Stop Procrastinating Don’t be a Perfectionist

It’s often said that procrastination is the thief of time and many people put off either starting a business or launching a website because they want it to be perfect but being a perfectionist is the worst sin for budding entrepreneurs.

There are so many people who want to quit their day jobs or are now unemployed and want to earn more cash or get another job. I see it all the time when people are “umm-ing and ahh-ing” over a project or idea and are lookingfor 100% perfection before they launch it on the world and of course many of those people never actually achieve anything.

There are two phrases that should be kept in the back of one’s mind or pasted on the wall of your office:

• Nike’s “just do it” phrase
• 80% is good enough

You see once you have 80% or even 60% of your project completed it may be enough to launch it. The effort / reward curve once you have got to this stage tails off dramatically so the work you put in to complete the final 20% is so great that the rewards can appear to be almost lost.

In fact peratos 80/20 rule suggests 20% effort provides 80% of the rules with the reverse being true. Here’s a great cartoon from Dilbert about procrastination in the work place where no one really wants to make a decision anyway

(Click on the image for the full picture)

But joking aside you really don’t need to be a perfectionist and here are some of the things to think about….

• Your idea of perfection may not be the same as your target audience – ie: you could get real close to 100% of where *you* believe your product should be adding all the little extras you *think* are required and yet when you launch it your customers didn’t want the items you spent the past 3 months doing and want some other features instead.
• Research is your enemy (but your best friend) – of course you need to be developing something that people really, really want and that is the core of your product offering. But don’t keep thinking “is this all of the product they want” and continue researching. Large companies are adding extra features to their *core* offerings all of the time and if they waited nothing would be there. Eg: Google launched their search engine and have been honing it ever since. Even niche products like the Kashflow accounting system are evolving – if Kashflow wasn’t launched as it was back in 2005 do you think it would be where it is today if they had waited to add in *all* the features their customers told them they wanted ?
• You can start small and build it bigger – many people may be put off because they want a business *today* that earns them the salary they think they want and are not prepared to start off small but in most cases being a large niche player is a real strategy for long term success. Once you have dominated a niche you can expand into other related verticals with related products and services you already have.
• Business success is always a long term goal – expanding on the above observation many people still believe that they will make it big in a short time but history tells us that even very successful companies sometimes take decades to be great. That goes with the new entrepreneur as well. Perhaps you want to start a restaurant but don’t have the capital or knowledge to do that now so why not start a small coffee shop or sandwich bar first? By starting small you can hone your skills and lower the risk if, for example, you don’t actually cut it as a business owner.  

So if you have a new website that’s “nearly ready” or are thinking of starting a blog why not launch it today and write your first blog post. If you have a bricks and mortar business in the offing could you service customers today if it were open? I’ve leave it up to you.

Posted in Marketing | 2 Comments »

2 Comments - have your say

1. lottiel1 Says:

   Small business owners must leave procrastination to the big companies. Small businesses have flatter structures and decision making must hence be much faster.

2. Beverley Hall Says:

   It took me 12 months of checking and double checking before finally taking the plunge into business for myself. In the end my husband just rushed me through a few clients and I had to get on with it. It’s true that idle hands make much work and my advice to anyone spending their time procrastinating would be to just do it.

   Thanks

   Bev

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