Three essential reads...

Before I began to work independently as a self-employed web developer, I worked for about a year as a dedicated contractor for a web design and marketing firm in Brisbane. I remember how my job was very simple then.

I would show up to the office and have some quick coffee with the firm's owner (and my direct superior), where we would discuss the projects that the firm was currently undertaking, anything that should be known about various clients, and what work was coming up. From that daily discussion, I could then establish what work it was that I needed to get stuck into and complete, and how I had to do that.

I did the above usually 3 days per week, for that year, and each week I walked away with a tidy sum of cash for my efforts.

When I ceased working for this firm and started to pursue my own operation, the transition wasn't easy. I was still in the mindset of a dedicated contractor, not the mindset of an independent contractor. I didn't consider what I would be doing in 2 weeks or a month or a year, because I must have subconsciously expected the work to always be there, just like it was when I was working for the design firm.

However, my unplanned experiences in the brave new world of self-employment wasn't a total write-off. This experience, in combination with my university studies and my own personal research, showed me the paramount importance of planning, the value of direction and the necessity for a goal or destination.

When starting or intending to start a business operation, or even a sub-operation within a business, it's important to know where you are, where you want to go, and how you want to get there - and only detailed planning before the fact will give you that. This is why documents like strategic business plans are so important to new businesses.

Sitepoint is a website which showcases various blogs, articles and a forum all directed at a topic I obviously had a strong interest in: web development and how to make a business out of it. I had been a regular reader of the articles and blogs for a couple of years when I first decided to formalise my self-employment operation, and my personal research into business plans led me to a blog by Andrew Neitlich on Sitepoint, which went into great detail about business plans and how to write them successfully.

In this blog, Andrew describes a sample strategic business plan. The first section in this sample plan explains to the reader what the business is, what the intention of the business is, and where the business (or its owner) sees itself in 3 to 5 to 10 years.

The second section of the blog moves more into the planning for action, including information about how the business might achieve its goals and vision for the future, and what needs to happen in the meantime in order to make that vision achievable.

Thirdly, and finally, instructions and a solid timeframe for action upon the entire preceding document are added, turning the plan into a to-do list, a list of instructions which (hopefully) makes building the business into a success a much smoother, easier experience.

Supporting this blog post are two other blog posts which Andrew brings to his readers' attention. The first blog post, "World Domination for Small Web Businesses" again by Andrew Neitlich, explains the importance of having a specified target market (which is something that must absolutely be included in your strategic business plan). For anyone who has ever considered their target market to be "small to mid-sized businesses", I recommend that you read this blog post thoroughly, and have a think about what Andrew discusses. I certainly learned a lot from it, and I am already starting to see results in the form of streamlined, more efficient planning.

The second blog post, "Aspiring Towards Auto-Pilot: Automate Your Business Marketing" is also by Andrew Neitlich. This blog post introduces the idea of making your marketing more efficient (or perhaps even completely automated), so that you can use your hours and days for other, more interesting tasks. I am making a visit to my local library tomorrow, where I will be picking up a number of books on marketing (as this has never been my strong point), and I will be refining my business plan with regard to marketing after I have studied up a little.

So again, my three essential reads for those preparing to get serious about business are:

1. Write a Business Plan that Works, by Andrew Neitlich
2. World Domination for Small Web Businesses, by Andrew Neitlich
3. Aspiring Towards Auto-Pilot: Automate Your Business Marketing, by Andrew Neitlich

In digging up the aforementioned blog posts for my blog post here, I have learned that Andrew stopped authoring this blog for Sitepoint in October 2006. While I am saddened to see such a knowledgeable author cease sharing that knowledge with the rest of us, I recognise that there is a lot of content in this blog to sift through (over 2 years of it) that I never even knew about. I've got a fair bit of reading ahead of me.

I'll let you all know if I survive it.