You've heard of the "paralysis of analysis." It happens when you think too much. That's not something that many people have accused me of doing very often (the opposite does tends to crop up quite a bit though) but it is something that I know afflicts many entrepreneurs, especially new ones.
They think and they plan. They research the market and they examine the competition. And when the time comes to take action, they've become so sick of the idea that they no longer want to do anything.
Of course, the opposite happens too. There are plenty of people who have a brainwave, get to work right away... and then discover that someone else is already doing exactly the same thing (only better than them). Or they find that they have no idea how to actually build their gizmo, or market it, or what it's actually supposed to do.
They give up pretty quickly too.
It's not enough to have a good idea if you want to be a success. Nor is it enough to be willing to work hard and put in the extra hours. Those are both essential, but they're not enough.
You also have to know what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how you're going to do it.
That means finding a balance between the enthusiasm to jump in and the preparation you need to get through the tough bits. You should be able to rely on your gut to judge the right moment to start, but I find it usually comes after I've slept on the idea, after I've bounced it off a few people, after I've looked at the main competition, and after I've identified the biggest challenges I'm likely to encounter and understood how I'm going to overcome them.
That doesn't mean I'll have everything planned out. But I will have a vision of what I'm trying to do, and know what I need to do to achieve it. After that, I just need the flexibility to deal with all of the surprises that will come up - and surprises come up in every project.
Experienced entrepreneurs understand that you can prepare too much and that you can prepare too little. They start with the right balance... then push on through to the end.
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July 2, 2009 09:52 AM
Joel, my profile is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenelwell. Your entry regarding over-thinking rang a bell, so I stopped to think about this. I started my marketing/promotion agency on a card table, in my home, at 32, after a charmed career with IBM (marketing, new products). My husband was in the first "starvation" years as a tax attorney; our little girl was 4. We needed my significant income. I did no real planning and somehow, just believed that I'd be fine. So we created a second floor for my studio, furnished it with a card table and rudimentary equipment. When I sold the business a few years ago, we were billing $9 million annually. If I'd known about all the pain it took to get there (travel 45 weeks/year; three offices: Dallas (home office), St. Louis (biggest office) and Atlanta. You can imagine the complications of being registered in 3 states. Anyway, the point is that if you think too much about doing something that feels right, you might never do it. On the other hand, if you venture too far from your skill set, you're going to flounder. All the business plans in the world can't help you overcome: 1) lack of know how and experience, and 2) being able to sell your business effectively, all the time, and most of all, be ready to win!
July 2, 2009 09:56 AM
Yeah I hear ya Joel... It's rearing it's ugly head in my house right now. I am putting together a Real extensive course based on results in the list building and email marketing field and I'm tending to over-think and research the hell out of this bad boy which is making this the longest project ever (6 months and counting)... On the plus side it's the most "eye-opening" course of it's kind (no really!)
Anyway, great post and one that rings true far more than it should around here...
July 2, 2009 12:58 PM
Starting with a goal is usually the best way to go about a project. It's easier to research and find a stopping point if you know why, not just how.
July 4, 2009 08:18 AM
One of the most important parts is just sticking with it and putting in those extra hours!
July 5, 2009 08:35 AM
Ok, let's broke a bit the standards of regular comments. I'll start with the
PS: look who's following me :-) > http://twitter.com/JoelCommBuzz
Now, back to our issue:
I bet Tellman Knudsen monthly income against 3 horse shoes that you, Joel, you know the 2 major/big management-that-always-work styles and you just want to recommend and show yourself as a fan of "middle way". Well .. in fact "middle way" is not quite the right name ... maybe more correct for what I seen so far at your style would be "festina lente" (latin for ~ hurry-up slowly). Being the "child" of the 2 big management styles, is probably the best way ..
Personally I agree 101% that "have an idea and simply rush in" is far from being a good strategy, except if one have almost unlimited resources and, at the end, losses / costs to reach the goal does not matter. Success example: Stalin (russian army) reach Berlin in WW2 before Allies (US+UK+rest). Failure example: middle age alchemy hard try to transform regular metals into gold.
Happy sunday evening :-) !
July 8, 2009 07:30 AM
great article. I would have to agree with all the points. I think the most important one is to get started. I worked as a Fire Inspector and often talked to the business owners. I had often talked of starting a business and that I was waiting for the right time. More than one stated that starting a business is like having kids. If you wait for the right time you will never have kids. The same with business. Most said they did the basic research and then learned a lot as they went along. You can't read how to swim and learn how to do it.
July 26, 2009 02:19 PM
To me I think they internet marketing hype is what makes SO MANY people lose sight of the big picture when they don't make the $13,754.28 in 10 days...they've got caught up in the get rich quick scheme mentality. When their focus really should be building with a vision of what their business would be like 5 years from now.
When you're new to internet marketing, social media, network marketing, social networking, affiliate marketing...you're NEW! You need to learn while you try to earn a living...but the learning curve early on is going to be steep. People need to have that fundamental shift in thinking if they are going to understand that 6 months is not long enough and more than likely you need a couple of years of hard committed learning and work to turn a internet marketer with no experience at earning money online into a marketer who earns a FT income.
July 30, 2009 08:50 PM
i have published a post that related with this post , the key is doing a small plan is better than having tons of pending big plan
August 4, 2009 09:05 PM
Plan too much: you'll find it hard to deal with the surprises and changes that will come up along the way. Plan too little: you'll have no idea how to even start off the project, let alone carry it through. Certainly takes more than enthusiasm to carry a project through. But I guess as in any process and passage of learning, what's more important isn't just how you start off, but how you finish at the end, and the lessons that you learn (have you learnt them?) along the way.
August 17, 2009 11:45 PM
Great Advice Joel!
Most of the people in internet marketing are considered "analytical" personality... which means, everything has to be perfect and all the variables and the tangents have to be in place before they do something.
Sometimes we just have stop trying to figuring out everything and like Nike says: Just do it!!!
Jerry
August 28, 2009 12:46 AM
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