Every Internet business — every business of any sort in fact — starts in the same place.
In the future.
Most entrepreneurs think first of how they want their business to look when it\’s all set up. They imagine the products prepared, the marketing streams in place and the revenue flowing in while they relax and cash the checks.
Then they start thinking of how they\’re going to get there.
There\’s nothing wrong with that way of working.
It\’s always best to start with a vision and have clear goals and milestones that will take you there.
But there\’s a difference between planning for the future and preparing for the future.
A plan for the future will help make sure that things go right.
Preparing for the future means that you\’re ready when things go wrong. And something somewhere will always go wrong eventually.
The easiest way to be ready is to create your content well in advance. If you write your blog posts or your articles on the same day you post them then it wouldn\’t take more than a bad cold to throw you out of kilter. Regular users who expect to see your content will turn up to find old posts instead of fresh news.
For a day or two, it\’s not a disaster. But if your cold lingers or if you just feel too ill to face writing, you\’ll notice the drop in traffic. As an entrepreneur, not only do you not get sick pay but when you get sick, you pay.
If you have a bank of articles prepared though, it won\’t take more than a few minutes to upload something from the files and keep your website ticking over until you feel better.
You\’ll also be able to review it with fresh eyes before it goes up — which can help to iron out the bumps — and best of all, it means that you can take a day or two off on the spur of the moment without damaging your business.
You just have refill the bank at a later date.
That\’s not just preparing for the future, it\’s giving you the future you planned now.