I started jogging several years ago. It was a New Year’s resolution. Like most of my New Year’s resolutions, I was confident at time that euphoria of holiday season would end soon and so would my brief encounter with running. Unfortunately, that was not case this time.

Six months into year, I was still running several times a week and had even extended my endurance to about two miles a run. It was at that time that a good friend of mine suggested that I enter Atlanta Peachtree Road Race. What a ludicrous idea! The “Peachtree” was a 10K (6.2 Mile) run. This was way beyond my running capabilities. Besides, there would be 50,000 other runners and several hundred thousand spectators. Not a chance…

As I considered this “opportunity” (that’s what my friend called it), I thought back and considered that this would be just about craziest stunt I had attempted in about fifteen years. That was about time it was first suggested that I should manage a family-owned business. In hindsight, I recalled that I had survived that “marathon” and two more small businesses after that.

I began to consider notion that preparing for and participating in this race would be much like preparing for and starting a small business. Or would it?

When I decided to enter Peachtree, first thing I did was tell my family and close friends of my intentions. This experience reminded me of when I would tell a similar audience of my intentions to start a new business. Most people thought I was crazy. Some people shared same excitement that I did. Some people even offered to help me prepare. My wife increased death benefits on my life insurance policy.

My next step was to initiate some strategic planning. First, I attempted to determine objectively what my condition was at time. I even did a quick S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, & threats) analysis. I concluded that I was in pretty good physical shape (strength), I had never run anywhere close to six miles before (weakness), environment of race should be a motivating factor (opportunity), and there had better be paramedics on call and ready to administer lifesaving techniques (threat).

The second step in strategic planning was to establish several goals. I decided that I wanted to finish race by my own will, I would not be last finisher, and I would get an official race T-shirt.

This reminded me of planning for a small business start-up. Most of time we don’t plan to be biggest or best company in our industry or market. We tend to only focus on survival. I wonder how I would have placed in race if I had planned to win? I wonder how successful my businesses would have been if I had planned from beginning to be largest, most successful, and most profitable company. Once I had determined my present condition and my destination (my goals), I now had to develop an action plan to facilitate my training. I decided that prior to race I would run a minimum of three times a week. Every week I would try to push my endurance one step further.

I also needed to conduct a little market research. I needed to study history of Peachtree Race and layout of course. How many spectators would there be? What kind of weather could I expect? Who was my competition? What were past winning times? (not particularly relevant in my case). What were average times? (more important) What was worst time last year? (critically important)

My planning and training took about six months. Coincidentally, average small business takes six months to start business from time of initial decision to start business to first day of operation. My experience is that on average, most successful small businesses are ones that take necessary time to plan their business and get "in shape". It's than those businesses that start without a plan of attack and without necessary resources that than take quickest exit from "race".

Wise choice. You're not alone in recognizing advantages of these type of businesses.

However, you'd like to make a wise choice as to WHICH ONE of many opportunities available to join as well, right?

While I will go through some of aspects you should consider when looking into starting your own business, I want you to do something else first.

Identify YOUR strengths.

Obviously, with any marketing business, you're going to have to become good at sales. However, there are options as to which way you get your sales.

*Do you want to work strictly online, offline, or both? *Do you want to sell products only? *Or recruit a downline to sell with you?

This is where you must think about what you want to do on a daily basis and make some decisions based upon your strengths and desires.

ONLINE, OFFLINE, OR BOTH?

For instance, online world uses written communication extensively. You don't necessarily have to be great at writing, but you must be able to communicate clearly, write effective advertising, and maintain business correspondence.

Will you be willing to call distant prospects if necessary? Or do you expect to conduct all your business via email? Will you need to write sales letters or build a web site? Or do you want to work with a company that provides those items for you? The personal touch is always better in business, but are you willing to work that way?

Offline selling requires face to face contact and sales tactics. How will you talk to your prospects? Where will you get your leads? How much time, traveling, or investment will this take?

These are all items to consider and as such, you need to identify which areas you are strong in or willing to work at learning.

PRODUCTS vs. RECRUITING