Data gathering, analysis and definition
Planning the site structure
Structuring and selection of the design
Development
Test, refine, and launch
Maintenance
Data Gathering, Analysis and Definition

This is the most crucial step of the process; the ideas that the designer gathers from you – the owner of the website – will go a long way to help create the website based on your specifications. The worst problem a designer would probably encounter would be to work with clients who do not supply the necessary details, and then blames the designer if the website’s design did not exceed or even pass their expectations. It is always best for you and the designer to cover this ground through proper documentation – going through a “client survey interview would” be the best thing to do. You could either fill-up a form or go over the questions while brainstorming with the designer. Those details will be summed up in a client’s brief that your designer would create to define what the project is about, the goals, the target audience’s profile and perception, message to convey and the competitive edge – this together with the survey would be used to bring an imaginary audience into life. After going through these processes, the designer would have to draw a timeline for each phase of the project so that each milestone would be recorded and achieved in a timely manner.

Planning the Site Structure

When planning the structure of the site the designer must collaborate closely with the client on the content. Brainstorm with him/her to create a list of all the contents that the website must have. Then, he will spend time going over the list in order to trim it down to what are most applicable to the target audience and goals giving sufficient thought to how the site will grow in order to leave room for further development. After categorizing the content of the site, you need to go over the changes with him to see if they meet your approval. Next, would be the creation of a sitemap based on the content. A sitemap is a visual imagery of the outlined structure and content of the site. Lastly, is the creation of the wireframes. A wireframe is an illustration of the different pages and the content of each page – it includes the different elements like images and navigation. It also contains footers and other instrumental elements.

Structuring and Selection of the Design

Now, it’s time for a clearer view of what your designer is working on. As with the other steps, you need to work closely together. A thorough analysis of the materials on hand, while going over the points you want clarified and changed is necessary before giving your designer autonomy over the creation of the design. At this time, he can already surmise the different aspects he must work on. This part of the process needs time and patience from you and the designer because you would have to go over several drafts of the visual forms before you can get the final design.

Development

This is the creation and development stage of the website. As this point, your designer will piece together all of the individual visual elements in order to confirm, and refine a technically functional plan which you need to review and check in order to know if it will be finished on time and within the budget or if you need to make some adjustments. After going to the first phase, then the creation and the integration of the site will start which is the 2nd phase of the development process. It is absolutely necessary to receive updates and give feedback while the site is continually developing in this stage.

Test, Refine, and Launch

This is when your web designer will apply the finishing touches to your website and test if before going live. It is imperative to conduct a quality assurance test of the content, validation, accessibility, validity, load testing, connection speed, scripts, usability, links, Search Engine Optimization, and security. There are 3 levels of priorities at this point. The first one are those which need to be fixed before a website can go live, followed by those which could help improve it, but you can afford to go live without, and last, would be those ideas for future consideration. When you give the final green light, the site will be uploaded to the server using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol Program.) Subsequently, a last test run will be done to check that everything is running as they should before launch. Then, your website is now set to go live!

Maintenance

The work does not necessarily end after the launching of the website. You need to constantly update your content and manage it. You can use a CMS (Content Management System) if you prefer to cut cost and do things on your own. Maintenance is one of the things you should remember to discuss with your web designer so that he could add the essential software for you to maintain the site after going live. However, if you are one of those type who are less adventurous when it comes to technology or if you are a busy person who is always on the go, it would be preferable to set an agreement with your designer to manage the site for you, and better yet if you want to drive traffic to your site, you could hire an SEO specialist if you have the financial resources to do so.

This are just the basic steps to designing, developing, and maintaining a website, however like most procedures it is subject to changes because most designers often come up with their interpretation of the stages and the implementation of their plans, so it is always best to keep the channel of communication open and be very patient.

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that qualifies, quantifies and narrates a commercial opportunity. It is that simple to state, more difficult to execute, but anyone can customize a business plan that gets results. The plan must have an exciting Executive Summary. Like the opening scenes of a movie, or the first chapter of a book, the writer must set a hook.

Typically, active investors, angels, venture capital groups and investment bankers are deluged with business plans. Screeners typically read the document before passing along to decision-makers within the firm. However, very few move along the decision making food chain precisely because the Executive Summary lacks excitement, punch or sets a high level of anticipation about what is inside the document.

Having written dozens of business plans for clients I can attest that creating a plan that works is, well, work. No two plans are alike. The plan must be customized, well researched, structured and direct. I receive more than 500 business plan submissions annually in my consulting firm. Less than 1% have commercial potential as written. Many describe products, services, retail or new business development ideas that otherwise might be exciting. However, the plan does not convey that potential.

One of the worst things to evolve from the arrival of the inter-net is the ability to download a business plan template and write the document by filling in the blanks. The template itself is not problematic, I use a self-developed template when I customize plans. The problem is that many entrepreneurs do not have the writing skills, the research in hand, know the keys that turn on investors and thus, take shortcuts. Filling in the blanks without sweating the details and doing comprehensive research results in a document that will not be read and an opportunity that will never launch.

Rule number one in the development of any commercial opportunity: shortcuts equal failure!

I am a self-taught business plan writer. If I can do it, anyone can. In reality, however, most people just want to expose their opportunity to investors, licensees or potential partners. They don’t have writing skills, do not know the types of research necessary to support the plans sales model, need help in creating the marketing strategy, and will never be able to narrate financials.
Where can they go to create and exciting business plan document.

The following are resources readily available in most communities. Many are free.

Many colleges, community colleges and universities have developed small business incubators. They attract additional state funding, as small business growth and development are keys to job creation and an increased tax base. Take advantage of this community asset. Students, graduate students and professors are often available to direct your efforts. Ten years ago there were only a handful such programs. Today, over 1000 schools have some version of an entrepreneurial program.

Many states, regional and local governments offer business development programs. They have retired business people and mentors on hand to support, guide and train prospective entrepreneurs and guide business plan creation. There is no charge for utilizing this service, after all, your tax dollar supports these programs.

SCORE, the Service Core of Retired Executives is a Federal Government sponsored initiative. Thousands of retired, experienced business people make themselves available to evaluate commercial opportunities and direct the development and launch of those deemed to have potential. They are often intimately involved in creating business plans.

The Ewing Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, MO is devoted solely to the development of entrepreneurial development. Mr. Kauffman started, nurtured and developed Marion Labs from a tiny drug local company into a multinational, multi-billion dollar powerhouse. He also owned the Kansas City Royals baseball team. His devotion to developing and promoting the entrepreneurial base of the United States resulted in creation of the foundation that bears his name.

Seek out a consultant. Typically consultants charge a fee, just like lawyers, accountants or plumbers. The advantage of an experienced consultant is that they write business plans for a living, will be strong writers, able to properly direct or perform research, narrate financials and differentiate a commercial opportunity by creating an exciting word picture. Always seek references and talk to several before deciding on a consultant.

Why Do I Need a Business Plan?

You might not. You might not need a deeply customized business plan if you are seeking to license or sell an invention, a patent or a prototype product. In this situation, the potential licensee would take your work product and develop a plan that fits their internal organizational needs.

However, if you are attempting to fund a start-up business, self-market a product or buy a small business you will absolutely need to create a road map. That road map is your business plan. The map is not linear, there will be curves and setbacks, but by quantifying, qualifying and narrating a well- researched, customized business plan you are much closer to success

something to sell;
someone to sell it to.
Now, that might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many people leave out the first step, assuming that they already know what it is that the market needs. In a recent interview for Mixergy, Sam Ovens revealed many techniques for creating a business from scratch, but one stood out in particular – Talk to the Customer First.

The process works for physical and information products, as well as services, and even software as a service (SaaS).

There are a number of ways to put yourself in touch with your potential customers, such as emailing them, offering to call at a time that suits them to talk about their main pain points, and developing the relationship from there, and which you choose will depend on the industry.

Extracting the Product from the Customers

Once contact is made, it’s important to allow them to relate their issues in their own words, without preconceptions, or offering any one solution. To enable them to actually think about what is important to them, it is also useful to ask them to rank their issues in order of importance to their business.

Having extracted a list of issues, and selected one that can be solved with the skills at your disposal, the next stage is to deliver a solution, on paper, to the potential customers.

Their feedback, at this point, will help shape the product offering, but also will need to be filtered. Not every suggestion that they make can be carried through, and not every tweak that they offer will make sense.

A bit of back and forth will be required until most of the customers are happy with most of the features.

It’s vital at this stage (product development) to remember that you shouldn’t be offering features, but helping the customers to identify shortcomings or needs, and tailoring features to meet them.

Fixing the Price Point

With a rounded out product to offer, it’s time to fix a price point that will be enough to keep you interested beyond the initial roll-out. In the same way that an investor needs a large enough share in a company to provide them with the potential return to keep them involved, the entrepreneur needs to generate enough revenue to remain keen.

Remembering that in a B2B context, the price is just another business expense, but in a B2C context, it represents a personal investment, a sensible price can be fixed that everyone is happy with, if not necessarily ecstatic.

Finally, with a product designed, and price fixed, it can be offered to the market.

The package can first be offered to the initial customers (at a discount) and then to a larger collection of the potential customer base by way of a validation of the usefulness and price of the offering.

By paying up front, the development can even be partially, or completely pre-funded, removing one of the major obstacles for getting a product to market.

Using this process to extract the product and price from the customers themselves, the business is much more likely to succeed than if the product was developed in isolation and presented to the market as a fait-accompli.

One of the main keys of product creation is finding out what people want. This is not as hard as it may seem. Finding what people want will take you a little bit of work, but it can be done with just some proper research. Many people tend to think you have to pay a company thousands to do the research for you. That is just not true unless you’re rich and can afford to toss money around. All the leg work can be done by yourself quickly and efficiently once you know the steps you need to take. Now let’s get into those steps to your first product creation and development.

On the Internet your best friend to help you create products for your customers will be forums. There are millions of different types of forums on all kinds of subjects. This means no matter what type of product you want to create there probably is a forum about it. The main reason we use forums is because people post questions and problems they have. By visiting these forums you can see what needs they have and get to work on a product to fix the problem. Two of my favorite places to visit are www.big-boards.com and The Warrior forum located at www.warriorforum.com. Big-boards is a listing of forums update daily showing the largest ones around. The Warrior Forum deals mostly with Internet Marketing, but has so much information you will want to visit it daily. Most people just try to guess what people need and that is a big mistake with product creation and development. You must actually see what people need so you can create what they want. Most people buy products because they solve a problem they have.

Developing your products is something you should take very seriously. Ask questions in forums, this will help you understand the needs of your potential clients. Quiz your customers past and present on what they need. By compiling all this information you can create products that people want and need. If you do this your business will continue to prosper no matter what type of economy were in.

Imagine putting all your hard work into creating your online business and when you are done, the results are nothing but mediocre. If you are not good at something, admit it and get someone who is good at doing it to do for you.

Here are 3 types of business creation steps you can outsource.

1. Website Design

If you know zilch about HTML, PHP, FTP, etc; you shouldn’t really look into learning all of them. While they are good knowledge to possess, sometimes it is better to get a website designer to do them for you.

There are many web developers online and the prices of website creation are not that expensive unless of course if you are looking to do a huge website.

2. Graphics Design

If you cannot design graphics, then stop pretending to be an artist. Graphic designers online have now become more sophisticated and with the advent of terms such as Web 2.0, the learning curve has been longer than ever if you want to do the same.

What you can do is either but graphics which have been pre-designed and insert them on your websites or simply get a custom graphic designed for you. You will certainly appreciate the more stunning designs that can be created by graphics designers.

3. Writing Services

Well, not everyone can write well. Thus you can always hire writers to write the content of your website for you. Armed with experience and mastery of the language plus an eye for researching about various topics, writers can make your job easier and you do not even need to reach out for a pen or type away endlessly on your keyboard.

While there are many other services which your can outsource like search engine optimization and website submissions, you will do well to pay for such services and focus on your marketing instead.

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