In the Apollo 13 movie Tom Hanks reports to Houston that oxygen is leaking out of the craft. They are hundreds of thousands of miles from home with time ticking away. Quite literally their lives were on the line. They and the team at NASA needed to push their minds beyond convention, beyond baby steps and come up with a bold, solid idea in a few hours. They did and saved the Apollo 13 crew. What made the difference in comparison to the extended time they take to plan and execute a space launch? Circumstance.
This is a call to arms for all you business owners and side hustlers who are trying to grow but may be wondering what’s holding you back? It may be that you’re too timid about your business decisions. It could be that you don’t do much marketing. Or it could be like I was at a time, too scared that someone bigger than you will steal your idea and turn it into a success thereby pushing you out of the market.
Well, guess what? Theft happens all the time. Reluctance to get your idea out there is literally killing your future. People will steal your idea. Why do you think there’s knock offs? Yes, people will buy those knock offs. They will continue to buy them until they see that the genuine article is miles better than the fake. They will buy from you when they can resonate with your brand. You do that by not holding back and taking bold steps.
To take such bold steps you need to be courageous, fearless and amazing. You can’t settle for baby steps. You can’t take your time when you’re trying to build a brand. You have to make leaps. True there are some parts of branding that is the long game, but gaining awareness and new business is not.
You need to run your business like it’s going to close in 3 months. Make dramatic choices about marketing as if your families’ livelihood depended on it. In essence you need to put yourself on the line. All of those scenarios are fueled by fear, which can be a powerful driver to accomplish what you didn’t think possible because the possibility of the alternative is something you cannot accept. Only then will you use your greatest asset, your mind, to push your business to heights you never thought imaginable.
Prince once said there is no other option for him. It was going to be music or nothing. And if you recall Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories he did have another option. There is no Plan B if this doesn’t work out. It’s going to work out or it’s going to go down in a blaze of glory. And if it does go down in a blaze of glory, I’ll salvage what I can and do it again better. Don’t be afraid to fail. Accept it, embrace it, welcome it. Seth Godin says fail often. What he means by that is be in the game, your industry, long enough that all your minor failures set you up for the major win. When you do that, by the time the copycats come around you will have your stuff so tight that you’ll be churning out so much amazing product, content or service that they can’t keep up. No one ever considers copycats and pirates competition. Napster lost, Pirate Bay (piracy website) lost and the businesses, artists and studios they copied from are still in business.
I’ll never forget one time I was attending the funeral service of an acquaintance. I did not have the privilege of creating the funeral programs for their loved one, or so I thought. People were coming up to me telling me I did a nice job on the program. My wife even got mad at me for not telling her I did the programs. I’m like I didn’t do them until I was handed a copy. There it was. Almost an exact replica of one of my designs. They even used the exact ornament I use with my program design. Now, my eyes are trained to spot details in production and I could see that they must have scanned in a program I did for another family that they attended the service for and then used it in their design. I could tell this because I could see the pixilation in it and the fact that they could only use my corporate colors. The difference in mine is that I have the ability to alter the colors of my designs to suit the preferences of the family, which is by design. My copycat could not, but a knock off is a knock off. The family was happy apparently. This was neither the time nor place to confront such sacrilege. Now I could have tried and tracked the person down and confronted them in a whirlwind of anger. However, I thought, what’s the point? Yes it was nice, I’ll give you that, but it wasn’t better than mine. Who knows what they went through or put the family through to produce the knock off?
I looked at it as a sign I was on to something. People don’t copy trash. They copy what they like and what other people want. Thus I decided that I would do something bold. I’d come out with new designs yearly. By the time they grow their side business with that one design, I’ll have 10 more people can choose from. By the time they copy my new 10, I’ll have another 10 with a more streamlined service and more brand awareness. Thus when families see the original and knock off they’ll see the difference and most likely choose me. They have.
You need to do the same. Don’t fear competition. Beat the competition by longevity. They’ll be so frustrated that they have no foothold in the market that they’ll give up and you’ll still be here. It was such a relief to hear words like that from one of my clients. I had been trying to win their business for years. But they had internal obligations that wouldn’t allow me to be their primary supplier. I didn’t give up on them, but kept pushing myself and improving. By the time they did sign everything I did was better and perfectly matched with what they needed. He said to me that he knew I’d been trying to get him and other funeral homes for some time and he’s glad I stuck around because he loves our products, the families do and he refers me regularly. He’s been with me as a regular client for 5 years now.
You need to be determined not to let your business crumble. The realization of the future you want for yourself and your family is dependent on it. Here’s an exercise you can do to start pushing your mental boundaries. Ask yourself these questions:
- What decisions would I make to drastically scale my business if I lost my job?
- If I were faced with foreclosure in 3 months how would I make five times more money?
- If I moved into a new area and had to start from scratch what would I need to do to get everyone talking about me?
- What can I do that my competitors are unwilling to do?
- Which revenue stream can I concentrate on to get new business quickly?
The goal is to think outside the box. There is no place in your business for small thinking and small goals that are easily attainable. While you’re taking baby steps your competitors with their vastly larger budget are making moves that will push you out of business. Get their attention. Amazon did. Netflix did. Uber did. All small businesses that took bold ideas putting their lives on the line and we look at them as models of successful businesses. Think about their competitors, Amazon-Department stores, Netflix-Blockbuster and Uber-Taxis. All of them took a bold step while their competitors thought they were jokes and now who’s on top? You can do the same.
Understand there are no new ideas, just quicker ways of doing the same thing. Anything that is in your mind will eventually come out by someone else and you’re going to say, “They stole my idea!” No they didn’t. They were just bold enough to put it out there, not fearing backlash, copycats or failure. Laser focus and double down on what’s working and use that to dramatically increase new business and cash flow. Once that has grown you can take a breather and get back to executing solid strategy that will ensure you’re in it for the long run. Very much like golf, you need to have a short game and a long game. The long game will get you to the hole, but your short game seals the win. Continue to develop bold, out-of-the box ideas that will keep people talking about you. The more people are aware of you the greater your chances of gaining new business. When you do that it won’t be a matter of your business or your life. It will be your business gives you new life
