| In this chapter -
Thinking it through ”before you start -
Why you need a business plan -
How to create a business plan -
The components of a winning business plan -
Writing the plan Before you can start your eBay business, you have to determine just what type of business you want to start. Yes, you know that's it's going to involve selling (lots of) stuff on eBay, but what kind of stuff are you going to sell? And where are you going to get that stuff? And just how are you going to manage the selling and shipping of all that stuff? And, if everything goes well, how much money do you expect to make ”versus how much money you have to spend ? When ”and only when ”you can answer all these questions, then you're ready to start building your new business. Until then, you're just fooling around. Not that there's anything wrong with fooling around, of course ”that describes millions of typical eBay sellers, most of whom do just enough work to make a little money. But if you want to make a lot of money ”if you want to run a true business on eBay ”then you have to do your homework and figure out where you want to go and how you're going to get there. This act of figuring out what kind of business you'll be running is best done by preparing a business plan . If that sounds terribly formal and complicated, don't stress out ”it doesn't have to be. The plan for your business can be as simple as some bullet points written out in longhand, or as sophisticated as a professional-looking desktop-published document. The key thing is to set down on paper the details about the business you want to create, and then follow the steps in your plan to build that business. |