Right – to be clear – I’m not saying you should try and rip people off, lie and cheat or start a business based on the premise that you can ‘take the money and run’, but too many times I’ve seen people who have a passable or even a good idea, but who waste ages and ages ‘getting it ready’.
Obviously, any idea needs some preparation and finessing, thinking through and doing the numbers so you can see if it’s going to work financially but some people and businesses take so long to get going that either the idea’s time has passed, or the idea ‘they’re working on’ is just that…an idea. Or an excuse for not doing something.
When you’re working on an idea, asking others is a good idea to get some feedback but again, this can take time and everyone’s answers may well be different – so the feedback becomes self-defeating and ‘another job in itself’ rather than a constructive set of suggestions for improvement.
Before you get bogged down in ‘will it / won’t it work’ territory the thing I’ve found helpful is the realization that nothing is ever perfect. EVER. Start thinking about your product or service meeting a set of needs in a customer group, meeting those needs in a comprehensive and exciting way but not so comprehensive a way that your idea never becomes ‘ready for market’.
We deliver workshops.
We create, design, resource and deliver workshops.
Some workshops are created to meet a set of business or curriculum needs; some are created after a throwaway comment from a client; some are developed from life experiences and some are created from a three-o’clock-in-the-morning flash of inspiration. Or weirdness, or ball of the above!
We do a number of things when starting a new workshop – ask around, get feedback from previous clients, ask fellow professionals or sometimes we just put it on the website and start Tweeting about it, blogging about it and telling people via email. If we get bookings we run it and build on that success by gaining testimonials and feedback to improve it.
Sometimes people just don’t want, need or like what we have to offer…if that’s the case, we quietly let it wither and die!
My point is that if 50% of start up businesses fail in the first two years, and many of those will have taken a long time to develop – say two or three years – then that is a lot of time wasted – maybe up to five years. If that’s all you’ve been doing for all that time then starting again will seem daunting – or impossible.
“If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later” is the advice Richard Branson gives and I’d have to agree. If you’re spending years looking for perfection then that time is wasted – once you’ve got a good idea, get going, develop it quickly with FOCUS, bring a positive and healthy ATTITUDE to the table, realize the VALUE of the idea is in the using of it and with some rapid EFFORT you can make the idea happen. Better to fail fast (if at all) and then go on to the next project.
Focus
Attitude
Value
Effort
These are the key skills behind our FAVE workshop and seminars, which incidentally started as a daydream on the M6 and became our Keynote speech! (video coming soon!)
Bernie
@EnterpriseSBox on Twitter.