#1 Way to Address Procrastination: Do Something!

Isn’t procrastination such a fascinating thing!  It can lead to great innovations and streamlining as deadlines loom and the unimportant is stripped off the “to do” list.  It can lead to elevated blood pressure and heart rate and untold damage on our psyches.  There is always a good reason to procrastinate a task or decision. Sometimes you procrastinate really important things, perhaps because they are so important and you want to do them right.  This is where I find myself on this Sunday night.

In preparation for the upcoming beta (not to late to sign up, by the way) of Remarkable Tributes and the go live later this Summer, I have been working on a series of “Frequently Asked Questions.”  You know the type that walk customers through how to use the website, why to use the website, and what to do if things go wrong.  I will be putting them into the new Remarkable Tributes Help Center to be searched and added to by you once the system goes live.  This is really important stuff!  I have brainstorming a list of questions and typed them out this weekend to begin the work of answering them.  The list of questions is 9 pages long!  Those are just the questions, as I have not yet penned the answers.

Now, readers to this blog (or perhaps my other blog or Twitter stream) will probably rightly assess that coming up with a lot of ideas isn’t a problem for me.   So, perhaps some of these questions are not as important as others.  Some of thing may very well be a question that no one would ask, but still the list is there.  All 9 pages of it. 

So, I am going to fight procrastination.  I am taking a number of questions a day and will write the answers.  The ones that require screen shots or other reference materials from the software (which is in development and not quite ready for prime time) will have to wait, but there are many that I can do now, get out of the way, and be ready for the go live.

There, now I feel much better.  I have a plan.  Certainly, I can’t wait to see what questions you have once you start using Remarkable Tributes.  Stay tuned for more details on the Help Center and other things we are pulling together to make you successful!

By the way, this post will be mirrored over at http://RemarkableTributes.wordpress.com where I will be moving the blog officially in the next few weeks.  Go ahead and change your reader to the new address.

When the “Right Way” Isn’t Right

I am often struck by the irony of doing things the “right way.”  Whether it is a rigorous new product introduction process that seeks to remove all of the risk in a product launch or an exhaustively detailed product specification document which outlines customer needs before any customers are acquired, there seems there is a “right way” to do things that often doesn’t work, despite the amount of effort put into the process.

Tom Peters and the authors of Made to Stick both have written about a skunk-works project at the industrial products company, Ingersoll-Rand, who sought to improve their time to market from 4 years to less than 1.  When faced with a decision to build a casing from plastic or metal, they knew they would have to test for durability, whi ch often involved “protracted, careful studies of the tensile and compression properties of both materials.”  However, they didn’t have time to spell “protracted,” so they tried something else.  The team tied samples of both materials to back of a rental car and drove around the parking lot.  The plastic composite held up just as well as the metal and they moved on to the next decision.  No extensive metalurgy, but rather a quick, real-world test.

Another entrepreneur who has applied this same approach is Kara Goldin, who founded Hint, Inc., who makes water-based beverages.  She wrote in an article published by Andrea Adelman for Ladies Who Launch that “Our focus groups are friends, family and individual customers. I’m a big believer in just launching the product and getting it to market as opposed to doing elaborate focus groups. Get your product out there and show demand to impress investors. If you have an idea, just go for it. Launch in a small local market, even among friends at work and school. Ask for honest opinions of your test products. My business wouldn’t have happened if I got bogged down in focus groups and didn’t just take a chance!“

When taking a leap of faith, we are often encouraged not to “look down.”  I think the same applies to planning.  Rather than focusing on process and doing things the “right way” (usually driven by fear of failure), better to just overcome the fear with action.  Launch something.  Get real customers using the product and providing feedback.  Develop a true empathy for the customers, which will ensure that at each decision point that you can best advocate their priorities.  This will have a greater impact on business success than extensive focus groups, market research, or just about anything else you can do to mitigate the risks of starting a business or launching a product.  Don’t look down.  Look up and out and take the leap!

This is why that we are Creative Outlet Labs are planning a public beta of our new service Remarkable.  If you have not yet signed, up go to www.CreativeOutletLabs.com and we will let you know as soon as it is ready!

Photo by Alan.

It’s The Thought That Counts

Apparently, there is a common military expression that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.”  This is ironic considering the effort and expense that goes into military strategy and planning.  Yet, despite all the best planning, unpredicatable things happen.  They could be as serious as an underestimated enemy arsenal, or as simple as a change in the weather.  Plans aren’t built to last, but that isn’t the point.

As I have written about previously, plans are an exercise in wishful thinking.  However, planning is critically important.  It helps work through the scenarios, prioritize the myriad demands for money, time, and focus, and it can be a great team builder.  In the final tally, they planning itself is more important than the plan.

This applies not only to business, but to other portions of our lives as well.  With Christmas and other seasonal holidays quickly approaching, I am reminded the though and planning behind the “perfect” gift may be more precious than the actual gift itself.  So, even business planning, can be a gift to customers, vendors, employees, and the community - as you think through how best to delight them.  Even if things don’t turn out exactly as planned (and when do they ever?), you can be assured that you know the levers of the business, what is important to your stakeholders, and how to best proceed under the new conditions.  You might have to change tracks, but you still know how to drive the train.

Photo by Alan.

5 Year Plans and Other Works of Fiction

In a recent lecture at MIT’s Sloan Business school, Ricardo Semler said some provocative things about business planning.  Below is an excerpt:

“A 5 year plan is just an extrapolation added to wishful thinking. Have you ever seen a business plan that says, “I’m going to go up 5% and then down -14% and then -22% and then I’m going to recuperate a little bit and then it’s going to go to hell?”

‘Cuz that’s what happens. That’s how it looks in practice, but that’s not the way we design it. We’re willing to trick ourselves into thinking we have control as long as we do it with wishful thinking.”

I am a planner.  Big fan of planning, actually.  Love making lists and checking things off.  Love twiddling with spreadsheets.  Just wish I could be better at making and executing a plan.  I bet you feel the same.  Who wouldn’t want to be able to predict the future?  Especially for new enterprises that don’t have years of trend data to extrapolate from.  No tracks in the snow that can be followed to the top of the mountain.  How do you make a five year plan?  All it is is wishful thinking.

Guy Kawasaki in his book, The Art of the Start, talks about how forecasts are mythical.  Everyone knows they are made up.  Any research company worth your subscription fees will tell you that there is a big market to be exploited.  Any schmuck can do spreadsheet exercises to arrive at a $50M company.  The truth is not in the forecast, but in the passion.

The truth is the not every can exploit a growing market.  Not everyone can build a $50M company.  Not everyone can start something.  So, throw a dart at the board or spend hours doing sensitivity analysis in Excel and convince yourself in the viability of your business.  Because it is not the accuracy of the forecast, but your own depth of your conviction that makes the difference.  You will not find a track.  You must leave one.

Photo by Jason.