No matter what your business, product, or service an effective way to stay on course is to write a statement of intent. Make it brief, print it and put it within view.
Many businesses publish mission statements. Often, they are pap meaning little. When you write a personal statement of intent and look at it daily you stay on course. The statement of intent spells out what you intend doing with your business. It is different, in my mind, from a mission statement.
What Is Your Offer
I think of a statement of intent for online business entrepreneurs as you have a serious intention of doing something in a particular manner. A mission statement expresses the aims and values of a company or individual. For me, a statement of intent is a binding contract with myself.
It is what I intend doing in a specific period. I make a personal commitment to achieving my primary goal. When I do that the public learns to trust me. I deliver what I promise.
The key to business success is understanding that people do business with:
- People they like
- People who act like they want their business
- People who deliver what they promise
- People who do not give them a headache.
This is challenging online. Customer prospects read your words, see your videos, hear your recorded voice. They do not have the personal experience of a brick and mortar store encounter.
Understand Customer Motivation
Why does someone shop at Lowe’s over Home Depot? Or the reverse? It usually is because one or more of the four bullet points is not true at one brand. This causes them to shop elsewhere.
How do you achieve the bullet points online? Implement each one via your statement of intent. Be positive, ask for the order, never promise what you personally cannot deliver, and avoid the headache factor.
When managing a staff, I demanded no one promise anything they personally could not deliver. Never make a commitment beyond your personal control.
The buck always stops with me.
My statement of intent is what I am going to do within a period. Each day I absolutely must carry out that which propels my effort to my goal. Since I work in several niches each has an intent statement. They are not alike, differing to satisfy needs of that niche. But there is a similarity in that the statement focuses on what I intend achieving.
Nothing is real until written down.
These intent statements are brief, to the point, and written to keep me on course. They are my commitment to my business that only I can deliver.
If you start an online business just to make money you will fail to make the amount you want. To make meaningful money online you must structure a business. No matter what is promised by the latest software offer, you will not make much if you are not invested in your business opportunity.
No piece of software that runs on autopilot puts money in the bank. Quite honestly you will make more money selling flowers at the end of a freeway off ramp than online if you think a $20 software purchase will make money for you.
Pick your niche carefully. Understand the desires of potential clients in that niche. Supply a valuable solution to niche client prospects. Then serve the clients with value – repeatedly.
The path to doing that is a statement of intent to keep you focused on required tasks. Avoid frustration and failure online. Understand what you are going to do, why you are doing it, and the results you expect.
The rest is fine tuning.
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