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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

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Shape Shifting Leads to Bigg Success

Written on June 16, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Business

Last time, we discussed the two ways to create wealth: other people’s money and other people’s labor (i.e. their time and talent). Historically, there’s been more focus on other people’s money as the lever to riches. Now, other people’s labor holds more promise.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss shape shifting on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player to listen while you read: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Today’s show extends that concept and is inspired by one of the characters from the HBO hit series, True Blood. Sam Merlotte, who owns the bar, is a shape-shifter. He can change forms – from human to dog and back.

So here’s a little behind the scenes here at Bigg Success: we often get asked how we get ideas for our shows. We’ve been thinking about this shape-shifting thing for some time as a possible fun topic. Then we saw a Harvard article about a new business strategy.

The words “a shape-shifting enterprise” leapt off the page. Voila … a show was born!

Back to the article – it discusses how many large companies are starting to outsource core activities in order to focus resources on solving customer problems.

The author postulates that the future value of companies will be the sum total of all their arrangements. Let’s emphasis that – using words we use more often here at Bigg Success – the future value of businesses, both large and small, will be in the total value of its relationships.

But a key thing to keep in mind is that businesses don’t have relationships; it’s the people in those businesses who have relationships.

You may have a relationship with a customer who has a problem. How many other customers like this customer have the same problem? With how many do you have relationships?

Once you’ve identified that, who in your network can best solve that problem? By becoming the customer’s go-to person (or company) – by delivering the right product or service at the right time for the right price, you’ll create value for your business.

The Harvard article we talked about references a Fortune article about how Chinese and Indian companies are structuring themselves. The answer: they’re positioning themselves to be shape-shifters!

Shape-shifting is a key for us, as entrepreneurs, to survive and thrive in all economic conditions. It extends well beyond outsourcing. It’s an even deeper relationship, which will create more opportunities for small businesses to work with large companies.

To become a shape-shifter:

Watch your operating leverage. The more fixed costs your business has relative to its total costs, the greater your degree of operating leverage. Just like with financial leverage, higher operating leverage can work against us if things take a downturn.

That’s one of the secrets to being able to be a shape-shifter. If you keep your fixed costs low, you can quickly maneuver your organization to take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves.

Seek out strategic alliances. Explore opportunities to collaborate or joint venture with other people and organizations. The do-it-all-yourself mindset is so yesterday. Focus on what you do best and work with people doing what they do best. This is another key to shape-shifting.

Work with anyone and everyone where it’s mutually beneficial, including your competitors. You may find ways to do more together than either of you can do on your own.

Sometimes you may take the lead; sometimes they may take it. You don’t care. You’re shape-shifting yourself to bigg success!

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