Wood for Trees

'You can't see the wood for the trees' is a lovely phrase and it comes up so often in business I'd hate to list all the times I could have used it.

Well here are three times this phrase will come in useful:

1. When your good idea is first explained to a friend...

2. When you first sit down to write your idea down

3. When you start to think how to use the Internet to help

Here's why the phrase is so critical in these situations:

1.

When your idea is first forming you can see that is will work, but you can't see how it will work.  This means that when you explain it to a friend you are faced with a barrage of questions you can't answer.  Most good ideas fail at this point because you can't see the wood for the trees.  You can't see the successful path for your idea for all the problems the friend has identified that could make it fail...

Don't share your idea until you have thought it through and worked out both how it will work and how you will work through the problems.  When you do share your idea - share it with a person that is enthusiastic about new challenges first.  This way you are giving the idea a fair chance of being evaluated.

2.

Writing down and idea is not as easy as it first appears and many people give up at this stage or do their best only to be told it is rubbish when they show it someone.  You can't see the wood for the trees because your written description is sending so many negative messages about the idea that people will take the safe option for them and simply say the idea is rubbish rather than admit they do not understand it.

So the way you record and present your ideas is extremely important - as important as the original idea itself.  Here is how I do it:

• Give it a name - a simple reference that gives it personality
• Give it a value - broad brush guess best net income in a year and worst case losses
• Do a list of five situations people would be in to benefit from your idea
• Do a list of five ways people are going to find your solution (how do they get to know about it)
• Do a list of five people you will try to work with to get the idea off the ground
• List five major things most likely to happen and reduce your ideas chance of success
• List five major things most likely to happen and increase your ideas chance of success
• Do one sentence description of the idea
• Do a short description of what you need to start the idea working
• Do a short description of what you need to keep it running
• Do a short description of what it will look like after five years, ten years and twenty years (turnover, number of staff, buildings owned, capital goods and location plus probable debtors and creditors)
• Now do a more detailed diagram and words of how the idea works - remember to use pictures and flow diagrams as much as possible.

3.

You think of the internet and you think web-site, email addresses and on-line sales, but when you start to think more about it you can't see the wood for the trees because you get lost in the gadgety, geeky world of three letter acronyms. 

Keep focus on how the Internet is a part of the idea and focus only on making that a reality.  It may be that you just want email addresses and a single page advert to start with so your team can get the initial things in-place looking like a long-established company.  Once the team have the strategy in place including how the web-site will integrate as part of the business then those additional features can be added to the site following the look and feel for logo and branding agreed.  A good strategy will embrace the need for customer feedback and contact profiling so always insist on these features from your web solution providers from the start.

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