People who ask HOW work for people who ask WHY
Ask WHY a lot more than HOW.
Here are six questions, in the order you should ask them, that will help you start, grow and build your business. The most important ones are the ones you ask least often.
Tag: business plan
There are 8 posts tagged business plan.
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How to Start a Business
Don’t follow MBA, SBA or SCORE advice.
The SBA’s SCORE site had a “how to start a business” blog recently, but the traditional MBA-style advice is too “ivory tower” to work. It’s both much simpler and a little harder than they make it sound.
If you haven’t been arrested in Tanzania...
...you haven’t lived.
Building a business is a lot like my trip to Tanzania. I was supposed to be there for seven hours just to meet a Congolese Chief. Five days later I was still trying to get across the finish line and get home.
Building a Business is Really Simple
Get out of the garage.
My friend Alan Wyngarden has done some adventure travel and says: “The hardest thing about climbing a mountain is just getting out of the garage.” Huh? Actually, it’s pure genius.
Business is Full of Beaver Dams
Struggle is Good. Embrace The Dams.
Traditional business plan thinking tells you that if you plan well enough, you’ll avoid all the “problems”. But usually it’s those “problems” that lead you to the best plan.
A Business Plan Will Not Make You More Successful
Palo Alto Software, which makes business planning software, just did a survey to their own users to show that those who completed business plans that they started with Palo Alto were nearly twice as likely to successfully grow their businesses or obtain capital as those who didn’t finish.
This research is a classic example of “there are lies, damnable lies, and statistics” (stolen from Twain who got it from someone else). An even more reasonable conclusion – people who DO SOMETHING and follow through on it are twice as likely to successfully grow their business.
Planning won’t even get you a good plan, let alone success.
Stop thinking. Get moving.
Planning does not create success or even the best plan. It also doesn’t create action. Most planning just creates paper, spreadsheets, complexity, doubt, paralysis, and dream-dampening. There are two things that create a far better plan than planning itself.
Why Bad Plans Will Make You More Money Than Good Plans
The Marine Motto.
When I was on the Marine soccer team many years ago, our team action plan was:
“Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something.”
We weren’t the most talented team out there. We played a Brazilian team that was like watching a Monet get painted, or poetry in motion – something like that. The ball stuck to their feet like velcro and they passed and controlled beautifully. When we were lucky enough to get in the way, we would kick the ball as far down the field as we could, run under it and hope we got there first. It was a bad plan, but we carried it out with commitment, and more often than not, our bad plan worked better than their good plan, because we were more committed to our plan than they were to their good one. We didn’t win the league, but we went far beyond our collective skill set, and made it to the finals. Not bad for a bad plan.
