02 — KNOW YOUR RESOURCES

Your plan needs to fit your real life.

In Part 01, we started with you.

Your vision.

Your goals.

Your ambitions.

Your strengths.

Your weaknesses.

Your motivation.

Your experience.

Now we need to look at something equally important:

What do you actually have to work with?

Because it’s very easy to create a business plan that looks fantastic on paper.

You could decide you’re going to post content every day, build a website, grow an email list, contact dozens of prospects, learn advertising, create videos, attend training and spend several hours a day building your business.

Sounds great.

But if you have a full-time job, a family, limited money, very little spare time and no experience with online marketing…

that probably isn’t your plan.

It’s a fantasy.

A good plan starts with reality.

Not the reality you wish you had.

The reality you actually have.

And that isn’t a limitation.

It’s your starting point.

1. HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU REALLY HAVE?

This is one of the first questions you need to answer.

Not:

“How much time would I like to have?”

But:

“How much time can I consistently commit?”

There is a huge difference.

If you have a full-time job and family commitments, perhaps you genuinely have 60–90 minutes available on most days.

That’s fine.

If you have five hours a day available, that’s different.

If you have only three hours a week, that’s different again.

Your strategy needs to reflect reality.

The Time Audit

Take a normal week and write down:

Work: ___ hours

Sleep: ___ hours

Family: ___ hours

Travel: ___ hours

Exercise: ___ hours

Household responsibilities: ___ hours

Existing commitments: ___ hours

Now look at what’s left.

Don’t automatically allocate all of it to your business.

You need rest.

You need flexibility.

You need a life.

Now decide:

My realistic business-building time is:

_____ hours per week.

Then ask:

“Can I maintain this for the next 12 months?”

That’s the important question.

Not whether you can do it for seven days.

Whether you can do it consistently.

2. WHAT FINANCIAL RESOURCES DO YOU HAVE?

Money matters.

But you don’t necessarily need a huge budget to begin learning how to build an online business.

The important thing is understanding your financial position before you start spending.

Ask yourself:

How much can I comfortably afford to invest in learning and building?

Not:

“How much can I borrow?”

Not:

“How much can I put on a credit card?”

And certainly not:

“How much do I need to spend to make this work?”

Instead:

“What can I afford to lose without putting myself under financial pressure?”

That’s your starting point.

Separate your money into three categories:

Essential money

Money needed for your normal life.

Available money

Money you could reasonably allocate towards building your business.

Risk money

Money you could afford to lose if something doesn’t work.

Don’t confuse the three.

And remember:

You don’t need to spend money simply because someone tells you that successful people invest heavily.

Sometimes the most valuable investment you can make is developing a skill.

3. WHAT SKILLS DO YOU ALREADY HAVE?

You may be starting an online business.

That doesn’t mean you’re starting from zero.

You’ve probably developed skills throughout your life that can be transferred into business.

Perhaps you’re good at:

• Talking to people
• Writing
• Teaching
• Listening
• Explaining complicated things
• Solving problems
• Organising
• Selling
• Negotiating
• Building relationships
• Managing people
• Using technology
• Creating things
• Researching
• Planning
• Presenting
• Working under pressure

Some of these may be extremely valuable online.

Your exercise

Go back to the strengths you identified in Part 01.

Now divide them into three categories:

Skills I already have

Skills I need to improve

Skills I need to learn

This gives you a much clearer picture.

You don’t necessarily need to become good at everything.

You need to understand which skills matter for the plan you’ve chosen.

4. WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY KNOW?

Skills and knowledge aren’t the same thing.

You might be comfortable talking to people but know very little about digital marketing.

You might understand marketing but know nothing about creating videos.

You might know your industry extremely well but have no idea how to attract people online.

That’s normal.

The mistake is pretending you already know everything.

Ask yourself:

What do I understand well?

What do I understand reasonably well?

What do I know very little about?

What do I know nothing about?

Don’t be embarrassed by the last category.

Everybody starts somewhere.

The important thing is knowing what you don’t know.

Because you can’t create a learning plan until you identify the gaps.

5. WHAT EXPERIENCE CAN YOU USE?

Experience is another resource.

And it doesn’t have to be business experience.

Your previous jobs.

Your hobbies.

Your education.

Your life experiences.

Your interests.

The industries you’ve worked in.

The problems you’ve solved.

The people you’ve worked with.

The mistakes you’ve made.

All of these can potentially give you an advantage.

For example, someone who has spent 20 years working in a particular industry may already understand the problems, language and frustrations of the people within that industry.

That’s valuable.

Someone who has built a large network of professional contacts has a different resource.

Someone who has spent years creating content may have another.

Someone who has never run a business but has excellent communication skills has something else.

Your exercise

Write down:

My professional experience:

My personal experience:

My hobbies and interests:

Industries I understand:

Problems I know how to solve:

Then ask:

“Could any of this give me an advantage?”

6. WHAT ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL NETWORK?

Your network is another resource.

And I’m not talking about simply counting how many Facebook friends you have.

Think about the people you actually know.

Friends.

Family.

Former colleagues.

Current colleagues.

Professional contacts.

People you’ve met through hobbies.

People you’ve worked with.

People you’ve helped.

People who know, like and trust you.

But don’t make the mistake of thinking:

“I’ve got 500 Facebook friends, so I have 500 prospects.”

You don’t.

A network isn’t a list of people to bombard with sales messages.

It’s a collection of relationships.

Your network can potentially help you with:

• Feedback
• Ideas
• Introductions
• Expertise
• Collaboration
• Support
• Referrals
• Learning

And sometimes simply having people around you who understand what you’re trying to build can make a significant difference.

Your exercise

Think beyond numbers.

Write down:

Who do I know?

Who knows what I know?

Who has skills I don’t have?

Who could teach me something?

Who could introduce me to someone useful?

Who might genuinely be interested in what I’m building?

You’re mapping your resources, not compiling a prospect list.

7. WHAT TECHNOLOGY DO YOU HAVE?

You don’t need a sophisticated technology stack to begin.

But you should know what you already have.

Do you have:

• A smartphone?
• A computer?
• Reliable internet?
• A website?
• Email?
• Social media accounts?
• Video capability?
• Basic editing tools?
• A way of communicating with prospects and customers?
• A system for keeping track of contacts?

Don’t automatically buy something because somebody tells you that you need it.

First ask:

“What problem am I actually trying to solve?”

Then find the simplest tool that solves it.

Technology should make your business easier.

It shouldn’t become the business.

8. WHAT SUPPORT DO YOU HAVE?

Building something on your own can be difficult.

So ask:

Who can help me?

That might include:

• A mentor
• A coach
• A colleague
• A business partner
• A supportive friend
• Your existing professional network
• Online communities
• Training programmes
• People with specialist knowledge

But there’s an important distinction.

Support isn’t the same as someone doing the work for you.

A mentor can help you see things you can’t see.

A teacher can give you knowledge.

A coach can help keep you accountable.

A community can give you encouragement.

But ultimately:

You still have to do the work.

9. IDENTIFY YOUR GAPS

Now we can bring everything together.

Look at the resources you’ve identified.

Then ask:

“What’s missing?”

Perhaps you have plenty of time but very little knowledge.

Perhaps you have knowledge but no audience.

Perhaps you have a large network but don’t know how to communicate your offer.

Perhaps you have strong technical skills but struggle with selling.

Perhaps you have motivation but very little time.

Perhaps you have plenty of time but need more discipline.

Perhaps you have the skills but lack confidence.

This is valuable information.

Because a gap isn’t necessarily a problem.

It’s simply something you need to address.

YOUR RESOURCE AUDIT

Complete this table.

Resource	What I Have	What I Need
Time
Money
Skills
Knowledge
Experience
Network
Technology
Support

Don’t try to make the answers look impressive.

Be honest.

The more honest your assessment, the better your eventual plan will be.

YOUR BIGGEST RESOURCE

There’s one resource we haven’t discussed properly.

Your attention.

You can have plenty of money.

You can have plenty of time.

You can have the best technology.

You can have an enormous network.

But if your attention is constantly being pulled in ten different directions, you may struggle to make progress.

This is particularly important online.

There is always another:

• Opportunity
• Strategy
• Platform
• Course
• Tool
• Guru
• Webinar
• “Secret”
• New trend

trying to get your attention.

You cannot pursue everything.

One of the most important resources you have is your ability to say:

“Not now.”

Focus is a resource.

Protect it.

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

Now step back and look at everything you’ve written.

Ask yourself:

“Given the resources I actually have, what is realistically possible?”

Not what somebody on YouTube says is possible.

Not what somebody selling a programme promises.

Not what someone else is doing.

What is possible for you?

That’s the beginning of a real strategy.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

Before moving on, complete these five steps.

STEP 1 — Audit your time

Decide how many hours per week you can realistically commit.

STEP 2 — Audit your finances

Decide what you can comfortably invest without putting yourself under financial pressure.

STEP 3 — Audit your skills

Identify what you already know and what you need to learn.

STEP 4 — Audit your resources

Map your experience, network, technology and support.

STEP 5 — Identify your biggest gap

Ask:

“What one thing, if I improved it, would make the biggest difference to my ability to move forward?”

That’s your next development priority.

YOU ARE NOW STARTING TO SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE

In Part 01, you looked inward.

Who am I?

In Part 02, you’ve looked at what you have available.

What do I have to work with?

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Because we can begin to move from vague ambition towards a realistic plan.

But there is another piece of the puzzle.

You need to understand what is going to keep you moving when things become difficult.

That’s where we go next.

NEXT: 03 — UNDERSTAND WHAT DRIVES YOU

We’ll look at:

Motivation.

Discipline.

Work ethic.

Consistency.

Patience.

Resilience.

Because having a goal is one thing.

Doing what is necessary to achieve it is something else entirely.

Continue to Part 03 — Understand What Drives You →