Last week we took steps to protect our young business development ideas/seedlings from any additional threats which might jeopardise their success after the period of disruption ends. This week’s focus is to find methods which will encourage them to grow quickly so that they’re no longer fragile seedlings. Hence, this week’s illustration shows well-established plants. I hope that you’ll soon consider your own initiatives to be as solid as these lettuces.
Here are my tips on how you can achieve this quickly:
- Use your energy wisely, especially if you’re feeling disheartened or overwhelmed by the disruption of the continuing lockdown. Plants rely on their hormones, called auxins (also called apial meristems), to identify whether it’s time to focus on growing longer roots to find water, or develop leaves above ground to capture energy from the sun. In a similar way, I encourage you to direct your energy towards the areas of your business which will deliver you the best results right now.
- Develop your mindset to be as strong as you’d like your projects/plants to be. You will need to maintain a positive approach to overcome the obstacles which your business might encounter next. An indomitable attitude is what’s needed to be an entrepreneur, as defined by entrepreneur.com here. It has many similarities to a growth mindset, which is why I recommend this type of thinking during the early stages of any type of new development.
- For your new initiatives to succeed, it is important that you have confidence in them yourself. Do not allow your business growth to be held back by doubt or your “inner critic”. If you’ve planted your seedling of an idea after you’ve followed all the steps which I’ve described in the previous Memos in this series, you know that you have good reasons to believe in the relevance of this product/service adaptation for your clients in the current conditions. Be clear about what you’re planning and how it fits your existing strategy.
- It is perfectly appropriate to force your idea into early production. Gardeners use techniques to force plants to bloom early. Most familiar is forced rhubarb, which reaches the market before its slower cousin. If you stumble upon an opportunity which suits your new product, give it a trial run and gauge the reaction which it receives, even if it’s faster than you’d expected. Next Monday I’ll provide guidance on taking your new produce to your market for sale. You can find all previous instalments in this series on my website, free, under business resilience .
This week’s actions to help you to IDENTIFY
Growth hacks for your project – a short list of suggested tasks:
- Ask yourself what is working well for you at present.
- Direct your energy into that area which you should find rewarding and good for your confidence.