Running a Successful Internet Business is a lot Like Running

I am a huge fan of running as a form of exercise. I am sure many entrepreneurs are as well, because there are some similarities between running for exercise and running a profitable business. If you’ll hear me out I’ll explain what I mean.

Most runners either want to improve their running times or increase the distance they are able to run. However, it is (almost) impossible to do this overnight. You can’t go from running 2km a week to running 100km a week right away.

You have to gradually work your way up. Each week you want to slowly improve how far you are able to go. This is the same as running an Internet business, you are not going to be the next Google overnight. However, if you work on your business each day pretty soon you will start to see real improvements and results.

At any given point your results may seem small, but when you add them together you start seeing real progress. If you want to improve in both running and business you need to set goals AND ways to go about achieving them.

It is important to plan but it is even more important to put your plan into action. For example, say you want to have a site that generates a full time income for you. In this example we will assume that you earn $50,000 a year and you want 100% of that income replaced.

Now, $50,000 a year seems like a big number so I find it easier to break it down into how much money you have to earn each day. So, I would divide $50,000/365 days, which equals $136.99/per day. Now I divided by 365 days because your Internet business should be able to earn you money 24/7. If it can’t earn money in this way, you have not created a business but just created another job.

OK, so we have our $136.99 a day figure, now what? Well, work towards getting there. If you are just starting out you might aim for $1/day. Once you reach that aim for $10/day, then maybe $25/day etc. until you hit the $136.99 a day figure. Going from 0 to $136.99 a day seems really hard but going from 0 to $1 day seems pretty easy.

Stay focused on your goals and keep working towards them. The most difficult time, at least in my opinion,  is after your initial excitement has worn off, but before you start making big money. It can be difficult to feel excited about only earning $1/day. But you can’t run before you walk, which brings me to a second important comparison between running and business.

Once you stop running you maintain your level only for a short period of time, before you start declining. This is the same with running a website or a blog. If you give up on your business, you will keep earning your daily average for a period of time, but eventually your income will start to fall off.

This blog is a perfect example of that. In the fall of 2007 I started it and spent some money promoting it but then I got side tracked with other project, the holidays etc. It was still generating a little bit of traffic when I revived it but it has yet to return to its previous levels.

The same thing has happened to me numerous times in terms of my running ability. At the end of high school I was running so much that I trained and ran a marathon (42.2km). Now, I am happy just to be able to run about 8km (both because of my fitness level and due to time constraints). However, to keep myself motivated I have tried to improve my running time and so far the last few months I have been able to knock a full 10 minutes off it. Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not very fast, but it goes to show that determination, perseverance and patience do pay off in running as in business.

So whether you are running for exercise or running your won Internet business the key to success is patience, dedication and most importantly perseverance. You might not be able to run a marathon today, but if you keep working at it you will be able to some day. Same goes for success in running your own business.