In life and business we are constantly confronted with the question “What do I do next?”
As entrepreneurs prioritization of our time determines success or failure.
Over the years I have used several matrices to help me decide where to focus my efforts. The most accomplished human beings all use a similar process though they don’t all put it down on paper.
It starts with identifying the options that are available.
This may be ideas for the overall direction or your business, priorities for the next month or quarter or finding the highest value projects.
The same process applies for relational, ministry, family, financial or civic goals.
Step 1: Brainstorming possibilities
There are many methods for generating ideas:
- Google searches
- following blogs and influencers
- keeping a log of your inspirations
- talking through your goals with friends or mentors
Whatever process you use the idea is to assemble a list of possible projects, actions or priorities. The key is that the ideas are:
- feasible – within your current abilities to perform
- defined – have enough clarity that you have a sense of the magnitude and potential
Step 2: Evaluation
The core of the exercise is making an assessment of each possibility to quantify relative effort, probability of success, potential benefit and potential risk.
Project | Effort | Success | Benefit | Risk |
Write another book | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
Buy a website | Low | Medium | ? | Medium |
Create new advertising campaigns / Optimize existing | Low | High | Low | Low |
Create a new product | Medium | High | Medium | Low |
Effort: This is an evaluation of how much time the project or direction will require relative to other options. I usually start with a chart like the one above and just give it a high, medium or low mark but it is often useful to quantify it by penciling in a quantity like 6 to 8 months, 40 to 60 hours, etc.
Success: Probability that the task will come to fruition and deliver the benefit you expect. As an entrepreneur I engage in many tasks that may or may not deliver results. It is obviously difficult to know that in advance but I make my best guess and go from there.
Benefit: You should have a very tangible benefit in mind. It may be monthly net profit, number of sales leads, number of visitors to a website, an increase in conversion rate or an improvement in your relationship with your wife. If you can quantify the benefit, you will want to make a second pass at the table and write in the amounts or quantities that are possible e.g. Additional monthly net income $2,500 to $4,000.
Risk: In chess, every move you make on the board leaves at least one square weaker than it was before the move. And so it is in life. Every step forward is a choice to emphasize something at the risk of de-emphasizing something else. If I spend three months away from my family writing my book, I introduce risk and harm to those relationships.
Step 3: Drawing Conclusions
If you force yourself to thoughtfully produce a table like the one above and hopefully take it to the next level of specificity, then you have disciplined yourself to think through the options.
Reflection is the point. There are an infinite number of projects you can embark on. But forcing yourself to think through the effort required, the probability of success and a realistic estimate of how much the project will deliver to the bottom line, will boost your effectiveness dramatically.
Without this process we are much more likely to simply choose activities that:
- are easy
- we have done before
- are potentially high effort, low reward
- are beneficial but ignore important risks or negative impact to others
With this process we:
- increase our confidence in our choices (and thus or likelihood of success)
- increase the probability that we will achieve maximum benefit for minimum effort at minimum risk
Step 4: Planning
Once you have chosen a project or direction to take, the next step is to flesh it out with some good old fashioned planning.
Outlining the tasks and resources required for your chosen activity will clarify your assessment of the effort, risk, potential benefit and probability of success. After some high level planning you may well discover that your initial evaluation was significantly off the mark.
Wrap Up
Using a sound process to prioritize your ideas can be a game changer in your life and business.
If you feel like you don’t have any good ideas or you can’t accurately evaluate the ideas you have, you need to seek out a trusted advisor or mentor. A one-time coffee or consultation could be enough or you might need to meet with a number of people and do more reading and research.
Opportunity is abundant! Choose well.
Mentors yes I have several who are a source of encouragement and help. Friends? people who do not encourage you, you can do this! I support you do it! I have no such friends.
“Friends” who aren’t encouraging? I have friends who wouldn’t make the same decisions I make, but they still cheer me on and are good resources for bouncing ideas.
On ‘buy a website’ – ‘benefit’ you have a question mark. Is that because the benefit is not quantified…or is there something else, like, potential for failure…
I don’t buy websites unless I think there is a clear benefit, so I probably should have put something else there. In the real world my chart would say “Buy xyz.com” and I would have a better quantified estimated benefit. Otherwise it isn’t very helpful to do the exercise.
Hi Jeff,
There are just so few people who write about investing in websites or Internet assets. And I think I finally found someone who still talk about it in in recent years.
But, I saw some of your blogs seemed back then in 2016.
Has the market been saturated? Or it will never be?
I’ve been learning/sharpening skills in order to venture into this investing web assets business. And I also have found few potential investors – possibly a group of investors.
What would you advise – like the first website to purchase? Justin Gilchrist suggested to start from $5000 to have the minimum quality.
I’m still reading his ebook to add to my existing knowledge. I’m preparing myself well before I purchase first website – I prefer SAAS website to embark on this new journey.
I’ve been building websites, experimenting internet marketing for local businesses (offline businesses).
But, I’ve always been wanting to venture into this industry of investing websites.
Hi Charles,
Like all markets, website investing will decrease in friction over time. There will be more knowledgeable participants, value and pricing will be better understood, there will be fewer transactions that are either wildly under or overpriced, the transactions themselves will be easier to accomplish and funding will be more readily available for digital assets that have the right risk characteristics.
Saas is a good way to go if you understand how to make and market software. Websites are a lot of fun to research and buy because there are so many choices and you can often get in with much less capital than other kinds of businesses. Best of luck!
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your sharing. Is there any minimum entry price you would advise for a reasonable quality and also higher chance of succeeding?
You seem to have many websites. I’m confused. Which one is your latest updated course for buying a website?
Higher prices usually reflect higher quality sites, so if you just look at price, sites over $20K start to be more solid bets. Of course, no price guarantees that it is a good business.
There are many less expensive sites that also have good quality characteristics:
– more than a year old, preferably 2 or 3 years
– flat or growing traffic
– flat or growing net income
– evergreen niche
– predictable traffic source
The materials here on OwnOptimize are the latest and the course hosting is probably easiest to use in this version.