Done is better than perfect when you are starting any lifelong system.
Whether it is starting a business, working out, or reverse engineering your goals you just need to start. But 99% of business owners I talk to have it flipped, they think they need to have the perfect website, perfect product, or perfect social media strategy to get started.
The sad reality is their perfectionism is losing them hundreds of thousands of dollars because they need everything to be perfect. The truth is perfection doesn't exist in business. Perfection is an excuse to cover up the fear you have about starting, and that is ok.
When I first started my design agency Noble Prince Design Co. I thought everything needed to be perfect to get my first few clients. Oh man, I was wrong!
I spent 6 months perfecting my website, creating killer case studies, and creating new spec projects. I launched my website and heard nothing but crickets.
I had the mentality of “build it and they will come” because my website was “perfect” when I should have had the mindset of building a minimal viable website to start running traffic to.
When I finally did get my first client it wasn't from my website, in fact, they never looked at my website. Instead, they saw this post on my Instagram.
This client wanted to hire me based on a quick behind-the-scenes image I took of my screen. Nothing is perfect about this image, in fact, it's not even good, it's pixelated, crooked, and out of context.
That didn't matter. This was the moment I realized that my perfectionism was killing me, and it is most likely killing your business too.
Perfectionism is killing your business behind the scenes by stunting the way you perceive opportunities, preventing you from taking risks and failing to start projects that move your business forward. Let's cover all 3 and how to overcome them.
Perfectionism can skew your perspective on new opportunities to the point where nothing is good enough. If a new opportunity is not a perfect fit for you that will 10X your business you pass on it.
Not every opportunity will be a good fit, look beyond your perfectionism to see the possibilities of all opportunities. Form partnerships through new opportunities, nurture new partners, and grow an ok opportunity into an amazing opportunity over time.
Toss out your distorted view of what an opportunity looks like and instead focus on what it could be in a month, 6 months, and a year. When I first started my freelance business I partnered with another freelancer who had no clients, or value to me at the time.
We traded services and helped each other grow, after a year of keeping in touch she started sending me small clients that snowballed into $50,000 USD of organic client work last year. If I had passed on the original opportunity presented to me I would have been able to grow it into the great partnership I have now.
Not taking risks in your business is a classic example of a perfectionist mindset, that limits your growth and potential. Greater risk equals greater rewards and a stronger foundation to build off of. Unfortunately, most perfectionists never attempt to take risks, which leaves them dead in the water.
By failing to take risks, trying new systems, or partner with new businesses you will self-isolate yourself. Over time old ways of doing business don't work anymore, and your return on investment will tank. This is why it is important to take on risks with new marketing, new social media content, and new product or service offerings.
Last year I had a client in the food and beverage industry who wanted to start running video ads on Facebook for their business. We hired a User Generated Content (UGC) Creator to make a few videos for the brand and they came out great.
The problem was the owner was a perfectionist who didn’t believe the quality of the UGC videos was good because they weren't shot in a TV studio, like a cooking show so he scrapped the UGC videos.
Instead, he went and spent $15,000 USD to shoot a 30-second video for Instagram that had the “Perfect” lighting, studio, and audio. We went ahead and posted that video and didn't make a single sale.
Fast forward 6 months and several thousand more dollars we went back to the original UGC videos we had created that cost us $250 USD. Within 24 hours, we were making new sales with the original UGC videos. This business owner's perfectionism led to him not taking on the risk of something new, which ultimately cost him over $20,000 USD, 6 months of time, and thousands of potential sales.
By failing to take on risk you fail to push your business forward, and ultimately rely on old ways of doing business which become outdated and costly to your bottom line.
Done is better than perfect when it comes to getting new projects off the ground for your business. Whenever you launch a new product, social media strategy, or offer it needs to be extensively tested and tweaked.
If you spend weeks, months, or even years to create the “perfect” product, post, or offer you risk everything if it doesn't work. That is why done will always be better than perfect, get your projects out into the world and let your ideal customer interact with them.
Get real feedback from your customers to better improve your project, or better yet build it in public so your audience and customers can follow you on the journey of creating your next big launch.
This will do two things, first, it will create trust and transparency as your audience sees everything as you are creating it. Second, it creates excitement and authority through organic marketing. By the time you are ready to launch your minimal viable project your ideal customers will be aware of it, excited about it, and ready to purchase.
This is why it is so important to not be a perfectionist when starting new projects that will push your business forward. By taking forever to create the “perfect” project you risk wasting your time if it flops when you first launch it.
9 out of 10 times when you launch a new project it will flop as you need to get more real-world feedback from your customers to make it their dream product/service. Leave your perfectionism at the door and start building your next launch in public to build trust, transparency, and excitement.
Perfectionism is slowly killing your business and stopping you from executing on opportunities projects, and partnerships that will help you grow your business.
Done will always be better than perfect for the following reasons.
Ditch your perfectionism and focus on getting your next project done and into the world instead of making it perfect. Once you get real feedback from your ideal customers you can then perfect it to your customer's specific needs.
→This week’s action step: Create a new minimal viable project and launch it in 48 hours. This can be a new service offer, a new social media post format, or a potential opportunity that will help you grow your business. Commit to getting your next few projects built in public, where you can get real-time feedback to make your next project better!
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