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Tag Archive: analysis paralysis

3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail

Written on September 23, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Entrepreneurship

target Many people are surprised at how hard it is to get a new idea off the ground. It takes planning, persistence and patience along with constant action.

There are a number of reasons why entrepreneurs miss the mark. We’ll talk about three of them today.

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RAS – Ready Aim Syndrome

A lot of people spend a lot of time looking for that perfect idea. As soon as they find it, fortune will be theirs.

But the perfect idea never comes. So they find themselves aiming and aiming and aiming.

We have an acquaintance who is always telling us about his latest greatest idea. The problem is he never pulls the trigger. He never does anything because no idea will stand the test of time. By the time he is finally ready for his bigg idea, the opportunity has passed.

RFS – Ready Fire Syndrome

These people have an affliction that is opposite our first group. They don’t have the patience to test their idea slowly and inexpensively.

They think that every idea is a bullseye. All they have to do is get started.

Most ideas are garbage. They won’t stand up to the scrutiny that should be done before launching.

Walking the tight rope
So the challenge in launching a new endeavor is walking that tight rope between analysis paralysis and banning planning. You have to find the balance.

Most successful entrepreneurs probably fire quicker than most people would be comfortable doing. However, the ones who reach bigg success understand that there is tremendous value in the planning process as well.

FTS – Fixed Target Syndrome

Once you launch, you have to understand the need to be fluid. The situation on the ground will change. You will learn things you didn’t know before.

Here’s a very important point – the only way you learn these things is by launching. Those who are still on the sidelines will never catch up. You’re trying to hit a moving target, not a fixed one.

Our miss

Unfortunately, this subject is close to us. We launched a new business late last year. We help financial institutions communicate better with small business owners.

Now you know what’s been going on with financial institutions in the last twelve months. We saw the free fall happen right before our eyes.

But we had been working on this thing for a while. We had surveyed a number of potential customers. Our product was a good fit. So we launched.

But when the economy took a tumble, so did our customers’ budgets.

We kept listening. We responded. We tweaked our product offerings. We certainly can’t report that we’re a bigg success yet with this venture, but it seems to be gaining traction.

Along the way, we’ve learned a lot about our customers and about business. We certainly can look back and see things we would do differently. But that will always be the case.

The important thing is to get an idea, test it to see if it’s a good opportunity and then get started and adapt. That leads to bigg success. At least we hope so!

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Thanks so much for checking in with us today. Please join us next time when we’ll talk about when to shut up. Guess that’s our cue. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Think Like an Entrepreneur

(Image in today's post by jaylopez)

Tags: analysis paralysis, audioblog, bigg success, bullseye, financial institutions, fortune, george krueger, idea, mary-lynn foster, new endeavor, opportunity, patience, persistence, podcast, ready aim fire, successful entrepreneurs, test of time, the bigg success show, tight rope

2 Comments

The Need to Lead – Part 1

Written on February 17, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Leadership, Personal Growth

We are thrilled today to talk with Douglas E. Welch on The Bigg Success Show. Douglas is the host of Career Opportunities, a fantastic podcast where he helps people build the career they deserve. He is also a writer and computer consultant with articles published in Wired, MacWorld, and the Los Angeles Times. As if that’s not enough, he also conducts seminars on podcasting for schools and businesses.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk with Douglas on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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marylynn One of the things we wanted to talk with you about today is that you have declared 2009 “The Year of Leadership.”

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douglas This year was a definite conscious decision to choose a theme. It started about three years ago when I decided that, working alone in my home office, I had really become disengaged from my community – both the tech community that I work in and the community in general. So for my own personal decision, I decided to make that year the Year of Reconnecting and Getting Out. In 2008, I stumbled across the idea of the Year of Visibility, which I also think is very important. It’s about people making visible what they do and how they do it. So when 2009 rolled around, I realized that this was getting to be a great idea for each year. I was already working on a column and a podcast on leadership. If there’s ever been a year in my lifetime when I really needed to exercise leadership and get that out of other people as well, this is the year. We’ve simply been lacking leadership in a lot of ways across the entire world.

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george I love that you said you need to do this. When you announced this on your show, you were really clear that it was about personal leadership leading to engaging a community and getting other followers.

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douglas Everything starts at home. Sometimes I think we forget that. I could see in myself areas where I needed to lead more – whether that’s in my business, in my podcast, in my column or whatever. I think a lot of people have gotten the idea that leadership only exists “out there” somewhere. It’s something that takes place in the executive suite, in the boardroom, or in higher levels of government. The fact is that leadership is a fundamental aspect of our lives that we exercise – or should exercise – every single day.

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marylynn In your Year of Leadership, what are some of the steps that you’ve been taking? What challenges have you faced?

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douglas I remember when I worked in a corporate office and lunch time would roll around and the question came up about where we were going to go for lunch. And no one would decide! It’s kind of a joke, but kind of not. One of the simplest things you can do is start making decisions. Too many of us abdicate our decision making. We don’t decide and face problems with that down the road. So most fundamentally, it’s just stepping up and making decisions. Now I realize why we don’t make decisions. We’re scared – scared of failing, scared of making the wrong decisions. The fact is there is no wrong decision because each decision you make brings you closer to what you need. If something doesn’t work, you say, “You know what, that didn’t work. We’re going to try this now.” The point is to keep moving forward and to keep making those decisions so you don’t suffer what I’ve heard described as “analysis paralysis.” You spend all your time looking at all the different options out there and never end up doing anything.

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marylynn I think one of the scariest things when you’re trying to step up your leadership role is that you might have to challenge the existing leadership. How do you tip toe around that?

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douglas One of the ways is what we’ve already discussed. You start making decisions for yourself. It’s a relatively non-threatening way of pushing those decisions up the silo. One of the best things we can do as a human being is set a good example by our actions. As people see you making decisions, it helps them to take the reins as well and move forward.

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