Ideas Are Plentiful, Success Is Rare

I wanted to avoid the clichéd “ideas are a dime a dozen”, but I really couldn’t agree more with that. For as long as I can remember I have been coming up with “genius” business ideas, ideas that if executed would make me, or anyone else billionaires. That is always the problem, if they are executed, but they rarely are.

So many people are the same way. You come up with this gold mine of an idea that you protect by not telling anyone because you don’t want anyone to steal your future fortune, but you also protect it by sheltering it from criticism and daylight. You tuck that genius idea of yours away and let it rot while you keep doing the same thing you’ve always been doing. While I do agree that you have to be protective of your dreams as people will often stomp on them unconsciously (a totally different post for another day), but you have to eventually let them out.

It is important to try and be creative, that’s basically what the entrepreneurship process is all about, creating a business. However, what is more important is making a business model that functions, and that people can understand, because if nobody understands your business model, how do you expect your managers and employees to execute for you? Oftentimes the best businesses are from the simplest ideas, but these ideas are executed like clockwork.

Whatever your business ideas are, you need to have a clear plan of attack. You need to know what your action items are, and you need to do them. One of the keys to business success is execution of simple tasks, not planning some complex business model that you will never execute. Businesspeople need to get things done, and if you are always trying to come up with the best idea or novel business model, you won’t be getting the things done that you need to get done. So on that note, if you could only get a small number of things done tomorrow for your business (or for you future business) what would they be? Are they concrete real actions, or are you just brainstorming? Do stuff now, don’t just think about what you need to do.