Shorten The Distance

Starting a project is exciting for some, daunting for others. The daunting feeling is usually mostly to do with the way they approach working on the project.

Many people go the looooong way around when it comes to producing a body of work that people want in the marketplace. They don’t shorten the distance to success.

Here’s how it normally goes…

  1. Think of a product or service, ponder the idea, then decide you’re going to do it.
  2. \Make it, absorbing the cost and risk of merely hoping it will be effective.
  3. Try to sell it now you’ve invested so much effort making it.
  4. Realize nobody wants it, or not enough people want it to make it feasible for you.
  5. Accept the failure and repeat back to Step 1.

It didn’t sound half bad until you got about half way through reading Step 2, right?

That’s the point that most people start regretting the process. In lieu of awareness of any alternatives, it all starts feeling scary and difficult.

What does shortening the distance look like, in comparison?

Here’s how that goes…

  1. Decide who you are going to lavish upon and serve fully and completely.
  2. Learn their story, their pains, their fears, their goals, their dreams.
  3. Tell their story back to them so you know you’re able to articulate it fully.
  4. Solve the problem in that story, so that the story has a happy ending.
  5. Sell that and – surprise – it’s usually well-received in the marketplace.

This version sounds a little more difficult out of the gate, but by about the same point in Step 2 that the last one got scary, this one got exciting.

And it worked.