No . . . Not Now
Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash
A simple (and strategic) technique for founders with more ideas than they know what to do with.
I’ve written before about the tendency for entrepreneurs to prefer having lots of options, rooted in their fear of missing out (FOMO) rather than focusing on what they need to do to establish a track record of success — i.e., focus. I call it optionality, and you can read about it here.
Somewhat longer ago, I also wrote on the problems that may arise when entrepreneurs become distracted by every new idea, marketplace, channel, technology or what-have-you that comes down the pike. I wrote about that here.
These traits can result in highly counterproductive behaviors such as launching multiple products in multiple categories, too soon, launching into too many channels too soon to be able to support those channels with the right kind of marketing monies, and failing to hire the right kinds of people to your team to support the various channels. I’ve known entrepreneurs who have tried to manage two or three startups at once.
While this level of optionality can be very good in the early stages, it can sabotage your efforts to develop and execute on your strategy, which is what you need to focus on to grow your company. So, rather than calling for entrepreneurs to change their stripes, so to speak, I suggest a relatively minor lexiconic change from saying, “No!,” to saying, “Not Now.”
Saying “not now” to an idea that doesn’t fit with your strategy causes less pain than saying “no.” If you are taking the time to meet strategically every 90 days, you can revisit the “not nows” during those times, or put them off until the next retreat. This will prevent you from making a rash decision you will soon live to regret and also buys time to gather and bring in the right data to your retreats so you can test new ideas against the facts that support your strategic priorities. I’ve written about story versus fact here.
Not completely killing an idea or change that falls outside your strategic focus is probably going to prove better for morale than saying no, we will never be in GNC or Target and so forth. By deferring non-strategic, optionality-focused decisions to retreats, you free yourself to focus and grow. And before you know it, that child of yours will be a tweenie and then a teenager and, who knows, maybe you will reach the point in time when you can honestly say, “It’s time to reprioritize things a bit around here. Now is as good a time as any!”
Are there things you should be saying “not now” to in your company?
Sincerely,
Enjoy this article? If you would like to see simple, practical tips in your inbox every week sign up for TwoTip Tuesday to help scale your change-the-world business.
All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!