Owners are sharing business tips and discussing ways to get paid faster.
Jump to: Page Content, Site Navigation, Open.com Navigation,
Dec 10, 2009 -
You tinker with a product invention in the garage. Then imagine your successful consulting career. Then consider leading action adventure vacations in exotic locations around the world. Or perhaps opening a bed and breakfast in Vermont. It's paralyzing to have multiple business ideas in your head, all vying for attention and energy.
Yet month after month, or sometimes year after year, you never move any of these ideas forward. This makes you want to tear your hair out. There are two root causes to this problem:
Here is how to solve the problem:
In my experience walking many clients through this exercise, removing the emotion from the decision and focusing on objective criteria is all it takes to shake one idea loose from the pack.
By choosing to move forward with a specific business idea, you do not rule out other business opportunities in the future. A healthy consulting practice could beef up your bank account so you could test out one of your action adventure tours. A successful product launch could fund the down payment on your bed and breakfast. It is hard to start many businesses at once, so by staggering your efforts, you give each idea a chance for success.
The only way to guarantee failure in business is to never move your ideas out of your head and into the real world. So get moving, and if one idea doesn't work, move on to the next.
Pamela Slim is a business coach and author of Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur (Penguin/Portfolio, May 2009)
These businesses and more can be found inside the
Connectodex. The showcase for OPEN Business.
Jill Kuraitis
Steve Viuker
Article Comments (4)
Jill Fehrenbacher
CEO, founder
(Dec 11, 2009)Steven Schlagel
CPA, Attorney, Solutions for Small…
(Dec 15, 2009)www.small-business-how-to.com
Barbara Saunders
Writer/Editor/Educator - Advisor to…
(Dec 20, 2009)A successful retail business operator I know started there. He simply decided he'd rather work behind the counter of a store than be in an office. So, rather than getting a "grown up" job, he just opened a store. The passion came much later!
I say this as a person for whom working for others is really aversive - not neutral. Long hours, risk, etc., must be balanced against the absolute horror of having to be somebody else's b****, as far as I'm concerned.
walter bernstein ph.d.
Owner, cambridge group
(Dec 26, 2009)Open Forum Members
log in to commentGuests