How? How Long? How Much?

Many entrepreneurs, when they write their business plan, do a great job of elaborating what they want to do. They have a dream. Some of their business plans have a vision statement nearly as long as the marketing section. (This is not due to an overly long vision statement!)

If you've ever heard someone call someone else a "dreamer," you know that this is usually not a compliment.

If you want to succeed, you must have a plan. The difference between a dream and a plan hangs on determining the answer to one question: How?

For everything you say you want to accomplish, you must lay out, in great detail, how you will do it.

Then you must execute that plan. The difference between planning and execution hangs on determining the answers two questions: How long? and How much?

How long will it take? How much will it cost? How much revenue will it bring in?

Often the problem is not that entrepreneurs ignore these critical questions. It is that they answer them literally on a whim.

You surely know that being an entrepreneur will be hard work. But you should realize that the hard work starts with properly determing the actual answers to these questions by conducting proper research. This research must go beyond the typical "market research." It must be far more all-encompassing "business research."

More on this later...