We live in a world of instant gratification.
You’ve seen it in the movies — A 90-minute movie will make it look like the rags to riches story took a couple of months.
So lately, you’ve started to question your business. Even though you have a good business plan that projects profits, you are beginning to feel scared and inadequate.
There are times when you feel like you are on this planet to watch other people succeed. Everyone seems to be doing so well.
So you’ve started to avoid cocktail parties and family gatherings because your cousin Fred is bound to ask you the question you’ve grown to dread, “How’s your business doing?”
“Great!” you always say but deep down, you know that you’ve been working at the business for close to two year and are nowhere near where you thought you would be. In spite of the earnestness, energy, and enthusiasm, you’ve only got a mediocre website to show.
You wonder if you should just throw in the towel and get a “real job.”
Conventional wisdom has us fooled
Conventional wisdom has it that we should have timelines and a solid business plan then hit the ground running towards our goals.
It tells us to advertise and customers will follow.
It tells us to stay motivated inorder to stay on track.
So you did just as your university professor taught you and made a business plan that forecasted profits within the first 6 months. Things were going to be perfect.
You listened to motivational videos every morning and felt good.
However, on the ground, things are not going according to plan. You know that something is not right.
You begin to doubt your business. Much as you love what you do, you feel like it may not be your calling.
You are confused, frustrated and overwhelmed.
You are now ready to throw in the towel before you lose any more money.
So you put your business plan away in a drawer. You unsubscribe to the motivational videos. And as you sit and wonder what next, you hear your cousin Fred’s voice in your head saying, “Why don’t you just get a real job?”
There is more to business than business planning
Now I have nothing against business plans. They are very relevant in large corporations with directors and stake holders.
But they are just not relevant in the starting stages of a small business.
Here’s why:
A business plan will ask you to do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). It will ask you to predict the price of your product and set your sales targets.
But the truth is, the business environment is very dynamic and it greatly affect start ups.
A business plan can be up to 80 pages, of which 40 pages will be on financial projections. But before the ink on its pages has dried, something in the environment will have changed and by your 2nd month in business, you’ll find that you’ll need to go back to your business plan to change your projections.
This means that figures in a business plan, for a new business at least, are, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
If you absolutely must do what they taught you in business school and choose to have a business plan, wait until you are a few months in business then you’ll have some solid precedence to work with.
Motivation is also good. It gives us that burst of energy. It makes us feel good.
But if left unchecked, the rapid burst of motivation can lead to an equally rapid slump. In other words, motivation, like New Years resolutions, gets old.
There is more to planning than a business plan
Here’s the truth — the highway to success is littered with potholes and speed bumps. They are inevitable and they will slow you down.
So you do need to plan. But it’s a different type of plan. It’s something more practical.
What you need are two key things to keep you on track:
- Clear goals: Goals will give you a clear road map and help you keep your finger on your businesses pulse. Set them and review them on a daily basis. Twice a day if you have to.
- Discipline: Discipline is more important than motivation. Motivation is good but it only makes up about 10% of your efforts. Without discipline, motivation fades and will get you nowhere.
Let’s take the example of a body builder.
We’ll call him Paul.
Paul wants to compete with the top in the world. But first, he needs to accept that this will take time. At least 5 years. Maybe more.
He has two options; He can either spend months on end writing out a detailed plan on how he will train and how his body will respond to the training and nutrition.
Alternatively, he can jump right in and start training without a detailed plan then tweak his diet and training to suit his body then settle on what works for him.
The later has proved many times over to be the most effective.
What he needs more than a long researched document is measurable goals, good habits and a truck load of discipline.
In the same way, you should break down the process of starting your business and tweak it as you go along as follows:
1. Development stage:
- Identify the opportunities in the market by identifying what people need and are willing to pay for. In other words, look for a problem that needs solving.
- Identify the other players in the market. Your potential competitors. What are they doing?
- Identify the customer pain points. Where are the gaps? How can you position yourself uniquely from the rest?
2. Pre-launch stage:
Once you have the above information, it can be tempting to want to jump right in because it sounds fun and exciting but you need to first make sure that our customers are a good fit.
So start small and safe — The Range Rover can wait.
Start by creating a small product and testing it to see how the market reacts. Give a range of options and ask for your customer’s honest feedback.
At this stage, you may find that that the product was not a good fit so take the failure as a lesson and be ready to pivot.
Remember, we learn more from failure than from success.
Keep up the trail and error until you are ready to launch.
3. Launch stage:
As you launch your business and watch it grow, strive to do the following:
- Form daily habits: As opposed to a business plan that expects you to review your progress every 3 months, make a habit of reviewing your goals every evening. Write them down and stick to them. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
- Exercise patience: Don’t be too disappointed if people are not falling over backwards to buy from you. It takes several interactions with customers to build the know, like and trust factor.
- Aim for continuous improvement: Don’t get too complacent. Be ready to keep re-branding and introducing new products. Keep an ear on the ground and listen to what your customers have to say — good or bad.
Slow but sure carries the day
If at any time you start to get that nagging guilty feeling that you should be further along, and that you are being a lazy slacker who will never hit your goals, just remind your self that building a business is a journey.
A marathon and not a sprint.
A journey where everyone has their own unique timelines.
Embrace this and you’ll enjoy the process and when your business finally reaches maturity, you’ll be able to sustain it because you’ll end up with a product that customers want to buy because:
- You’ll have validated your customer and ensured quality.
- You’ll have come up with the right pitch.
- You’ll have known how to differentiate yourself from the rest.
- You’ll have enjoyed the journey instead of sitting behind your desk crunching numbers.
- You’ll have perfected the daily habits that will carry you when you don’t think you can keep going.
Go on. Enjoy the journey
So every great business, like great wine, takes time.
Accept this and you’ll enjoy the journey. You’ll not rob yourself of the fun and excitement of starting a business.
You’ll not be obsessed with the numbers on your business plan because you’ll be focused on your customer and getting to understand his needs, his wants and his expectations.
You’ll not judge your work.
You’ll not judge yourself.
You’ll not judge your progress because you’ll know that every small step is moving you closer to what the market wants.
You’ll feel confident, capable, and competent and when you see your cousin Fred next, you’ll let him know that what you have is a real job. It’s just taking longer than you expected. And that’s ok.