the 20% that will grow your business. Use the Pareto Principle to your advantage, not to your detriment.

Expanding your business can be difficult at times, especially when you’re doing all the work yourself. The secret is to exploit the power of Strategic Alliances. Find a company that serves your customer base and see what kind of joint ventures you can do.

This could be as simple as being advertised as a trusted friend in their mailing list. Or you could group products together and make joint offers to your customers. In a strong alliance you could even up-sell each others products.

Create a great network, use it creatively, and your business will grow overnight.

When your business starts to take off you need to have a strategy to deal with the growth. Many entrepreneurs start to get tied down with the technical work of the business rather than planning and controlling the growth of the company. When you create a business, you are creating a system that should be able to run without your input. You need to put systems in place so other people can take over the technical work while you grow your business.

So as you start to get more customers, remember to focus time on writing down the systems you use to deal with them. When you’ve designed that job, you give it to someone else and go to work on other aspects of your business. Imagine how much you could grow your business if you focused on marketing and finding customers all the time. This should be your first goal. Then as you grow more, you find other people to take care of this role as well.

Your final goal is to be able to sit on a beach in Hawaii sipping piña coladas while your business functions without you. The obvious dream of every business owner, but you have to work smarter than most to obtain this goal.