22 May 2010, Posted by Cris Buckley in Create a Blueprint, 1 Comment. Tagged business, creative thinking, ideas, plans, starting your own business

Putting Your Ideas into ACTION!

Photo by Geraint Warlow

We’re at point A (have a great business idea). We want to be at point B (business up and running). We really, really want to be at point B. But you know what? We’ll never get to point B until we get up and start walking…one foot in front of the other…a step at a time…until we’ve reached point B.

We have to get into action—get up and get moving–to turn our inner vision into an outward reality. So we’re going to put together an action plan to help us do that.

Two thoughts before we start:

• Michael Masterson, in his book, Ready, Fire, Aim says that the primary goal for a business that is just starting is to generate cashflow. For this reason, he suggests that the priorities and sequence of activities in launching a business should be:
  1. Get a product ready enough to sell it, but don’t worry about perfecting it. (Create a prototype.)
  2. Sell it.
  3. Then, if it sells, make it better.
• Once we start implementing our action plan, we’ll experience challenges, changes and new ideas that we aren’t anticipating. We’ll need to be flexible enough to tweak our plan as we go–so don’t detail it out too far in advance!

Ok, here we go.

1. We’ll start with our ideas and our PPCO lists: Positives, Potentials, Concerns, and Overcoming Concerns.
2. Next, we’re going to make lists of:
3. Attractors: Who will help you make your business idea a reality?
4. Resistors: Who and/or what will stand in your way?
5. Resources: What will help move you forward?
6. Now, name your point B. Begin with the end in mind. Then create a list of all the things you need to do to get there. What needs to happen? Do this as a brain dump. Don’t worry about order. Just get everything you can think of out there.
7. Once you have this list, try to put it in chronological order. What comes first, etc? You’ll see that your list falls into phases.
8. We’ll want to detail out just the early phase—something that you can accomplish in 90 days to a year. Maybe it’s to create a prototype of your product or service.
9. Break this phase down into smaller action steps—individual tasks that can be scheduled in your planner. You can do this as a second brain dump.
10. Now take each of these smaller action steps, and estimate as realistically as you can how long each step will take. Write that time next to the step.
11. Pencil in the action steps for this phase on specific dates and times in your planner, but don’t schedule further out than 90 days.
12. Where will you find the time? What lower priority commitments will you cut to implement your idea?
13. Block out at least 30 minutes in your schedule every 30 days to review your progress (preferably with a buddy or coach!), make any adjustments necessary and schedule the next set of action steps!

Take action!

Note: PPCO tools and Attractors, Resistors and Resources are taken from Jack’s Notebook by Gregg Fraley.

This is the tenth (and LAST!) post in the Create a Blueprint For Your Business series.

Has this been helpful? What else should be included? What have you experienced? Are you ready to implement?

Related posts:

1. How to Make Your Best Ideas Better
2. Create a Blueprint for Your Business
3. My Favorite Brainstorming Tools
4. Technicolor Business Planning
5. 6 Steps to Brainstorming a Business Idea