It’s been a week since Summit Series wrapped up and I’m finally getting around to processing all of the fantastic conversations I had through the weekend. My favorite people at the event, by far, were the entrepreneurs with a pure tactical mindset. Anyone talking strategy was usually shutdown by a simple tactical question that involved specific calls to action, conversion rates and tools. I loved it.
The harsh reality of entrepreneurship is that successes (whether you’re thinking in terms of revenue, user counts or anything else) are few and far between — for every one that succeeded, there were ten others that failed. Building strong businesses is about consistently hitting singles and doubles.
These people understand that this is the single best way to make your odds of success better — you can’t hit a home run without first learning how to hit the ball in the first place.
Rather than looking for the next idea that’s going to make them an overnight success, the best entrepreneurs spend their time improving the fundamentals of their business using metrics. By learning how to consistently hit these singles and doubles, these entrepreneurs set themselves up to knock a home run out of the park.
Hand-wavy strategies are overrated. Pick a few core metrics (signups, conversion rates, etc), use tactical techniques (A/B testing, landing pages, better calls-to-action, etc) to make the numbers even better and, most importantly, block off time on a monthly basis to review the previous month’s results and make decisions about the next month.
Little wins on a day to day basis are the best to consistently and methodically grow.
Subscribe via the RSS feed or email updates and get the latest posts without checking the site.
Yeah, I think you need those s...
by Justin Thorp on Curation and Urgency: Two Requirements for any Startup (and Community)
Absolutely agreed. After havi...
by Dave Gullo on Curation and Urgency: Two Requirements for any Startup (and Community)
That's the problem, it shouldn...
by Paul Singh on Curation and Urgency: Two Requirements for any Startup (and Community)
Agree 100%, but it seems that ...
by Tim @ An Entrepreneurial Life on Curation and Urgency: Two Requirements for any Startup (and Community)
Congratulations and all the be...
2 Responses to “Aim for the Little Wins”
Paul, this is what I love about you! Your tactical mindset is so refreshing.
My clients are continually asking me, “Will this work? Will that work?” My answer: “Based on my experience, yes, that’s likely to work. But I don’t know until we test and measure.”
So many business owners would rather stand still than do anything that isn’t a sure thing. This is a shame, because the only way forward is through making mistakes, right?
— 05/26/10 at 10:11 am
Yep, you can’t know if something’s going to work unless you try it.
I generally prefer to steer away from anyone that pretends to “know” exactly what the results of a particular campaign will be — after all, every campaign usually has different copy, different calls-to-action, etc.
— 05/26/10 at 3:32 pm
Leave a Comment or a Question