Starting a business is a funny thing. You start out with one idea and before you know it…it’s blossomed into a multi-national $40 million company with 10,000 employees. You are making moves and raking in the dough.
Why? Because you have no shortage of good ideas.
And ideas are great.
But the big difference for those that have successful businesses is their EXECUTION of the good ideas.
And how do you do that?
You start selling your ideas and see if they have value.
When you come up with an idea for your business, jot down the basics of how you will market it, how much it will cost to make and supply and some rough estimations for how you will measure that you are successful.
Make it one page max.
Then get started selling.
- Stop thinking about.
- Stop writing endless business plans.
- Or better yet stop writing LONG business all rooted in theory.
- Stop fantasizing about what it could be.
Just get out there and start talking to people. Notice what gets their attention when you share the idea. And pay attention to where their eyes start glazing over.
Starting to get sales? Good. Find out WHY they are buying and start tracking the feedback.
Not getting sales? Good. You haven’t wasted a ton of money at this point creating the product/service…to find out that no one wanted it.
Just get back into the game.
Thinking you need a full blown product or service in order to sell? Nope. Start with a beta launch and tell customers that they can get the product in the next _____ days.
So I challenge you to get comfortable with this area of your start-up. Getting comfortable selling and hearing directly from clients.
You’ve helped me identify two areas that hinders my sales and business growth. I am getting ready to get off this computer and tackle both area.
Thank you.
Great article Malla! I teach strategic planning and business planning. But, I always teach implementation. At the end of the day, biz owners forget to calendar all the great planned activities. They forget to calendar their progress reports and reviews. I have to “force” clients to stop and reflect and to analyze what is working and what is not. They have to slow down to do this! I’m guilty of it too. We have to execute and then slow down to reflect and make necessary changes!
Malla – Great advice. I always say – Ideas are Dime a Dozen, Execution is the Key to Success. If you think you have a unique idea, you will be surprised to find how many people have the same idea as yours. It’s only those who can execute on those ideas successfully and before everyone else succeed.