Ready, Fire, Aim!
Sunday, 27th February 2010
“Ready, Fire, Aim!” I’ve used this phrase on three different occasions this week to motivate a few friends who have been doing a lot of thinking in relation to starting a business. Now thinking first before you act is very good but there comes a time when you’ve done enough thinking and it’s now time to take action. The tricky bit is figuring out when that time is.
I first heard “Ready, Fire, Aim!” when I met Anh Do last year. He told this really crazy story about the soldiers of the Vietnam war. Back then the American soldiers had the popular M16 assault rifle while Vietnamese soldiers had AK 47s. Now the AK 47 is not a precision weapon, meaning that you can fire it but you’re never quite sure where the bullets are going to land. So what Vietnamese soldiers used to do was get READY to shoot the enemy, then they’d FIRE to see where the bullets landed. Then after seeing where the bullets landed, they’d readjust their AIM and fire again this time hitting their intended target. It was an interesting story and it sums up one of the major concepts of entrepreneurship today - act now!
Back in the day, old school business people did a lot of planning and thinking and analysing and after all of that was completed they’d begin their business. These days entrepreneurial culture tends to rely less on excessive planing and more on taking action i.e. the “Ready, Fire, Aim!” principle. Entrepreneurs now get an idea, develop it very quickly and get it out there and then start to see the results and fine tune the idea to get better results. One of the biggest reasons for this is the speed of which businesses can be set up today due to the digital communications revolution.
The danger with the planning mentality is one of caution. Given recent global economic events society has become more cautious and a lot of people have become more scared to take that first step to start a business. Through my Technology Training Workshops I’ve met a lot of great people who have realised that they want to get more out of life and they’ve thought about starting a business. Some of them are already in business (Good on them!) but others are going through the whole planing stage and after speaking with them I feel as though some of those people might not ever end up starting their business because they’re not convinced they’ve done enough planing. It really is a fine line.
Don’t get me wrong. Planning is still very important in business if you really want to succeed but it’s important to remember that you have to plan for the right thing. Someone who analyses and plans everything down to the last detail is going to get a nasty surprise when they start their business and something happens that they didn’t plan for. If you’re going to plan, plan for the fundamentals and then worry about the finer details later.
So for those of you who are thinking about starting a business, my best piece of advice is to answer the following question:
“What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to me when I start my business?”
When you have your answer, start planing your business to protect that disaster from happening. For example if you answer that question with “No one will come to buy my product”, your plan should begin with marketing exercises to help you understand who your ultimate customers will be and how you will reach them.
Keep in mind that the world of business is one of risk and reward, if you don’t take any risks then you will not be rewarded.
So this week I challenge you to adopt the “Ready, Fire, Aim!” principle into your week. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to start a business or not, the phrase can be used for making decisions too.
Let me know how you go and post a comment down below.
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
Build, entrepreneurship, business, start-up, business tips, business advice, Anh Do
Comments
Very true AJ. The “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach is probably the best catch cry I have heard in a while. I know when we took over our business. Every man and his dog were saying about business plans, succession plans, plans for this and plans for that.
But I think the best advice I got was from a hotel owner in Warrnambool. He told me, you can spend your life planning for the worst. But if you never DO IT, you’ll never get the chance to succeed.
So my advice to anyone thinking about doing it. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?? Figure that out, and how to combat it if it happens. And the rest will fall into place.
Awesome read bro, hope to catchup soon.
Dave!