How often do you have an idea? Once, twice, ten times a day? Add those up and it’s a lot of ideas. How many have either panned out or paid off? A few, none?.
I have learned over the years that ideas are worth nothing without a plan of action and that there is no point presenting them if I don’t have the plan.
A corporate client really taught me that lesson because there was no way we could implement every idea at once. One, the pain of change was too much and two, budgets had to be signed off.
This has been a BIG lesson for me, and I do it now with more success, but it really took some work. I have most of my ideas in client meetings so had to work on keeping my mouth shut, focusing on what we were doing at that moment, and writing the idea down for later because I would confuse the issue by coming up with new ideas before we have implemented the old ones.
My latest iteration of this process is I don’t go to many meetings. That keeps me doing what I like, coming up with ideas for our clients, but doing it in a more structured way.
So what does this have to do with you and the fact it’s Monday morning? This week you will have lots to do and come up with a whole raft of ideas for your clients, friends and family. I recommend not telling them until you have nutted out why they need to do it, what’s in it for them to do it, and most importantly how they can implement it.
This will slow you down and you will quickly see which of the ideas you have are actually worth spending your time on and presenting. Try it this week and let me know how you go.
My best.