Aaron Hoos

If you were awesome once, you can’t help but be awesome again, right?

Dan and Chip Heath (of Made to Stick) say no. In this interesting article, Success Can Make You Stupid, the Heath boys show how many of Hollywood’s movie successes are self-fulfilling prophecies — based on established links of trust between directors, producers, actors, key grips, and theater chains. Their premise is this: People who have worked together and found success once will be more likely do another project with those people, spending more money and marketing more diligently, thus creating the self-fulfilling prophecy of a successful movie. (Without explicitly stating it, they are asserting that if the same amount of money and time and effort were put into other movies, they would be as successful).

It’s an interesting idea, and very accurate and it’s a phenomenon that happens in business, too. Chip and Dan remind us that it happens in HR all the time, where the star performers are TOLD they are star performers (and better enabled) and thus become star performers. But it happens elsewhere, too: Strategic initiatives, new products and services, marketing systems, you name it.

In other words, if you decide some aspect of your business is going to be successful and you invest in it (either investing in it more than other aspects of your business or to the exclusion of other initiatives) it will very likely become successful.

We see it in the stock market, too: A stock that everyone is talking about becomes a stock that everyone buys. And when more and more buyers buy a stock, the stock goes up in price… and people talk about it more and buy it more.

So, how can you use this concept to your benefit? It comes down to deciding to focus on one element of your business as the key opportunity that will make your business more successful. Then focus on it. Spend money on it. Work on it. Build it.

Do you hear the beep-beep-beep of a truck backing up? That’s me.

I’ve been writing for years but never had an official business plan. (Gasp). It’s not like I wake up every day and think “what the hell will I do today?”. I DO have plans. But they are mostly back-of-the-envelope plans, back-of-the-napkin plans, palm-of-my-hand plans (a la Sarah Palin), and seat-of-my-pants plans. And most of my business’ success is a direct result of world’s greatest sales funnel plan — a four-step checklist I do every day that has generated enough of an annual wage to keep me from becoming a hobo.

Things have gone very well in my business with this scattered situational plan approach and the advantage is that I can tweak and modify and adjust and rearrange at will.

But in the fall I was thinking about 2010 and I had a number of projects I was thinking about taking on. Some fit my brand. Others did not. No big deal. But it made me think about my brand. Was it doing what I wanted it to do? Was it going where I wanted it to go? Were there opportunities I was missing? etc.

And that’s when the truck started to back up. Beep-beep-beep-beep…

If I was going to think about these projects, I needed to think about my brand. If I was going to think about my brand, I needed to think about my target market. If I was going to think about my target market, I needed to think about my deliverables.

… and on it went until I was lost in a forest of question marks.

Those question marks multiplied as 2010 arrived and marched on by. I was exploring some joint ventures, I’ve been doing some in-depth studying on different aspects of my business, and I was approached by clients who were outside of the kind of clientele I would normally take on.

I needed to nail down aspects of my business that weren’t nailed down. Not so that I stick with them to the detriment of all else but rather so that I have a framework from which to make better decisions and on which I can build the next phase of my business.

Finally, in a frenzy of tears and swearing (just kidding) I decided to write my damn business plan already. After all, I’d been helping other businesses create their business plans for years. The business plan writing process is certainly not new to me and I have plenty of the legwork done already (like my “cash-machine sales funnel” and Sarah-Palin-inspired palm-written notes).

So it has begun. I’ve set aside time to write one step each week for six weeks (hey, I’ve got to work, too). I’m really looking forward to the process. And shortly you’ll start noticing some of the changes yourself. Don’t worry, nothing ridiculous. I’m not going to change become a network marketer or anything. I think this is more of a refining process; something to create a solid foundation so I can build from here. And once I get into a bit of a groove, I’m going to start sharing some of the business plan best practices that I’m finding helpful as I go.

Oh, and in case you’re curious about the title, it references the following poem:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I enjoyed this article. It had some good things to say about growth versus control of growth.

Too Big to Fail — Or Too Complicated to Succeed?