On Saturday I spoke at the Independent Newspaper's One Life event at Olympia in London. As usual I had a great time on stage, and it was also great to meet so many enthusiastic entrepreneurs-to-be afterwards.
My publisher had a stand at the event too and sold a lot of my books, so it was a pretty good day all round!
At a lot of these events I include a bit in the speech about the importance of focus - and how so many aspiring entrepreneurs are bad at it. They've always got new ideas popping up, and anything new is instantly more exciting - so they lose track of what's important. They run around like crazy doing lots of little things instead of directing their energy at the one big idea. It leaves them overstretched and exhausted.
On Saturday I was struck again by how many of the people staying for a chat afterwards remarked that they recognised themselves in my description, and that they were going to try to be more focused.
In How to be an Entrepreneur I write a large section of the book about this subject, because it is so important - and difficult - for entrepreneurs to do.
So if you are struggling with keeping the focus, it's well worth dipping into the book for some tips. But here, just for you, are a few key ideas:
1. Make yourself sit down and write a 'Company Focus'. This is the answer to the question 'What is my company for?'. It should be short and snappy. If it takes paragraphs to explain then you need to simplify your business idea to create more focus.
2. Create some 'imaginary friends'. These are simply profiles of imaginary people that represent your typical customers. Give them names and really get to know them. Then, whenever you are making decisions, decide what their reaction to those decisions would be, and how that affects what you choose. This simple method will really help you to focus on what's important for your target customers.
3. At the end of each day actually write down what the most important thing is that you should do the next day to achieve your Company Focus - then make sure you do it. It's so easy to get distracted by other things and then not do what really matters.
Those are just a couple of easy tips to get you started. I'm also interested in hearing your feedback and tips? are you good at staying focused? What distracts you? What are your tips for staying focused?
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Thu, 03/08/2007 - 13:12
Hi Steve,
I visited the One Life show on Friday, so unfortunately I didn't get to hear you talk - which was a shame! This post isn’t particularly about focus, but it relates to your book!
I have been reading your book however, How To be an Entrepreneur, and I enjoyed it very much - not only that - it made me think!
Among the aspects you talk about in the book are always being on the lookout for opportunities and having the right attitude. The importance of these ideas was brought home to me whilst I was at the show.
My wife and I are thinking of moving to Cornwall this year; get away from the big smoke and go and live by the sea. At the show I talked to a couple of companies that dealt with re-locating and sourcing properties.
One I talked to was very helpful, they didn't actually deal with the Cornwall area but the person I talked to was interested in my plans and offered to pass my name and address onto a company that she knew worked in the south-west. We had a good chat and I came away thinking positive thoughts about the company and what they offered!
I talked to another company about my move and their response was they only really dealt with properties in Devon – that was it – no “perhaps we could help somehow”, or “have you tried this” or “we may be expanding to cover Cornwall if there is a need – can we taker your name?”. That kind of killed any interest I had in the company there and then - there seemed no point in carrying on any conversation!
The significance of this would probably have passed me by had I not been reading your book the previous week; here were two companies working in similar lines of work - one of which I felt good about and would do business with and another one which I felt nothing for (neither positive or negative really) and probably wouldn’t use..
When I start my company (I’ve read your book, so it’s When – not If!!) I’ll try and remember that every enquiry is an opportunity!
Cheers,
Stu Slicer
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