Ideas equal innovation, growth, and revenue. However, when you’re trying to start a business and have several ideas, they can actually hinder your potential success.
Sometimes, too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing.
Imagine you have 35 business ideas. Do you have time to work through each idea to make it as successful as it can be? If you’ve recently launched a business, are you offering several products or services, and is it overwhelming your customer?
Trying to launch with too many offerings can leave you, your team, and your customers confused. It’s better to proficiently nail a couple of things rather than spreading yourself thin, and being only average at multiple services.
As Stephen Covey once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Here are three keys to keeping your focus when you have too many ideas:
1. Focus on your core strengths and the core of your business. What was your original idea? What is your big dream? Think with the end in mind. If you knew you were going to be successful, what would you strive to accomplish above all else?
2. Determine what brings in profit. You can’t expect your business to work if you don’t have a customer base. Is your idea combined with your strengths working together to be profitable? If not, reevaluate the problem you are trying to solve, the skills and ideas you have to solve that problem, and finally, determine your exact target audience.
3. Write your ideas down for future possibilities. Even though branching far and wide may be overwhelming, that doesn’t mean your customers won’t grow with your company and need the services or products in the future. When you write down your ideas, you create the capacity for your brain to focus on other things. So write it down and forget it (for now).
For your ideas to catch fire, you must put forth the effort and patience to ignite it. Once the fire catches, you will be thankful you didn’t spread yourself too thin.