If the way you deal with new business opportunities is a bit like a young puppy, peeing on every tree and sniffing every other dog, then maybe it’s time you put yourself on the leash.
Meet Max. He’s not exactly a young puppy but for the purposes of this little tale, he’ll do the trick nicely. Ever noticed how young puppies have a tendency to run around a lot, with no particular direction? They see a great tree, they run over to that. They see another dog, they run there. The point is that to a puppy, any new thing looks like a good thing. And sometimes we tend to do this in business too.
How do you respond to opportunity?
If you have an idea for a new service or product, or a bit of new business walks through the door do you think, ‘hey, opportunity, let’s go for it’? While new ideas and business opportunities can be good, they can also lead us astray and actually stint our growth – not accelerate it. And going astray is something that can often happen without a tight plan. The downside of jumping straight onto every opportunity that comes your way is that you can find yourself doing things that you’re not expert at or set up to do. You also fail to get the real benefit from the investment you make in working out how to do new things in the first place.
Painful lessons
I learnt this lesson myself years ago. Way back I had a business making a Spencer Tracey-Katherine Hepburn inspired range of PJs and robes for David Jones and assorted boutiques. After some coverage in Cosmo magazine ACP marketing approached us about running our chambray PJ as a reader offer. We said yes and it worked really well, leading to a string of other magazine offers. Then one day the marketing person came along and asked if we wanted to run a Valentine’s Day men’s boxer. We said yes.
Why Valentine’s Day was Nightmare Day
At this stage in the business’ growth we’d only just got into DJs menswear with pyjamas, we certainly hadn’t done boxers and we definitely didn’t have a Valentine’s Day design. But hey, it’s business right, and how hard can it be doing a boxer with a heart design on it for heaven’s sake? The offer was NOT successful. To give you an idea how bad, I reckon St Vinnies had enough badly sized, semi-cute heart design boxers to last them the next decade.
Have a plan and stick to the knitting
However even though the boxers cost me some money, they taught me a whole lot more about the ingredients of sustainable business growth. Here are the three key things I learnt:
1. Know what business you’re in 2. Stick to it and really get it pumping before you add in the next new thing 3. Have a tight one page plan for the twelve months ahead – with less detail for the following four years – to guide the decisions you’ll be making today.
What does your one page growth plan look like for 2011 – and for the years ahead?
