I’ve had the opportunity to work with many executives driving innovation and entrepreneurs paving new paths in my career at companies of every shape and size. With this said, I’ve seen a lot of blood, sweat and tears that brought either great success or lost opportunities. What repeatedly strikes me about every entrepreneur and innovative leader I have worked with is their perseverance, passion and resourcefulness. I’ve seen very strategic entrepreneurs and executives with strong buttoned up business plans and those that “just do it”. And, I’ve seen success with both approaches. Where I get a bit perplexed is when the “just do it” leaders are surprised if they find out that their vision can’t be executed, their customers are not interested in their product or service, they need far more capital than they thought, they don’t have enough staff and the list goes on.
The fly by the seat of your duck approach.
I was reminded of this “just do it” approach the other day when I admittedly watched Duck Dynasty for the first time. The episode I watched, a rerun, was about the family’s purchase of a winery. They had a very rough idea of their vision but a lot of impatience to get there. They brought in an expert to consult with them but when this expert told them they are at least one year off from literally seeing the fruits of their labor, they got impatient. They decided to disregard the experts advice especially when he told them the grapes to make wine have no correlation to the grapes in the grocery store.
They went to the grocery store anyway and purchased cases of sugar and regular grapes. They pulled off an “I love Lucy” moment by getting in a large vat of grapes to stomp on them. I sure hope they at least put on clean boots and not their duck hunting ones. Using the equipment at the winery, they started to make their wine. They then hosted a wine tasting to preview their first wine. To their surprise — not to their viewers — the invited guests were disgusted by the wine. While Duck Dynasty is obviously reality TV with lots of intended drama, it is not that far off in theory from the trials and tribulations some “just do it” executives and entrepreneurs go through when trying to roll out a high-priority initiative or new business.
While the Duck Dynasty family had an idea to further leverage the brand they are building, they had not clearly mapped out a vision, strategy or plan. I am sure they did not have any type of ROI model and they definitely had no product development or operational plan. But they had perseverance, passion and resourcefulness. There is no doubt that some of the greatest start-ups and inventions of our time, have come from entrepreneurs that flew by the seat of their pants.
You can stay agile and still reduce risk with a little effort.
Whether you are starting a new business, launching a new product line, entering a new market, rolling out a new e-commerce platform, why not take a handful of actions that can help make things smoother and reduce risk such as those outlined below.
Document your vision and key objectives: Assuming you have defined your vision, unique reason for being and key objectives, document it in MS Powerpoint or the like. This makes it easier to present to others versus giving them a lengthy MS Word or PDF document to read. It can also be the start of your “living” business plan.
Share your vision and elicit feedback: Share the vision document with your team and trusted advisors. Let them throw darts at it and then refine it where it makes sense. If they ask questions, listen carefully and gather the insights that come from their questions and perspectives.
Outline your key strategies to bring your vision to life: With your vision, unique reason for being and key objectives in hand, think through the key strategies that will tick and tie back to them. Your key strategies are the marching orders for your team. Everything you and your team do going forward should tie back to your key strategies. If they don’t, you have to ask yourself if the activity is critical.
Make sure your business model is sound: Your business model defines how your organization or high-priority initative will “uniquely” create value and your approach to create that unique value. It combines your vision, unique reason for being, target audiences, key strategies, revenue model, competitive advantages, product plans, operational plans, human resource plans and technology plans and turns them into a high-level actionable model that can be executed.
Take the time to walk in your customers shoes: While it would be nice to have a market research budget, it is not always the case for smaller companies. There are many ways to get insights from your customers whether it be through one-on-one interviews, down and dirty focus groups, 3rd party research or even pulling together the sales and customer support teams to have them role play different customer groups based on their years of experience. If you have a budget, even better, you can take a user-centered approach to gather customer insights.
Don’t skip the business case complete with financial models: This is one of the most important activities you can undertake. You may have to work from all assumptions but this is where you start to turn your vision into reality. With the right resourcefulness you can make good assumptions but don’t expect perfection. If you find your vision is not profitable in a reasonable period of time given the investment you have or plan to raise, you may need to make adjustments to your vision and strategy. Or you may conclude, the business is not viable. If this is the case, it’s better to find out sooner than later. A solid, detailed business case gives you and your team the KPI targets to work towards and allows you to establish measurable goals.
Move from vision and strategy to action with a project plan: If you feel good about your vision, strategy, ability to generate cash and the investment required, put together a realistic project plan—high level and/or low level. The project plan will combine your key strategies, business case, business decisions, marketing plan, product development efforts, technology plan and operational plan.
Nothing ever turns out exactly as planned. Therefore, as you learn along the way, don’t’ forget to update your vision, strategy, business model, ROI model and project plan so that you always have a current state of your business.
