Making a case – Do you have really a good idea?

Over my many years in business I have often come up with what I thought were pretty good ideas only to find them rejected or not getting the same level of enthusiasm from colleagues and loved ones. I have also been on the receiving end of presentations or papers where I felt less than enthused by the suggestion or approach resulting in the person doing the delivery feeling demoralized and often unappreciated.

I would like to share with you here an approach that will help you figure out if it really is a good idea. I’ll then go on to share how you get others bought into that idea. I will concentrate here on a new business idea, but he principle still applies equally to a process improvement idea or similar in an existing business.

We all get ideas all of the time, ranging from ideas to improve how something is done to ideas for a new business. I once heard a quote at a talk I attended that business owners typically have 100 ideas a year, 99 of which are bad. I think this is probably pretty near the truth. The challenge though is how much time we waste trying to implement the bad ideas causing us to miss moving forward with the one or two really good ideas.

In my experience most new business ideas run out of steam within 4 to 6 months, at which point a business would then move onto the next big idea. A costly approach that makes poor use of time and money. Time and money are really the main two assets in life and we should protect them dearly.

The numerous surveys conducted on business start up longevity tell a cautious tale for anyone with a bright idea. So often the initial enthusiasm is replaced by blame of external factors that “I didn’t realise that when I started” or “someone else changed the goalposts”, or more common of late it was the fault of the recession or Brexit. The truth of the matter is that a good businessman with a good idea sees that these things are going to happen and plans for them.

This is where taking a structured approach to qualifying and presenting ideas can be of real benefit. An approach that quickly discards the bad ideas makes a case for the good ideas, creating a story that everyone can buy into, both the understanding and implementation of the idea.

The process does take some time and thought after all “Prior Planning Prevents P*** Poor Performance”. It doesn’t need to be War and Peace, but it does need some effort before rushing headlong into presenting your idea for approval, whether that is to business partners, investors or even to yourself. It’s a case of slow down to speed up.

Step 1

Research

There is a pretty good chance that someone in the world has already done something very similar. You might think your idea is unique, trust me the chances of that are fairly slim. You would feel a bit of a fool if find out someone had done something similar in the past and it failed only for you to present or do the same thing.

Learn from others, listen to experts and listen to those who have embarked on a similar journey.

Check out my article on starting a business for a guide on what research you should do for a new start up. It is designed for a consulting business but the same disciplines are required for any new business venture, specifically Step 2 of that article.

Research completed you should be armed with a good amount of knowledge from numerous sources on your idea, indeed you may have modified it based upon the research or decided to qualify it out and not go any further.

What you should have before you move to the next phase is a clear understanding on what your first objective is and what success looks like. For a start up business the initial objective would be characterized as follows:

·     The number of clients you would have

·     What those perfect clients would like

·     The revenue and profit expectation

·     What product you are selling in a perfect world

·     How you will be sourcing the business

·     What infrastructure you will have in place at that point

Step 2

Options

Knowing your first objective you now need to consider the best way to get there. Two factors must be taken into consideration, how fast you want to get there and how much you want to risk in getting there. Of the two, Risk is probably the best place to start. To simplify the process I have will break it into four levels.

Risk 1 – High Risk, High Reward

You can bet the house on your idea, raise all the capital you need and crack on. It’s the quickest route between A and B irrespective of what is in the way. If you went to the horse racing it would like betting everything you had in your wallet on one horse at odds of 50 to 1 or greater. The benefit of this approach is you will get to your objective quicker, the flip side is you might not get there at all. It’s a high risk, high reward approach.

Risk 2 – Low Risk, Low Reward

This is a one small step at a time approach to sound out the idea. This might look like starting your business venture whilst still doing a full time job; if it doesn’t work you still have your job. If it does work you then move to the next step and so on. The benefit of this is you don’t have to risk anything you have built; the downside is you are going to take a long time to achieve your objective. Depending on your age and circumstances this may suit and for most with responsibilities this will appear to be an attractive approach.

Risk 3 – High Risk, Low Reward

This is an approach where you get a friend or colleague to go into business with you with a view to sharing the risk. Two heads are better than one right, sadly not right. The danger of this approach is that you might not agree on everything and one of you is likely to be more enthusiastic than the other. You will probably spend more time trying to agree and how best to do things and continually reach a compromised solution. This approach still works but it does take time and does come with a high risk factor as you might fall out altogether consigning a brilliant idea to the dustbin.

Risk 4 – Low Risk, High reward

This approach would involve not only research but sound planning as much as possible and a documented plan before moving forward to the objective. It is very much the way I was trained as a Commando. If I had been given orders to take an objective I would first do as much of a recce as possible first. I would look at maps, look at the ground as much as I could see, speak to people who had gone on the same journey before if that is available. I would understand what tools (weapons and external support) I had to work with, the health of my men. Basically gather as much intelligence as possible. I would then explore the best way to get there, taking into account all of information I had put together. I would then build a model and brief the men on every aspect of the task, how we would overcome certain obstacles and the role of each person at key points on the route to the objective. This approach reduces my risk, if I got injured the team would still carry on and take the objective. Chances are we would take the objective in the time scale of our choosing. Of course something unexpected might happen but hopefully we would have made provision for that circumstance.

Step 3

Write a plan

Now we know where we want to get to, we know the idea is sound based upon our research so we need to get buy in from either funders or the ones we love to make the first step. The vast majority of idea creators will immediately launch into what they are going to do and how they are going to do it at this stage. It’s an approach, but not one I would encourage. Always start with “Why”. People will buy into why and it makes decision making a lot easier if you have a clear idea why you are doing something.

Once again using the military analogy, I would take the time to build a model of the ground my section was going to cover using what ever was available. I would use the model to explain the plan to ensure everyone knew very clearly the objective and the pan of how we are going to get from A to B. Of course it might not eventually end up that way and we might deviate from the plan slightly, for the most part though I had briefed them what to do if the unexpected happened.

Writing a plan makes it real. When you commit things to paper everyone can see and understand the plan. More importantly you can see yourself if it all makes sense. It gives you something to talk through with other business owners and people you trust. They will always give you sound advice if you ask them to be honest.

Step 4

·     If you get to this point then and can say yes to the business idea being a good one.

·     If you have gone to the trouble of doing all the research.

·     If you have written a plan which takes into account your acceptable level of Risk.

·     If you sounded the idea out with others

Then you must now move to execution of the plan. I do meet many people with a good idea never get it off the ground. Through doing the research, documenting and sounding out you should feel confident enough to make a go of it. Back yourself, if you don’t feel able to then the plan is probably not a good one despite what you keep telling yourself.

Step 5

Assuming you move forward it is essential to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve for you to feel confident that you have made the right decision. Write down what you would want to achieve to feel confident in terms of :

1.    Revenue number

2.    Profit number

3.    Type of client you will be working with

4.    Volume of clients

5.    What your product is

6.    How you will source clients

Doing this will hopefully avoid you taking on the wrong clients which is the single biggest reason for a good business idea floundering. (See my article here on having the right clients).

With the list written ask yourself how you will “Feel” when the list is a reality. Write it down and start to act as if that is the reality today, you will be amazed how quickly you will achieve the numbers you have written down.