Do you have so many ideas and simply not enough hours in the day to make them happen?
Do you sometimes wonder what ideas you should be focusing on?
This is pretty much the reality of the busy, creative and buzzing mind of the female entrepreneur. It’s a beautiful thing, right, but like everything, your strength can also be your weakness. In this case, too many great ideas can trip you up and slow you down.
Trying to do everything at once, means you end up spreading yourself too thin.
Doing too much makes it hard to cut through the noise in the market and get known for doing something really well. It also scatters your mind, makes your to-do list ridiculously long and can leave you feeling overwhelmed.
In The Small Business Life Cycle, Charlie Gilkey says, “All too often, entrepreneurs try to do too much for too many people and they dilute their efforts.” Start by doing something really well and once you’ve nailed it, THEN expand into new ideas and exciting new offerings.
The key to moving your business forward is FOCUS.
How do you know what ideas to follow and what to shelve for now?
Start by looking at what ideas make the most sense by asking these three questions:
- Does this new idea improve your core offering?
- Is this new idea complementary to your core offering?
- Is this new idea profitable?
Gilkey suggests entrepreneurs should only introduce new offerings that are as, or more, profitable than the previous offering (unless you’re using it to get customers into a sales process to buy a more expensive offering).
This is a great point, which means you also need to be running the numbers on your new ideas before jumping in. This can save you spending time and money going down the wrong path (or starting down the right path too soon).
You may be thinking, “What if I miss out on possible customers or opportunities?” The main problem with thinking like this, is it takes you off-course. Your time, energy and money are all precious commodities, don’t waste them.
In their article, Why Entrepreneurs Should Focus On Building Just One Product, JT Marino and Daehee Park of ecommerce mattress start up, Tuft and Needle explain, “Other than just building a great product, focus helps communicate the purpose of your product to the world. It helps with your customers’ understanding of what it is you do and how it compares.” They say:
Stay focused and be exceptional
What a relief! You don’t have to do it all (nor should you try)! When I talk to my clients about this, I see visible relief on their face. Trying to manage everything that a business requires, on top of life commitments is tricky enough without confusing everything by adding lots of new ideas to the mix. It’s mentally exhausting!
Not everything needs to be done right now. Some ideas will be for later when you are further down the track and that’s totally fine. Get focused, get “idea-savvy” and get busy making your core offering amazing.
If you need help moving forward, I’d love to offer you a super–focused 30 minute Skype chat to help you move through your number one challenge at the moment so you can get more focused and keep progressing. Click here to find out more about working with me.
