In this episode, we are going to continue answering a
question sent in by Marie from St. Lucia. She asked the following question
about business plans and using it for online businesses:

Hi Mel, this is Marie
Piazza. I’m calling from St. Lucia. I’d like to know how to make an online
business plan. I have had businesses before but physical businesses. So, I want
to know what the key things I have to know about online business plan and how
to go about doing that. Thank you very much.

In the last episode, we talked about the outline of business
plans in general. In this one we move our focus into specific business plan
elements necessary for online businesses.

Here are the 7 elements to consider in the planning process
of online businesses:

1. Content Creation:
   We need to create content or products on a regular basis to get to our
   consumers. Develop a content creation strategy that can be used to put products
   online on a regular basis.
2. Traffic
   Cultivation: You can set up the best website or online system but it
   doesn’t mean anything without traffic. People must view it, and interact with
   it. So, how are you going to bring in people?
3. Conversion
   Optimization: Even before running traffic through it, we need to optimize
   the conversions first. Put a strategy in place to get your conversions as high
   as possible and then run the throughput.
4. After
   Sale Magnification: After selling, you need to build a relationship with
   customers to get more sales and revenues. It is about how you can integrate
   more products or offerings in the sales process.
5. Technology
   Utilization: Plan to use technology that supports and leverages your time.
   Automate the process and track it so you know exactly what your customers are
   choosing. Let technology map it out for you.
6. Growth
   Integration: Build a growth integration strategy to give customers
   something complementary to what they have already done. Use technology to
   deliver something that is a few degrees off.
7. Customer
   Elevation: A mutual relationship based on trust should be maintained with
   customers. So, elevate them to a higher position than where they started to
   maximize the lifetime value of consumers.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the #1
best-selling book The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business
Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a business and create a
life: A life of financial freedom and
peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s
Solution show and in this one we’re actually going to do a continuation of
answering a question from the last episode. Marie from St. Lucia asked a
question about business plans and using business plans for online businesses.

And what I did in the last episode as you recall was really
talk about business plans in general
and give you the fundamental and the foundational framework and outline for a
business plan. In this one we’re going to talk about some specific elements
that I think are necessary when you talk about an online business versus a
bricks and mortar business, and I would integrate them in that context.

So, right after this brief introduction, we’re going to come
right back and we’re going to finish the second part of the answer to Marie’s
question.

And just like every other episode, this episode comes with a
downloadable tool, template or guide. So, make sure that you get the full value
of these episodes by downloading the guide each and every week. And for this
episode, just simply go to MelAbraham.com/session033.

And if you’re not by your computer; you’re at the gym,
you’re driving, you’re doing whatever; you’re not there where you can get it
now, go ahead and text. Text MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces, 38470. That’s
MYLEGACY to 38470 and we’ll make sure that we get you the download link so you
can get the tools and get the full value out of these episodes.

We’ll see you back here right after this brief introduction.

Hey there, welcome back. I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the
#1 best-selling book The Entrepreneur’s Solution and welcome back to this
episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. And as I said, we’re going to go
back into the question that Marie asked from St. Lucia about business plans.

So, why don’t we do this real quickly? Let’s listen to her question
again just in case you didn’t hear it the last episode or you weren’t on the
last episode.

Hi Mel, this is Marie
Piazza. I’m calling from St. Lucia. I’d like to know how to make an online
business plan. I have had businesses before but physical businesses. So, I want
to know what the key things I have to know about online business plan and how
to go about doing that. Thank you very much.

So, that’s a great question Marie and in the last episode we
talked about just the process of business
plans. And as I said to me it’s much more important to go through the
process of creating a business plan than the actual document itself because the
process that you have to go through requires you to really understand all the
elements of your business.

You’re capturing what the company background is, who, what. The vision, the nuts and bolts,
the structure. All of those elements that are around the company that need to
be captured and thought about versus just going out there with an idea.

We start to detail out our offering, our products and services, the bundles we might create.

• How we’re serving needs in the marketplace?
• What are the benefits that are created?

What are the
distinctions and the uniques that we bring to the marketplace that’s set us
apart from the industry or the other competitors, the other alternatives that
our consumers, our customers or clients might have?

We define the market.
We don’t go at it broadly. We find the market that we want to participate in.
We understand the type of market it is—wholesale, retail, consumer, business,
broad based, diversified, niche. What kind of market it is?

We also show that we understand
the industry and the market at a way that we understand what are the
dynamics, the dynamic changes that are going in to the marketplace now and how
we’re going to participate in those changes, support them or benefit from
those.

We know where the market is.
We know where our customers are geographically.
We know how to reach them and we talked about
that.

• How we’re going to deliver this?
• And what the future growth is?
• And how we’re going to connect with them at a
  deep level?

> To build intimacy and build loyalty and we talk about
that in our traditional business plan or the process we go through.

We understand our strategies.
We detail out in a lot of detail

• What our strategies are.
• What our timelines and milestones are.
• What the tactics are to make those strategies
  come true.

We talk about all of those elements in the strategy section,
in the implementation section and execution section of the plan.

And then we look at the team.
The team are the ones that are driving the bus. These are the ones that, the
management and all the key players.

• We want to know who they are.
• We want to know what their backgrounds are,
  education, work experience, their success are.
• What roles?
• What are their CORE functions that they’re going
  to serve?
• What roles are they going to play?
•  And detail all that out so we’ve thought it
  through.

And then we want to understand the financial side of it, the money
side of it. Understanding:

• Where this might go financially.
• What could this grow to financially over a
  period of time?
• Do we forecast?
• What are the risks associated with it?
• What are the costs associated with it?
• How are we going to finance it?

And then look at it and say, “Great, what if things go
wrong? What does it look like?” And start re-working it.

So, that’s a traditional business plan focus and all of this
applies. Marie, all of this applies to an online business if you really want to
put together a business plan or at least go through the process of it. The more
detail, the more clarity you have, the better off you’ll be.

But when you talk about an online business there’s a couple
of concepts. About 7 things that I want
you to consider to make sure that they’re in the process, the analysis
process in the business planning process.

So, let’s look at the business plan, some of the business
plan. I know it’s not. This is not a complete plan. This is simply the aspects that I want you to
integrate into your complete plan that are unique to online businesses in
that case, okay?

So the first thing is this—Content Creation.

When we talk about an
online business, what is it?

> Content or product creation.

We need to have a process.
We need to have a system.
We need to have a way in which we’re going to
create content or products on a regular basis to get to our consumer.

And so, this, in this … in my example what I want to bring
to the table is: If I just look at just myself and the work that I’m doing with
entrepreneurs, I’m creating content. What’s my content creation strategy and
system? It’s, a lot of it is this which you see me doing right now.

I’m coming out and I’m putting product/content out there on
a weekly basis at a minimum doing the YouTube videos. I’m doing my podcast. I’m
putting out materials, articles and guides and tools and templates to help
entrepreneurs in that context. I’ve got my book that’s a #1 best-selling book
that’s out there. I’ve got my training program.

So, what is your
content creation or product creation strategy specifically that you’re
going to, that you’re going to use to take out and sell via the online space,
via the online delivery system, if you will?

The second piece is this—what’s your Traffic Cultivation strategy?

If we’re online, I need to get traffic to the website. I can
hang up a great website. I can hang up a great shopping cart system. I can hang
up everything. But if people don’t show up, I’m not going to get any sales. So,
I want to understand what your traffic cultivation system is?

• Is it ads?
• Is it Facebook ads?
• LinkedIn Ads?
• YouTube Ads?
• What? Is it display ads?

What is it that
you’re using to drive traffic, to cultivate traffic, to cultivate that
volume to the site in a way that’s going to start to drive sales?

• It could be paid.
• It could be free.
• It could be you being out there speaking,
  writing, doing direct mail campaigns.

But this is something that we want to clearly understand and
some people will call this platform, what’s your audience like? That type of
thing. But traffic cultivation becomes really important in the online space and
understanding where that’s coming from and how you’re going to control that.

Once we understand that, then we need to deal with Conversion Optimization.

In actuality, what I want to do is actually make sure that
I’ve optimized my conversions first before I start running traffic through it.
What I want to do is get my conversions as high as possible and then let me run
the throughput for it because then I can maximize it on the other end.

But, nonetheless, I want to know what your strategy, system
or process is to optimize your conversions.

• Are you testing it?
• Are you doing re-directs?
• Are you doing re-targeting?
• Are you doing pixels?
• Are you doing a follow-up sequence?

What is your
conversion optimization strategy that will maximize your sales when you start
to run that, your traffic through the process?

So, content creation, traffic cultivation, conversion
optimization then I want to look at After
Sale Magnification.

After sale magnification is this—what’s your relationship after the sale? Do you do things,
especially online, are there things that will drive you for one-click up-sales
that they call it on online. So, you go and buy something and it says before
you check out, it’s that whole concept of but
there’s more type of a thing.

So, before you check out if you want to add this to your
order for this one-time low fee of X, click here. Do you have that in place?

And then, say they complete the sale and they’re a week past
the sale or they’re two weeks past the sale. Listen, customers that just bought for you are the hottest customers because
they believe in you. They believe in your product. They bought from you and
you deliver on it at a level of excellence that makes them happy then you want
to go back to them and say, “What’s the pathway, your client path, your
consumer path?”

What happens after the
sale for us to get more sales, more revenues and serve the client at the next
level?

What’s the next, what I call when I teach at work review,
what’s the next logical, sequential step for your customers? What’s the after sale magnification system
that you have in place?

Then Technology Utilization.

Especially with online. Back in the day when you were doing
business, it was face to face. It was in the store that you’d have to go
running on the shelf and grab it off the shelf and you’d have to deliver it,
all that. But how are you using technology

• To support you,
• To leverage your time,
• To deliver this, and
• To automate the process.

> So you can be hands off as much as possible that allows
it to track it.

I know that when we did my book launch sequence and we set
that up, there was, we put in technology that allowed us to track every step of
the transaction. Every step of the customer’s journey from the moment they arrived
on the web page to all the way through the after sale magnification, we knew
exactly what the customer was doing and based upon the choices they made, we
would give them additional choices. And we would communicate on a regular basis
but we mapped it all out at the very beginning and used the technology that was
available to us to allow it to run automated.

So, I wasn’t looking at it and saying, this customer I need
to send something to or this customer I need to send this to and this customer
I need to send that to. I simply set it up from the beginning and allowed the
system to do the work, to do the heavy lifting. So, set it up right from the
beginning.

How are you using
technology to maximize your time, to leverage your time and do it in a way that
makes it cost effective?

Technology like your shopping cart system, your CRM system.
We use, we happen to use Infusionsoft. How
are you capturing the leads and then working the leads from there?

All of the technologies that I use to deliver the podcast
and the YouTube and my products and all of the communication that we do is all
based on that technology platform.

So, what
is yours?

How does it leverage it?
Does it scale with you?
And does it allow you to grow?
And who is in control of it?

So, that’s the next piece and then Growth Integration.

What’s your growth from here on out? And so, we talked about
after sale magnification. So, if I think that they’re on one trip and they start
with my, let’s just take mine:

They start with a book offer. They have a one-click upsell
that accelerates their growth and then they go into a sequence that moves them
into some other training program. And then maybe 2 months, 3 months down the
road, there is a, it’s not exactly the same thing. It’s may be one degree, two
degrees, three degrees off but it’s complimentary to what they’ve already gone
through.

What is that
integration?

That ability to grow by giving them something
that’s one, two or three degrees off.
That’s complementary and supports what they’ve
already done.

And you’ve heard this talked about by my good friend Brendon
Burchard. He calls it an Integrated
Product Sweep.

If you look at things like Apple, they have integrated
products. Everything resides from that iTunes store. Everything from the iPod
delivers from the iTunes store. The iPhone delivers from the iTunes store. The
iPad, the computers; all of that. And typically, when you meet an Apple person
that has one Apple product, they got many Apple products because everything is
integrated.

So, how do I create an
integrated product line, an integrated growth strategy that allows me to add on
complimentary things—one, two, three degrees off-center from what they already
purchased and allow that to happen?

And then the cool thing is that you can also integrate that
into your technology to automate the process.

And then the last piece is this: Customer Elevation.

How do you elevate the
customer from where they are when they first started with you to where you want
them to be truly connected?

You have an intimate relationship with them:

• Based on trust.
• Based on delivery of high-value.
• Based on loyalty.

In a way that they look at it and say, “I like everything
this person’s doing.”

I like what they stand for.
I like the products.
I like how they’re delivering it.

“They’ve taken care of me every step of the way and I am
willing to take time with them and buy more from them and be part of it.”

So, one of the things that we want to do is, what is your customer elevation strategy, the
customer relationship strategy to develop that over a period of time to create
a customer for life? And Chalene Johnson, my good friend, Chalene Johnson
calls those Lifers.

Because here’s the thing that comes into play. Many times we
think about this customer. They come in and they make one purchase. It’s not
about that single purchase. It never is about that single purchase. It’s about
the long term relationship you create with the customer and what we call that
is “the life time value of the customer.”

In other words, when someone comes into your sphere. Marie,
when someone comes into your online sphere, what’s their lifetime value?

How long do they stay with you?
How many products do they typically purchase?
How many services do they typically purchase?
Over what period of time?
At what price points?

And I add them all up and I say the lifetime value of the
customer over a year and a half may be two thousand dollars, five thousand
dollars, one thousand dollars, one hundred dollar. Whatever it is, I need to
track that. I want to know that. So, I have to have the systems in place to do
that because what I really want to do is maximize
the lifetime value of the customer.

Because what happens. If I know that over a year’s time
every customer that buys one thing from me will typically spend about a
thousand dollars. So, the lifetime value of each customer is a thousand
dollars. Then at the beginning stages when we talk about traffic cultivation
and I’m going to pay ad, for ad spend to try and acquire a customer. If I know
that every customer I acquire typically spends about a thousand dollars even if
I spend 500 dollars to acquire that customer, I’m still 500 dollars up because
it costs me 500 to acquire them, they spend typically a thousand. I’m still net
500 positive.

So, the answer to the question what the life time value of your customer becomes really paramount
because it allows you to understand how
much you can put into acquiring that customer. If you don’t know what the
lifetime value of your customer is then acquiring the customer, you might
acquire them at 500 dollars but they only spend 200 dollars, you’re losing 300
dollars on every customers.

So we want to:

1. Maximize the lifetime value of the customer.
2. We want to track it so we know how we can go out
   and acquire those customers?

Does that makes sense?

I hope that makes sense to you Marie and I hope this helps
everyone out there. When you start talking about creating a business plan for
an online business it’s all the factors we talked about in the last episode for
a business plan but these are the very distinct or specific elements associated
with an online business.

So,

1. Content Creation or Product Creation,
2. Traffic Cultivation,
3. Conversion Optimization,
4. After Sale Magnification,
5. Technology Utilization,
6. Growth Integration, and
7. Customer Elevation.

Hope that you found this of help. Hope you found this of
value. And if you did, do me a favor: Share it with a friend. There’s a lot of
people out there looking to try and develop their online presence to develop
their businesses.

Let’s give them the tools.
Let’s give them the tactics.

Let’s give them the things that they need to bring their
dreams to life and so share that with a friend and if you haven’t done so
already, make sure you subscribe. That’s the only way that I can make sure that
I get you all the tools, templates, and worksheets, and the education, and
training that you need to really start to drive your business forward.

It’s your way to tap into my 3+ decades of being an entrepreneur
and advisor to entrepreneurs and building businesses from mom and pop to
hundreds of million dollar companies in that context. So, and remember it, if
you want to get, make sure you download the workbook, the guidebook, the
template, the tool that come with, tools that come with each and every episode.

For this episode, you want to go to MelAbraham.com/session033 to
download the guidebook here. And if you’re not at your computer, you can still
get the guidebook by texting MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470. And if you
want to ask a question like Marie did go ahead and go to AskMelNow.com. Leave me your question and
I’ll make sure that I get it answered on one of the upcoming episodes.

And so, that’s it. I hope that helps you. I hope that serves
you. I hope that you found this of value. Now, we want to go out there, build
it, execute on it, make a difference, go out there because the world needs you.
And until we get a chance to see each other in the next episode,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy
significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

++++++++++++++

Like this? Please share it and help a few
more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them
again.  Cheers, Mel

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