Read This If You Need Strong Monday Focus

This is a sneaky one because almost everyone does it.

Choose the right domain name.Design the right logo.Develop the 5 year business plan.

Get all your ducks in a row.

And that’s exactly the problem.While most of us are out there “thinking through” the problem, our competitors are already done with version 1 of the prototype and getting feedback from customers.It’s so easy to get caught up in the easy stuff because it feels like it matters. It’s much more difficult to ask yourself: “what’s the hard part of my project?”If your project doesn’t have a hard part then you don’t have a project—it’s probably a hobby or dead end.Steve Blank used to say (and I guess he probably still does say) “Get out of the building and talk to customers.”

No matter what your problem is, the people you’re solving it for know the answer.

Example:

Need better sales copy?Go read some of your customer reviews and testimonials.That’s way faster, easier, and cheaper than taking a course on copywriting and reading the top 5 books about sales strategy.

You don’t need to optimize, yet. You need to start.

The time you’re spending making it perfect is the time you could have spent getting the traction you need to then have the opportunity to have something to optimize.You know that little yellow “buy” button on Amazon’s website?You better believe that they spent a LOT of time and energy optimizing it. And they should, because they have a bazillion customers.If you don’t have a bazillion customers, you’re killing yourself by focusing on the wrong work!

2 Minute Action:

What’s the thing you’ve been dreading doing? Do that first.What’s the feedback cycle you’re getting on your work? Could it be more frequent or more actionable? Ask your supervisor or colleague, today.Give yourself permission to have an ugly, embarrassing website (or none at all!) and re-center your focus on the hard stuff.The discipline early on is going to pay dividends later.It’s Monday, people. Let’s start this week off strong.

The Weird Way Selling A Mattress Can Help You Focus

There are two types of people who buy mattresses in the world.

One kind of person hates buying a mattress and thinks they should never have to buy one.The other kind of person thinks that buying a mattress is an important decision because you spend 30% of your life asleep and getting the right mattress really will make a difference.

Most mattress salespeople don’t realize this but they actually get to choose who they sell to.

How much time and money you spend acquiring those customers is completely up to you.

This logic works outside of the sales world, too.

If you’re going to invest your time an energy on something, it’s worth figuring out how to best get your return on investment.Focusing on what’s working and dropping methods that aren’t efficient will make a huge difference in your output.

2 Minute Action

If you only have 20 minutes to exercise, it’s better to do compound movements that work large muscle groups at once instead of isolating muscles.If you buy the same kind of soap, it’s better to buy a bunch of it when it goes on sale because you will immediately make a guaranteed ROI.If you’re going to write a book, it’s better to write about what you know on a blog for 4 years while you build an audience. When you’ve written a thousand blog posts, you’ll have written your first book and you’ll already have a group of people ready to buy it.Its hard enough to do important work, you need to make sure that when you do anything you have some advantages from the start.

The Most Common Excuses People Make (And How To Get Past a Them)

It helps if you know what to do.

It helps if you know when to do it.

It also helps if you have the skills, abilities, and resources to do it.

Of course, the reality is that you need none of these things to start.

Here is a list of common excuses that many of us constantly use to delay action:

“I don’t have a team.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“I don’t have the capital.”

“I don’t have the expertise.”

“I don’t have the motivation.”

“I don’t know if now is the best time.”

If you’ve ever said these to yourself, now is a good time to look hard and long at those statements.

Fight back.

Make each excuse prove itself why it’s true—because the real truth is that you can figure it out how to get past it.

You don’t have to be a genius and you don’t have to billionaire and you don’t have to be an expert with 20 years of field experience to start.

You just have to prioritize your work, be deliberate about how you spend your time, live within your means, and keep rebounding after you mess up.

That’s it.

Instead of designing your logo and buying the domain for your website, call potential clients.

Instead of browsing Banana Republic’s last sales email, set up a Gmail filter to hide emails like those and go talk to a customer.

Instead of raising money and giving away all your equity, put together a PowerPoint that looks like what the software will look like and get your first customer. (Customers pat you today and you never have to pay them back. Investors will own your business and decisions until you buy them out.)

2 Minute Action

Write a Facebook or LinkedIn post asking your network if they know any experts you’d like to talk to.

Look at your calendar and cut out a little time on one or two days of your week to work on this project. You may have to give up social or TV time.

Define the 3 features of your MVP “minimum viable product.” This is the bare minimum you need to make a sale or get a user. This is derived from Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup.”

Send an email asking your students, clients, patients or customers for feedback.