Creating an overall strategy

Are you ready to plan your business? Here is the four-step strategy proposed by management consultants Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui:

Think big, start small, fail quickly, scale fast.

Think about the big companies that have failed to think big and missed the next economic shift.
On the other hand, most would-be entrepreneurs never actually get started because they keep thinking big. They plan and plan, subconsciously hoping to avoid actually doing anything. All you need to do is to plan enough to be conversant with trends and potential threats. Then start small, hopefully with no investment. 
If you fail, you fail quickly. (New information may become available as a result of starting, and that new info indicates the idea will not work. But don't give up and call it inevitable failing. Being honest with yourself in the failing process is a HUGE challenge.)
When it starts working, then scale up quickly and become big, before competitors take your ideas. 
  
In case you are interested, here is the Whole Article. Thanks to Dan Pink for pointing it out!

More threatening weaknesses

Here are three other weaknesses that can prevent entrepreneurial success.

•  Introversion tendencies that takes away your ability to deal with multiple people. You need to continually negotiate with employees, customers, suppliers, regulators, realtors, investors, bankers, and contractors. Not everyone can do that. Want to start a business so you can be your own boss? Business owners still have bosses: each of their customers. And sometimes those customers are not friendly people. 

(Note: Our definition of introvert is not someone who is shy or is afraid of people or cannot communicate with others. An introvert is someone who needs alone time. An extrovert needs to party with friends to relax, and introvert needs to sit home to relax.)

• Fear of success: some people torpedo their own success because of subconscious fear that success will make them selfish (like that mean old man you knew when you were younger), it will make you forget your roots, or because it will make you proud and uppity. Please release the fear. 
• An unnatural relationship with money. Some people are unable to spend money, some people are unable to not spend money. They don't understand what money really is. The issue probably comes from the way our parents raised us. 

"Following your passion," as self-help gurus love to advise (as though that idea was revolutionary) is in fact insufficient. You might blow up your business, or never even get started, if you don't remove a major weakness.

R U afraid of success?

This sounds crazy, because everyone wants to be successful.


But this fear is in fact one of the biggest barriers to success. 


This might be you:


If I become successful, will I become a jerk, like my jerk father was?
Will I become unable to cope with the increased demands?
Will people find out that I'm not as smart as they thought, that I'm a fraud?
Will I stop spending time on the hobby I feel so passionate about?
Will the increased success cause me to die of a heart attack at age 47?


This is not an issue only for those of us in the countryside. But we particularly need to face it. Today.