Developing a Business Plan

Developing a Business Plan | Your Solution

Every successful business begins with a plan. The components of your plan should include:

1) Your Market
2) Your Solution
3) Your Traffic
4) Back-End Sales

2) Your Solution
Many business owners operate with the belief that the product they provide is their offer. While this is true on a very fundamental level, the belief is far too simplistic for those of you that would like to enjoy a substantial return for the time and money that you invest. The smart business owner recognizes that people don't buy products - they buy solutions. When you promote your product, try to avoid listing product details. Instead, focus on how your product may offer a problem solving solution.

Perhaps you have decided to sell pogo sticks. In fact you have decided that you want to be the worldwide leader in pogo stick sales around the world. The average business owner with an online presence creates a page with a basic description of the pogo stick, the colors available and the price. The smart business owner helps the customer understand how his pogo stick will provide a solution.

A well-written offer might consist of multiple solutions:

A patented spring system provides bigger bounces for bigger fun
Children will be entertained for hours
Quality construction makes this a toy that is built to last for generations

Maybe you are interested in selling a book on caring for newborn babies, called Bring Up Baby. Your offer should extend beyond the basic content, to let the customer know that your book is a solution for the challenges parents may confront.

The offer should include the following benefits:

It will help you understand why newborn's cry
It will help you establish a feeding and sleep schedule
It will help you identify leading products that will provide further solutions

Imagine the results, if you had simply offered visitors a pogo stick for $24.99, or a baby book for $19.99. Instead, your customer is satisfied by the promise of a solution, and will soon be even more satisfied by the results the product will deliver. Satisfied customers are repeat customers that are often more willing to trust you with more expensive purchases.

MakingMusicFun.net, a creative resource website for elementary art education, was my first ad-supported website. The products MMF! provides include free printable sheet music, music theory arcade games and worksheets, composer biographies and worksheets, and more. The solutions are many, and to establish them in the minds of my newsletter subscribers I asked them to complete a survey. The following is a record of their response. Each statement is followed by the percentage of people that regard the statements about the resources they find on MMF! to be true.

MMF! makes teaching easy because...

I have easy access to the perfect resource for every private music student no matter where I am. 45%
Lesson plans and worksheets are nicely organized (not like my file cabinet). 57%
As a homeschooling parent/teacher, preparing lessons is as easy as "click-print-teach". 57%
I can plan my music classroom lessons at home. 37%
MMF! makes learning music more affordable. 45%

by Andrew Fling

Developing a Business Plan | Your Market
Developing a Business Plan | Your Traffic
Developing a Business Plan | Back-End Sales

Share |

LinkBuilder Program
Get your first link from us. Add our link on your new website, and we will give you a
high quality link from family of websites for free! More info...