It's not the number of projects you're involved in but...

the strategies you use to bring those projects to life.

At least that's the view from here. I don't think the issue is the number of projects or interests you have...but what you do to advance them--at least from a money-making perspective. Most people (myself included) basically 'mess around the fringes' of a project without actually doing the most important thing, which is testing the project out in the real world with space-ads, pr releases, classified ads, flyers (or a thousand other ways to market a product). Due to the fear of failure (most of the time, but certainly not all the time) we wait 'until the time is right' or until the product is 'perfect' before we see if it will as Direct Marketing expert Denny Hatch says 'fog the mirror' or in other words has life. From talking to many others that have wanted to sell products or services, this is the place where most come up short--actually spending some hard-earned cash to see if the product or service will sink or swim.

But this is the most critical step. And to succeed this is the step that can not be avoided no matter how much wishing you do or how much extra time you take to make the product or service 'perfect'.

Now as far as the number of plates you should be spinning at one time to see what will work or what will fail...the number varies (obviously) from person to person but I hestitate to say, the actual time required to create and market most products and services is a lot less than what you would normally think. Instead of creating and then test marketing the product or service we mess around with it...until something more interesting comes along. Since we didn't actually test the product or concept we didn't technically fail, which of course makes us feel good in the short term but in the longterm gives us that 'lack of accomplishment' feeling.

What we need are not always fewer projects but the willingness to see a project through to completion...be in good or most of the time bad (which actually isn't 'bad' because we do manage to learn a great deal even if we place an ad for a product that costs us a couple hundred bucks and we get zero replies).

Eric Beinhocker, commented on the 1988 COMDEX show (the computer industry's trade show) by making a striking observation of Microsoft, which is certainly a company we could all learn something from:

"While most booths focused on a single blockbuster technology, Microsoft's resembled a Middle Eastern bazaar. In one corner, the company was previewing the second version of...Windows...In another, it touted its latest release of DOS. Elsewhere, it was displaying OS/2...[and] major new releases of Word, Excel...[and] SCO Unix.
'What am I supposed to make of all this?' grumbled a corporate buyer standing next to me. Columnists wrote that Microsoft was adrift...[and] had no strategy.
...in 1988 it wasn't obvious which operating system would win. In the face of uncertainty, Microsoft followed the only robust strategy: betting on every horse to win."

Microsoft didn't just have many products and services, it marketed many products and services to see which would 'fog the mirror'.

And while we do not have the resources of Microsoft, we do have the ability to juggle more than one product (at least most of us anyway). But the critical point is actually testing it...honestly and concretely and then either putting full-force behind it or letting it die a natural death. Most of our projects are not going to work--that is why I think focusing on just one at a time is not the best use of your abilities.

So in closing I don't think it matters how many projects we have going on in at one point, but are we seeing them to completion? I think it is common to misrepresent a 'lack of focus' as the reason for a project(s) not being completed (either positively or negatively) but quite often the real reason is the unwillingness to let the project fail.

Take care,

Mike Winicki


How to REALLY test your idea!