Long Term Strategy vs. Short Term Tactics! Is Your Internet Business Vulnerable?

While browsing a popular forum you often see the same question being asked again and again. It is about doing something using a very popular third party product. You have some knowledge on the subject and decide to create a solution.

So you spend a few weeks creating a script for processing the output from the product in question. The original third-party product is extremely popular and doesn't offer that particular feature. You decide to turn your script into a membership site.

Your service is a big hit!

You start getting many subscriptions. After a while you get so comfortable that you quit your day time job.

Disaster Strikes! The Perils of Short Term Tactics

The original product developers have updated their product and has now implemented the same feature into their offering, at no extra cost!

Suddenly no one wants your service. The recent subscribers are angry and want their money back!

Is your on-line business vulnerable?

• What happens if you are suddenly not able to process credit card payments? Do you have a backup plan?
• What happens if your web hosting company suddenly shuts you down? How long will it take you to be back up and running?
• What if 40% of your website traffic comes from a single source and you suddenly lose that source?
• What if a lot of your income comes from a single source (example? Google Adsense) and suddenly you are shut off from it?

Many of these vulnerabilities exist because of using short term tactics instead of creating an overall strategic plan for your on-line business. Your ideal strategy should include multiple tactics to minimize possible future problems.

Short Term Tactics and Long Term Strategy

Many Internet businesses are based on short term tactics without any thought to a long term business strategy. This happens because most of the initial product / service ideas are based on some opportunity that was suddenly exposed to the product developer. But things change very rapidly on the Internet and a long term strategic growth plan is very very important.

It is a good short term tactic to create a service that expands a popular existing product.  But it is not good strategy to build a business that is completely dependent on a third party resource. Doing so creates a situation where a third party has control over your product. A simple tweak in their product can and will kill your business.

Unfortunately, the truth is that most on-line businesses do not bother to develop a long term strategic plan.

Develop a Long Term Strategy For Your Internet Business

Creating a practical and profit generating business strategy for your Internet business is probably the best way to ensure that your Internet business is successful over the long term.

A product like SEO Lab professional can quickly help you see the big picture and accelerate the strategic thinking process because of it's stress on competition research, monitoring and business intelligence data visualization.

Taken From: http://www.seolab.com/strategy/longterm.php