Aaron Hoos

I love dreaming up new ideas.

I love starting things.

My mind is always brimming with things I want to try.

A torrent of ideas is helpful in my line of work. And when I can get those ideas down fast, act on them fast, and see results… I’m a happy writer.

The problem is, not everything goes from start-to-finish in an hour or an afternoon. Sometimes they take longer: An idea might not be fully formed for a few days or weeks. Then the execution of that idea might take even longer — days or weeks or even months.

And that’s when the challenges start: Newer ideas eclipse the old ones. More pressing demands from clients push older stagnant client work aside. The exciting opportunity to create is so much more tempting than the apparent drudgery of managing the details.

But those details won’t take care of themselves. That book won’t get written, that website won’t get built, that business won’t become prosperous unless you roll up your sleeves and actually slog through the hardest part no matter how tedious it seems and no matter how much more exciting other things are.

I confess: I’m a great starter but not a great finisher. I’m an ineffective executioner.

I know I’m not alone. I know there are MANY other entrepreneurs and investors out there who face the same thing I do. I know this because my clients have told me. (In fact, I’m often hired because a client started something that they couldn’t finish.) And some of the clients for whom I finish work simply let that work collect dust because they’ve moved on to something else, too.

Starting is fast. And exciting. And creative. And when something is fast and exciting and creative, it’s almost easy.

But finishing is slow. It’s tedious. It’s detailed. And when something is slow, tedious, and detailed, it’s hard.

I’m a good starter and I suspect that maybe you are, too.

My work as a writer requires me to be a finisher. But I’m not a very good finisher. I confess that I struggle with finishing. I do it because I have to but I’m not great at it. I know I could do so much better.

So I’m issuing a challenge to myself and to you.

THE FINISH-WHAT-YOU-START CHALLENGE

Do you have any projects you’re struggling with finishing? I do. I have 14 projects I DESPERATELY want done. Some are overdue. Some are on-time. But I want them done and off my desk.

So here’s my challenge: There are 10 days (technically 10 and a half) between now and the end of May. And in that time, I want to finish 10 projects. I know it’s possible. But these are all half-done projects that now need some buckle-down-and-execute effort. I’m listing them below and I’m going to update each day (in a new blog post) how I do… along with tips and ideas about become a better finisher.

The projects I’m working on are…

1. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about investing in empty land
2. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about wholesale investing
3. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about marketing system
4. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about a real estate investing method he pioneered
5. Finish a book for a debt repair expert
6. Finish a sales letter for an internet marketing company
7. Finish a sales letter for a health and fitness company
8. Finish a sales letter for a social media marketing firm
9. Finish 100 articles for an income trust client
10. Finish a report and autoresponders for video marketing site

I have my work cut out for me in the next 10 days. There’s a lot of work here but I think it IS possible to complete this work. I’m going to put in some overtime (plus I do have some other regular keep-my-business-running commitments I still need to keep) but these are the projects I’m going to be working on in the next 10 days.

How about you? In the comments below — IF you’re bold enough!!! — why not list some of the work you need to complete in the next 10 days and participate with me in the challenge.

I’ve got some exciting projects coming up this week — both for clients and for my own business, too. Here are some highlights:

• Wrapping up a sales letter for a client who licenses their marketing software to other agencies
• Writing blog content for a stock picking site (this was a former client who put their blog on hold to develop other aspects of their business but started the site back up again)
• Starting to market my HowToInvestTV website — a site that educates investors about various types of investments.
• I’m also doing some work on a copywriting site I own.

Many small businesses are fueled by passion. They start because an entrepreneur has an idea (or is sick of working for a boss), they grow because their ideas solve a problem and somehow that solution is communicated to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, many small businesses fail… even ones that are seemingly successful and make profitable sales. The reason is, they’re simply existing day-by-day, sale-by-sale, without any real strategy or long-term vision to give their existence any direction.

If you’re an entrepreneur, answer these 100 small business strategy questions. The answers will help you to highlight areas of opportunity that you can exploit and areas of concern that you can mitigate. Bookmark this page and come back to it regularly to work through these questions every 3 to 6 months.

With your answers, create a list of to-dos that you can act on until you come back to these questions again.

1. What does your business do?
2. What does your business sell?
3. What does your business stand for?
4. What parts of your brand truly reflect your current business?
5. What parts of your brand do not (or no longer) reflect your current business?
6. What are the top 10 benefits your business provides?
7. Who is your perfect customer?
8. How are you adding value?
9. What are your products’ or services’ biggest flaws?
10. How do you define a lead?
11. Where are your leads coming from?
12. What demographic are your leads?
13. How are you creating leads?
14. How are your competitors creating leads?
15. How will lead creation change for your industry in the future?
16. How do you define a prospect?
17. What is your lead-to-prospect ratio?
18. What demographic are your prospects?
19. How is your prospect demographic different from your leads demographic?
20. How are you turning leads into prospects?
21. How are your competitors turning leads into prospects?
22. What objections do your prospects have?
23. What objections do you NOT have an answer for?
24. How do you define a customer?
25. What is your prospect-to-customer ratio (close rate)?
26. What demographic are your customers?
27. How is your customer demographic different from your prospect demographic?
28. How are you converting prospects into customers?
29. How are your competitors converting prospects into customers?
30. What has caused you to lose a sale?
31. How do you define an evangelist?
32. What is your customer-to-evangelist ratio?
33. What is your evangelist demographic?
34. How is your evangelist demographic different from your customer demographic?
35. How is your relationship with your customers?
36. What were your 3 most successful marketing campaigns?
37. What were your 3 least successful marketing campaigns?
38. What marketing and sales activities are you using in each stage of your sales funnel?
39. How do you measure company-wide success?
40. How do you measure personal and/or employee success?
41. How are you improving your relationship with your customers?
42. How can you improve the process for receiving and acting on feedback from customers?
43. How are you encouraging repeat sales?
44. How are you encouraging upsells?
45. Who else can use your products or services that you aren’t currently serving?
46. What is your business model?
47. What other peer-businesses use the same business model?
48. What can you learn from peer-businesses that use the same business model?
49. What other businesses (in other industries) use a similar business model?
50. What can you learn from businesses in other industries that use a similar business model?
51. Who are your top 3 competitors?
52. Who/what are your indirect competitors?
53. What does the most successful businesses in your industry do that you don’t do yet?
54. Why would someone buy from you instead of your competition?
55. When should someone buy from your competition instead of you?
56. What are your competitors doing differently?
57. What are your competitors doing better than you?
58. What are your competitors doing worse than you?
59. How are your relationships with your suppliers/vendors?
60. How can your supplier/vendor relationships be improved?
61. What does your organizational chart look like and what strengths/weaknesses are the result?
62. What are the next 3 roles you need to hire for?
63. What was the last thing you tested in your business?
64. When was the last time you tested a price change and what were the results?
65. What political changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
66. What economic changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
67. What social changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
68. What technological changes do you see affecting your business/industry?
69. What financial best practices have you implemented?
70. How have buying habits changed in your industry?
71. What trends are influencing buying habits?
72. How will buying habits change in the future?
73. How has your industry innovated in the past decade?
74. How has your business innovated in the past year?
75. Where does your business plan to innovate this coming year?
76. How are you investing in your business’ growth (i.e. innovation, new equipment, etc.)?
77. What is your plan to scale up your business?
78. If you had to get rid of 90% of your customers, what 10% would you keep?
79. If you kept 10% of your most profitable customers, what would that demographic look like?
80. How can you increase your ideal customer base?
81. How can you decrease your less-than-ideal customer base?
82. Where are people talking about your business online?
83. What are people saying about your business online?
84. What is your plan if your industry suddenly received a lot of bad press?
85. What is your plan if your business suddenly received a lot of bad press?
86. What is your plan if your marketing went viral and you suddenly had 10x the customers?
87. What contingency plans do you a have in place for natural disasters?
88. What would happen to your business if you were unable to work?
89. What has changed about your business since you started?
90. How has your income trended since you started?
91. How has your profit margin trended since you started?
92. What plans do you have to increase income next year?
93. What plans do you have to increase profits next year?
94. Where do you see your business in 1 year?
95. Where do you see your business in 5 years?
96. Where do you see your business in 10 years?
97. What strengths/assets can you leverage for growth?
98. Where are your blindspots?
99. What are the top 3 problems keeping you from advancing to the next level in business?
100. What about your business, industry, or customers keeps you awake at night?

Many small businesses are fueled by passion: Entrepreneurs get a great idea (or they end up hating their manager) and they start their own business. The business itself is loosely assembled and operates somewhat haphazardly.

Eventually, something has to happen.

Either, the wheels fall off and the small business crashes and burns (which is pretty common) or the entrepreneur realizes that things can be tightened up for a more efficient, more profitable operation (which is less common, unfortunately).

At this point, the business transitions from passion to plan. Of course the entrepreneur might still be motivated by his or her passion for whatever they’ve created but the business moves forward in a specific direction.

Making the transition isn’t easy (and if you ask many seasoned entrepreneurs, they’ll recall the passion-fueled years with great fondness) but it needs to be done to ensure your business’ survival. Here’s a simple way to transition…

1. DECIDE ON WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

What kind of business do you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 100 years from now? Do you want to be the biggest widget-maker in the world? Do you want to be rich and famous? Do you want to be the best at something? Do you want to leave a local, trusted business for your kids to run? Do you want your business to have a worldwide franchise? Do you want a steady income until retirement, at which point you’ll shut the business down?

This your exit strategy — either you exit your business (by selling it, for example, or by letting someone else run it after you retire) or you and your business exit the marketplace (by shutting your business down, for example). Every business/business owner will have an exit so you should think about it, create an exit strategy, and work toward it (instead of just letting it happen).

2. DETERMINE WHERE YOU ARE NOW

Next, you need to figure out where you are now. It’s easier if you compare your current business with your future one.

For example, if you want to be the next Walmart and right now you own one small corner store, then you know the kinds of measurables that you can use to describe Walmart and you can use those same measurables to describe your current business: For example, annual inventory turnover, annual revenue, annual dollars-spent per customer, etc. Use whatever measurables are appropriate for your industry.

You don’t have to use too many measurables — just a couple are fine.

3. CREATE A LIST OF MILESTONES, ACTIVITIES, AND RESOURCES

After you’ve developed an idea of what you want your business to eventually look like, and you’ve figured out where you are now, you need to build a series of steps to grow.

You’re going to do that by breaking your measurables down into milestones, creating activities to achieve those milestones, and then identifying resources to support your activities. Here’s what I mean in more detail:

Look at each of the measurables that you listed (in the example above, I listed inventory turnover, revenue, dollars-spent… but you might be using different measurables, of course). Break down those measurables into smaller “milestones“.

So if you’re measuring annual revenue, the journey from being a $10,000/year company to a $100,000,000,000/year company doesn’t happen in one step, obviously. Give yourself a realistic timeline and break it down. For example, decide to go from a $10,000/year to a $20,000/year company. Then from a $20,000/year company to a $50,000/year company. Then from a $50,000/year company to a $100,000/year company… and so on. Do this for each measurable you’re going to use.

Once you have these steps in place, figure out what activities you need to do to achieve that milestone. So, to continue using our example, to go from a $10,000/year company to a $20,000/year company you need to identify various marketing and sales activities that will double the number of people through the door or you need to identify various marketing and sales activities that will double the amount of money each person spends.

Create activities for each milestone. (Note: The sooner you plan on implementing this, the more detailed your activities are. You don’t have to plan as much for those 20-year-out milestones. Focus instead on what you can do in the next couple of years).

With your milestones and activities in place, you also want to figure out what resources you need to successfully accomplish those activities. You might need specialized staff or a specific tool or technology or some investment money for more inventory. This is where a lot of small businesses falter — they have some great ideas but they lack the resources to implement. If you know ahead of time what resources you need, you can invest effectively. If you don’t think you can afford those resources, you need to either get some investors, find an alternative, or adjust your timeline.

4. GET STARTED!

You’ve done a lot of work to get to this point. You’ve created what is essentially a business plan (although, in my opinion, it’s way more useful than the kind of business plan most people are familiar with). This business plan is a checklist of things you need to do to grow your business. It’s laid out for you in a measurable, step-by-step list that you simply do, cross off, and move on to the next thing.

• You’ve identified these activities as your key growth activities so build your schedule around these activities. Evaluate all other demands (on your time and on your investment capital) against whether or not they will support or distract from completing the activities and fulfilling your milestones.
• Check your milestones regularly. Are you moving toward them? Be extremely flexible and be willing to scrap different activities if they aren’t effective. Be sure to test your efforts, though, before you make major changes.
• Keep up with trends. There are many trends — in marketing and internet marketing, in your marketplace, in your industry, in your community, in the economy, etc. — that will influence your milestones and your activities and your resources. Make constant adjustments to your course all the time.
• Invest. Remember that you can invest time, money, and effort to accomplish your activities. Depending on which of those three are abundant and which of those three are scarce, you might need to constant revisit the resources section of your plan.
• In spite of all of this strategic planning, don’t lose your passion! Just harness it with this plan.

Whew! There was a lot of text here. Hopefully you weren’t scared off by what I’ve listed because although it can take some time, it’s really a very fun exercise. And the time you invest now to build this plan will help you grow your business in the way YOU want for the years to come.

When small business owners needed money to start and grow a business, they used to have three funding options: They could borrow against their own assets, could get a business loan or they could sell a portion of their business to family and friends.

Then the web opened up new possibilities with crowdfunding — a way for entrepreneurs to get their small business idea funded from angel investors. Kickstarter is one of the leaders in this space. With crowdfunding, angels would put money into an idea that they thought was cool or viable and when enough angels sent in money, the idea would be funded. In exchange for their funding, the angel would get the good feeling of having helped someone and they might get some kind of reward (like a mention on a website or a t-shirt or branded mug or something).

I really like the idea of crowdfunding a lot. It’s a way for entrepreneurs to get enough cash to start or grow. As an entrepreneur, I like that. But I’m also an investor and when I invest in businesses, I want to get a return for my money. Crowdfunding is cool but it doesn’t really provide a financial return.

Crowdinvesting is the next step: Once again, entrepreneurs present an idea and angel investors can fund that idea with cash… but now they get the potential of a financial return.

It’s an idea whose time has come! We have the technology and the payment systems and a ton of expertise available to people, plus I know many investors are looking for an alternative to the stock market and might see this as a viable opportunity.

One site that is pioneering crowdinvesting is ImpactCrowd. Here, investors can invest in 20 Euro segments to join a group of other investors and become partial owners in businesses. At this time, ImpactCrowd is pretty limited — they have a couple dozen ideas and only entrepreneurs from the Netherlands can post their idea and not all investors can participate (US-based investors cannot participate at this time but that should be changing shortly). But these things need to start somewhere and I’m glad to see it started.

I love the idea and I’m very excited about participating. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that there are bugs to work out of the system. But we’re on the verge of an exciting opportunity and I hope to see more crowdinvesting opportunities soon.

What are your thoughts? What opportunities and challenges do you see? Would you invest in a venture through a crowdinvesting site? Why or why not?