Tuesday 15 November 2011

Make More Money By Finishing What You Start


One of the great things about blogging, or communicating with people online in any form really, is the fact that you can advise people on what to do, even if you know in your heart that sometimes you ought to be better at taking your own advice! 


This blog post is a great example of this for me personally, as what I am about to tell you is not only great advice, but also something that I simply must get better at doing myself. 


Let's consider this a lesson and a bit of therapy for me all at the same time! 


It may sound obvious, but seeing things through to completion is the only way that you are ever going to make a bean online, regardless of your niche or the kind of work that you get involved in. Yet many people, myself often included, are guilty of wasting precious time by starting something, getting a long way into it, then leaving it to gather digital dust on their hard drive. 


So why do we do it, and what can we do to ensure that we don't do it again? Hopefully this short blog post (and possibly future ones depending on how much I can find out about the subject) will go some way to answering the question. 


The subject of why we fail to finish things is a tricky one, and without speaking to hundreds of people I'm more inclined to look at my own situation and question why I fail to get things done. In order to do this, let's start by looking at the normal lifecycle of an idea and how that manifests itself into a tangible product. 


You normally start with a moment of inspiration. This could be anything; an idea for a blog post, a thought about a product you could create or an idea for how to market something. Whatever it is, it always starts with an idea, and that idea then needs a bit of 'fleshing out'. 


Many ideas will (probably quite rightfully) fizzle out at this point. Imagine if every business idea you had instantly became a reality - Whilst your productivity would be through the roof, the amount of tat that would have your name on it would, for most people, also be through the roof. You need an element of quality control, and that's what usually happens at this stage. 


It's once you've cleared this stage that problems usually start. In theory, if an idea makes it beyond the 'Quality Control' stage, then it should be deemed good enough for you to want to see it through to completion. But as we know that things often don't make it much further than this stage, it's important to work out where the problems begin. 


Over the course of the next few blog posts I'm going to offer up my suggestions on why people fail to complete things, and suggest some ideas to ensure that it doesn't become a problem. 


Planning: 


The planning stage is crucial in any project, but it often gets actioned really badly or worse still, ignored altogether. In the same way that a house builder wouldn't move a brick without knowing where it was going to go and when, any project you work on should go through a decent planning stage. It doesn't have to take forever, but having a full understanding of what you need to achieve BEFORE you try to achieve it will usually pay off. 


Let's think of an example. If I was going to create a membership site in the weight loss niche, I would want to plan the whole thing out. I would start by drawing up a rough idea of a contents list, and would do this by researching the niche using various methods. This wouldn't necessarily be the be-all and end-all as I could change the contents later if I wanted to, but it would be a good starting point. Pretty soon I would know what chapters I would have to write up. I would then work out what would be written content and what would be video content (or any other kind of content for that matter). This way I know I'm covering all the subjects I need to, and will have an idea of the scale of the project early on. 


I will at this stage also do a bit of an inventory check. Is there any reason that I will be unable to complete the project? Do I need any specific kind of software? Will I be able to record the videos? Will I need to buy or borrow anything? Learning this at this stage will help ensure that I don't get stuck halfway through, as there will (in theory) not be any surprises. 


Finally, for the planning stage at least, I will decide if I want to outsource anything, and get the work out to the people who need to start work on it. I want to do this as early in the process as possible so that I'm not being held up by people later on. Ideally, in the closing days of the project, I want to have all the work in and for it to be up to me to get everything finished. 


Planning is vital, and good planning can be the difference between a successful project and a total flop. Check back soon for some more tips.

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