Unveiling a new product or service is an exciting event.
From the moment that the seed of the idea first germinates in your mind until the time you display the full bloom in all its glory, you think about your growing idea every day. It is your brainchild, something that you have nurtured with your full time and attention, often for months or years.
But when is that project completed? The longer I think about a project the more detailed that project becomes. If I don’t stop myself, I end up with a project that may be impossible to complete.
A few years ago, a speaker at a conference for entrepreneurs taught me something that has helped me remove the tethers from my ideas and allow them to fly earlier. The topic was how to prepare your pitch for prospective investors.
“How do you know when your presentation is ready?” the speaker asked. “The answer is simple: always and never.”
Your presentation is always ready, he explained, because you may have to give it today. And it is never ready because once you give it, you will continue to work on and improve it.
Always and never. The idea has great power to help you move forward.
If you wait to unveil your ideas until everything is perfect, you will have nothing to unveil. No matter how well conceived your idea, you will with time find ways to improve and enhance the idea. There never is a perfect time to unveil the idea. You have to instead decide when things are developed well enough to unveil.
Let’s say, for example, that you are reworking your website. (And who isn’t?) You can wait until everything is completed and perfect before you unveil your new website. Or you can unveil your new website in stages, presenting each new portion of the website as it becomes available.
Adopting “always and never” as your motto helps you break monumental tasks into smaller components. Redesigning your website is a monumental task if it entails graphic elements, new design, search engine optimization, a blog, RSS feeds, media room, and new content. By the time you get through that list, you will have developed an entirely new list of projects.
If, on the other hand, you view an updated website as an “always and never” project, your list can consist of subcomponents of each of the larger tasks. Though redesigning a website may seem like a monumental task, you can complete smaller, discrete tasks.
When is your sales pitch done? Always and never. Your employee handbook? Your business plan? Your research and development? Always and never.
Stop worrying about perfection and instead focus on completing smaller, discrete tasks. When you recognize that your projects are “always and never” done, you have discovered the recipe for success.
