Three Ways To Zoom Your Business
AUTHOR: Ian Sanders
If you’re looking to launch a business most people will say you must start with a business plan: a five year financial projection plotting numbers of customers alongside revenues. But the trouble with planning is that people get so stuck in the theory of what their business might look like, they procrastinate on the implementation of their idea. Or worse they don’t do it at all: analysis can be paralysing, over thinking an idea will lead to self-doubt.
Of course, you still need goals and objectives. But in this ever-changing world you might not have a linear plan for how to get there. After all who can predict how things will look in five months, let alone five years?
So if you’re looking to make your business idea happen, focus on execution rather than planning. Those months spent planning spreadsheets and creating presentation slides would be better utilised actually launching your business.
For our new book Zoom! The Faster Way To Make Your Business Idea Happen’ we spoke to many business owners. People like Richard Moross of Moo.com. We learnt that Richard’s success was due to his first iteration of the business failing: the fact that it didn’t work led him to reinvent a company called Pleasure Cards into Moo.com, the business card company we know and love today. Richard’s success as an entrepreneur was about launching his idea, seeing what worked and what didn’t, and adapting. Without the launch he wouldn’t have made that discovery. Nothing beats prototyping an idea, testing it, listening to user feedback and making changes.
So stop the business guessing and start the business doing. Here are three ways to ‘Zoom’ your business:
1. Take your idea to market rapidly. We've seen too many business owners sit on their ideas for months or years without the courage to actually launch them. Often the speed at which you take an idea to market will give you the edge over the competition.
2. Rethink business planning. Develop a currency of goal setting that works for you and your business. It's about identifying and articulating the business process from idea to market. A one-pager or a bunch of post-it notes visualising the route from product to consumer can be more powerful than a thick plan.
3. Prototype, experiment and test. If you wanted to quickly test a business idea a decade ago, it wouldn't be very easy. But today with online tools you can test and adjust your ideas as you go. You'll find real feedback from the marketplace is more valuable to an investor or partner than hypothetical models.
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