There is a LOT to do in a new business. And if you want to make a living sooner than later, you kinda have to do it quickly. I don’t want to panic anyone, or get you thinking that you’ve got to outrun your heart. That said, there is a time to get yer rear in gear.
Of course, the paralyzing factor is that because you really care about the folks you are trying to reach, you don’t want to look like a sloppy nebbish in the process. (Nebbish is from the Yiddish “nebekh” for someone who is “pitifully ineffectual.”)
So what’s the balance between “get’r’done” and letting it be imperfect versus polishing it to a high sheen? I was musing on this after reading a blog post at Ittybiz by JohnnyBTruant. Johnny talks about the evolution he’s gone through in a mere seven months of being in business and having a blog.
I gave a short answer in the comments, and more is coming here. But before I explore that middle ground further, I wonder, have you ever seen a child with a pile of crayons?
Crayon-Wielding Terrorists
That’s how a friend of mine used to refer to little kids. Give young children crayons and they’ll be writing everywhere BUT the paper. And even when they do use the paper, they are more aligned with the “inspirational” than the “realistic” school of art.
Let’s just say it how it is: sloppy.
But we don’t worry about kids being sloppy, do we? They are supposed to be. They are just figuring out how to use the tools. They’ll grow into it. In fact, if you’re too strict with kids when they are experimenting, they may never feel confident enough to become skillful.
The same goes for your business.
The Four Stages of Development
If you weren’t aware that small children grow up, you’d despair of the daily mess in the house. Businesses also grow up. For the self-employed and other micro-sized-businesses, I’ve learned there are definite stages of development you go through.
Stage One: Creation. In this stage you are just getting started. You don’t yet know what the heck you’re doing. You may know your skill set and have your expertise, but you may be unsure about a whole bunch of things, including who you’re trying to reach, what you’re trying to offer and what it looks like, where the money is coming from, how you want to present or talk about what you do, and the look and feel of your business.
Things will be a bit of a creative mess. You won’t have a lot of consistency. You may change things up quite a bit from day to day or week to week.
It’s okay, It’s appropriate even. You have to let children play.
Signs that you’re moving out of this stage:
1. You gain clarity about who you are trying to reach.
2. You find a way to present what you do so that people are hiring you, at least sometimes.
3. You find at least one method of marketing that is helping you consistently and effectively connect with clients.
Stage Two: Concentration. Now your business starts to feel more like, well, a business. There’s some solidity happening. Rather than just lurching from one thing to the next, drawing outside the lines, you start experiencing some clarity about what you’re doing and where you’re going. Things start to speed up.
The things you tend to struggle with in this phase include bringing in survival-level income consistently, although you’re still starting from zero each month, so you don’t have stability yet; balancing doing the work with marketing your business; settling into a solid look-and-feel for your business and website; losing remaining awkwardness in articulating your offer to folks; trying to get it all done.
Signs that you’re moving out of this stage:
1. You have one very solid offer and are experimenting with at least two other offers that are in sequence to support having repeat clients.
2. You are experimenting with leveraged offers which don’t require as much of your presence, either through products or serving groups of people.
3. Your marketing efforts are gaining traction, and other people are noticing and spontaneously wanting to help you get the word out.
4. You are experimenting with outsourcing, hiring help where it’s needed so you can focus on what only you can do.
Stage Three: Momentum. Ahh, sweet stability! In this stage you have a sequence of offers so that you have repeat customers. You have some offers that leverage your time, so that you are working with many people at once, or you’re selling products where your personal time is hardly involved at all. You are outsourcing what you can, and focusing on what you do best. You’re marketing is running smoothly, and you have created recurring revenue so that your income has some predictability to it at a level somewhere above survival. You may not be rich, but the business is humming along.
The things you tend to struggle with here are: project management and managing a team, being smart managing your money so you don’t increase your spending too much as the revenue increases, complacency and staying connected to purpose and heart instead, overwhelm as the business becomes more complex, and learning leadership and delegation skills that free you from micro-managing.
Momentum is a great place to stop, there’s no need to go further. With good outsourcing, delegation and project management skills, and an attention to your heart, your business can hum along providing you with a comfortable living and some freedom.
There is a fourth stage, and it is radically different from the other three stages. I call it “Independence.”
Stage Four: Independence. This is where your little one-person with outsourced help micro-business becomes a company. You build a team of people who have an ownership stake in results and outcome, so that instead of just doing what you tell them to do, they are pro-actively helping to manage different aspects of the business.
I call this stage “Independence” because if done successfully, you can provide leadership, but remove yourself from day-to-day work.
I’m not going to write much more about this level because we’re still learning about it ourselves here at Heart of Business. We’re on a cusp, between Stage Three and Stage Four. I made the choice about two years ago that I wanted to grow to Stage Four, because I really wanted to learn about leadership, teamwork, and collaboration. As a result, my role here in the business has changed radically.
But all of that is for another time.
Let’s Return to Perfectionism
As you might imagine, attention to detail and perfectionism matter more as you develop along the stages. In Stage One, it’s far more important to get something imperfect out the door. Spending time perfecting anything is nearly useless, because you don’t even know if what you’re doing will work.
I’m not saying don’t run your writing through a spell checker for typos and such. It is, however, okay to show up as human with foibles and mistakes.
In Stage Two, perfectionism starts to be a bit more useful. And guess what? Since you aren’t spending so much time experimenting like you were in Stage One, you can put that effort into improving what does work.
In Stage Three, perfectionism becomes an asset, as long as it’s not paralyzing you. The better designed everything is, the more attention to detail is paid, the smoother your business will run, and the less time and money you’ll have to spend fixing problems, answering questions, or in general cleaning up after your mess.
Imperfection and Vulnerability Go Hand-In-Hand
The funny thing is, once you’ve been in business for some time, once you’ve gotten to stages two and three, you realize that mistakes don’t kill you. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to who has had success freely admits to their mistakes, almost proudly. “Hey, look at all the mistakes I’ve made!”
In contrast, when you’re new in business, feeling more vulnerable and lost, it’s easier to cling to perfectionism as a kind of protection, shielding you from all the uncertainty that is present in your business.
Of course you have a great thing going for you at this point- many fewer people know about you and your business, so when you’re sloppy, so many fewer people see it. Now if that’s not a gift of compassion from the Divine, I don’t know what is.
If you’re in Stage One, the best thing you can do is to embrace your vulnerability. Open your heart to the creative and sloppy imperfections in your business, and play with those crayons. Trust that the sloppiness and mistakes in this stage are not holding you back, just the opposite–they are making it possible for your business to move into the later stages of development.
19 Responses
Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed to hear. I am starting a new business and last week, I went on vacation with my family. I thought a lot about how I can’t be somewhere I’m not with my business – and how expecting myself to be so, simply creates unproductive tension.
I came home with the express desire to embrace exactly where I am in the process of developing my business (which feels SO GOOD). What is heartening about this approach is that my “messy coloring” right now doesn’t in any way mean that my business won’t eventually be successful, nor does it mean that it’s a failure right now – it simply means I am exactly where I need to be.
Again, thank you so much for your insightful posts!
.-= Nona´s last blog ..Being an Entrepreneurial Superstar =-.
I love your example about the kids and the crayons. I think it’s particularly insightful because, like children growing up, you don’t realize how much you’re going to miss the old stages. I miss my son at two (because I am a crazy person) but I also miss my business at one. I miss the messiness of the crayons.
It’s funny how you can be barely out of the mess and already you miss the mess. So, like you say, let yourself be a little sloppy. You’ll miss the hell out of it later. That doesn’t mean you want to stay there forever, because then you wouldn’t grow. But the crayon stage is a lot of fun.
Another 1 am point I thought of… there’s nothing wrong with missing old stages. There’s nothing wrong with looking back nostalgically, even when you’re only looking back a couple of months. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on the wrong path.
Nice one, Mark.
.-= Naomi Dunford´s last blog ..101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions For People Who Don
This is good stuff. I’m so mired in the evolving stages (I think I’m late Stage 2) that it’s hard to believe that there actually is a stage where stability and detail matter.
By the way, your site required me to add 3 plus 5 to leave this comment, to prove that I’m human. But this is wrong. If I mess up, I can still be a human, and just be stupid. Perhaps screening me out would still make sense in that case, but hey.
.-= Johnny B. Truant´s last blog ..How to simplify your business
Insightful and grace-filled post. I love hearing that coloring outside the “business” lines is meaningful part of progress–forward movement, not imperfection. Your approach to marketing allows for space to be fully human! I say amen to that! Thanks and blessings Mark!
.-= Lee Miller´s last blog ..Ode to the Dash =-.
In an earlier life, I built a tiny business to several locations and a bunch of employees. Had I not found “The E-Myth” I probably would have died of exhaustion, as I suffered from that idea that everything had to be perfect. (My definition of “perfect” being exactly the way I would have done it.)
The phrase that somehow stuck in my head was “we have reached that mystical land of ‘good enough'” and that it would be OK to stop. That meant that what the employee was doing didn’t look exactly like what I would have done, but it was acceptable to a customer. And (the most wonderful part) I hadn’t had to lift a finger!
I’d recommend that book, and the later ones in the series, to anyone trying to build their small business from “just me” to “me and some other people.”
And what’s with giving me a tougher addition question than Johnny? I had 10 + 8 — one of them was two digits!
.-= Dick Carlson´s last blog ..The Only Ones With A Problem With Our Interface Are The Users =-.
That’d be awesome if it gave you the length of one leg of a triangle and a reading off of a surveyor’s transit and asked you to use the cosine law to find the height of a building or something.
.-= Johnny B. Truant´s last blog ..How to simplify your business
Ooh I like this. Messiness makes sense in the beginning. This actually made me think of Martial Arts as well. As a white belt (or before you even get your white belt!) you’re just trying to wrap your head around what you’re supposed to be doing. Then as you move along, you figure things out, start to get your body to do what you want it to do, etc.
Then you get to the black belt stage and you can even teach others how to do it eventually. 🙂
.-= Nathalie Lussier´s last blog ..7 Illogical Reasons for Doing a Fast =-.
As always I love how much clarity you bring to the topic. And I can say that you’re spot on re identifying what stage you’re in and when you’re moving to the next.
And it’s very reassuring to know that there’s nothing “wrong” with my business. Ahh. Feels good to be able to settle in a little and not be so burdened by that little voice that keeps saying “not enough.”
Thank you!
Blessings
Judy
.-= Judy Murdoch´s last blog ..How to Persuade without Trying =-.
Thanks for this lovely post. It always helps me to see the developmental trajectory and to know that it’s ok to be where I am, even as I look ahead to where I want to be.
I think I need to learn more about the mystical land of “good enough” so I’m not always shooting past it on the way to the mythic land of “perfection.”
@Nona- Woo-hoo! Glad it landed. And you started a new business AND went on vacation! You’re already doing something right. 😉
@Naomi- Oh, I hear ya. I saw some of the little sweaters the boys wore back in their first months, and I totally miss those days.
@Johnny- We’re just trying to keep the riff-raff out. Seriously, perhaps we need to change the captcha, or get rid of it completely.
@Lee- Making a mess is sometimes what it’s all about. Moving from Stage 3 to Stage 4 I’m making a BIG mess. We even cancelled our fall retreat because of my mess-making. Sigh…
@Dick- Michael G definitely smacked that one out of the park. And I love the mystical land of “good enough.” Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of it…
Dick… Dick… you know we make conservative-types jump through more hoops here in wacko-spiritual-whack-job land.
@Johnny- That’s a great idea. I wonder if I can find any Sufi surveryors…
@Nathalie- Exactly. Whether one is a ninja, a crayon-wielding terrorist, or a crunchy-food-obsessed witch ;-), we can all be messy together.
@Judy- Nothing wrong. Sometimes, we just need to do a little extra laundry and invest in a few more bibs.
@Liz- There’s a real value in distinguishing between mystical and mythic. You nailed it. Love that.
Mark, I count on your blog’s “what’s-the-sum-of” filter to stave off the slow moldering of my aging brain. Or at least to track its decline! 🙂
Thank you for another wise, insightful, kind-hearted post. Vulnerability and imperfection are built into the human condition. So, they’re our companions in all stages of business, and of life. To embrace them is to embrace what is. And that’s both wisdom and compassion.
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last blog ..A Fine Romance =-.
Mark, I REALLY appreciated this post. I am not a very linear thinker, but your post helped me to break down the growth of my business into manageable segments that I can identify and focus on. Even better, choose which would be best to focus on now and which to leave for a later stage. As others have said, and as a fellow workaholic entrepreneur, I also appreciated how objective and lacking in judgement this piece was. There’s no shame in being wherever I am, just light and truth and direction to the next step. I can’t tell you how heartening and relieving that is. Thank you so much!
Great post Mark. I agree…the phases of your growth definitely make a difference for the level of “quality” output.
I’d also add that who your target audience also shoudl be considered with the level of perfection in your work product. For instance, the “affluent” market won’t tolerate sloppy where as other markets may not care about a few typos.
Thanks for an insightful post!
Melanie
.-= Melanie Benson Strick´s last blog ..Pitching or Connecting? 3 Tips for Remarkable Networking Results =-.
@Hiro- Yup, mistakes are always with us. It just gets more important to catch’em, and we have more space, experience and focus to catch’em, the further along we go. 🙂
@Michele- Fantastic! I’m always relieved to hear when I’ve managed to be so gentle with myself that no self-judgment leaks into the writing to impact anyone else. That’s a win. 🙂
@Melanie- You are so dead-on about the target market. Thanks for bringing that point up. And, still, when you’re in stage one, there may not be a lot you can do about flopping around.
put off reading this because perfectionism isn’t my issue. But glad I came by because that 4 stage thing is magic. Made me realize that I keep getting ahead of myself.
I think that when I get to a stage where I need perfectionism, I’ll know I need to outsource stuff 🙂
.-= JoVE´s last blog ..Why is it so hard to write a 30-word summary of my book? =-.
Mark,
Thank you for this. I am NOT starting a business, but I am the “founder” of a spiritual group. My work comes from the heart and is meaningful to me in a way that is profound. I often wonder if I am up to the task put to me. The stages that you talked about in this post apply entirely to the growing up of a spiritual tradition as much as they do to a business. I needed to hear this today, to remember that things are where they need to be for the stage we’re in and its ok.
@JoVE- ah, the hook that wasn’t… glad you read it anyway. yes- I always try to outSource my perfectionism…
@Sandy- glad it gave you that spaciousness. It’s so nice to just start small, eh?
Thanks Mark!
@Kyle Yer welcome!