MISTAKE #31: You choose not to do it right the first time

Have you ever heard the expression “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to fix it?”

I heard this for the first time when working with a really smart guy a few years ago and both the truth and irony of it instantly struck me…and stuck with me.

If you’re in the middle of launching a new product, you’re certainly making dozens of critical decisions every week.  And because time and money are not infinite resources, you’re constantly faced with tradeoffs or compromises.

How often have you thought or said ‘Just get it done…we can fix it later'?

Or how much of your time is currently consumed with fixing things that were poorly done in the past?

And how many books have you read on this approach being one of the secrets to success?

My experience helping companies launch new products has driven my belief that just a few mistakes can cause a product to fail. 

While some mistakes are not discovered until the damage has been done, I’ve seen many companies knowingly make many poor decisions as they’re rushing to market under the assumption (or hope) that they’ll have a chance to correct them later.

Are you one of these companies?  Consider how you might be knowingly or unknowing making decisions that fall into any of the following mistakes:

Not taking time to plan:  One of the services I never expected to (or wanted to) specialize in was quick turnaround projects.  Yet a meaningful amount of my business comes from companies that have a deadline they failed to plan for and suddenly realize they are completely unprepared.  We’re frequently helping clients start crafting an insights-based selling story and line review deck just weeks before the buyer meeting.  While this can be done, the artificial time constraint limits the number of options we can explore and how much data we can get to support it.

Not doing things that should be done:  I learned a long time ago that I only sell clients on services they already realize they need.  Sometimes the client might not know exactly what they need, but they know they need something.  Because everyone comes from different experiences and different perspectives, this list of things that should be done can vary significantly.  Less experience, smaller budgets, and shorter timelines typically translate to a shorter “must do” list.  The combination of these three limitations further increases the risk of not doing the necessary steps for the product to have a good potential for success.

Not noticing what is missing:  Unfortunately, the absence of critical components isn’t always evident at the time.  Just like certain ingredients aren’t missed in a recipe until the first bite is taken.  Experience teaches each of us the degree of our fallibility.  And it teaches many to compensate for that by having advisors they can regularly turn to for unbiased advice.  This outside perspective can quickly reveal things that are obvious once pointed out.  And doing this consistently increases the odds that solutions will be faster and easier.

Letting budget dictate decisions:  While managing expenses is critical to profitability, it is also easy to mismanage.  The last little bit of savings on a project can end up being the most expensive money you don’t spend.  Seth Godin has written about the cost of saving the last 10%.  And I’ve experienced it with clients as well.  I’ve had plenty of projects get canceled or postponed because of budget, and other projects have significantly shrunk in scope after the client came back with the request “what can you do for X dollars?”  I’m particularly interested in following up on these projects because it is the closest test I have available to understand if my serves matter.  While it certainly sounds self-serving, I’ve found at least two-thirds of clients’ shares can be paraphrased into one of two perspectives: (1) Bad things happened and we can tie part of it back to the work we didn’t have you do, or (2) we noticed what was missing due to cutting the budget and wish we had invested those dollars when we had the chance.

DON’T KID YOURSELF

We generally don’t live in a world where we can easily fix things without paying a higher consequence.  Either the fix is far more expensive and takes far more effort than we want to put into it or there is permanent or collateral damage (like losing a year of distribution or share points to the competition).

Consider putting the quote this article opened with somewhere you can frequently reference it. (here is one that is easy to printout)  Train yourself to read it before making any decision that requires a compromise. 

You might be surprised how a slightly different perspective forces you to reconsider the rationale for some of those "good enough" decisions.