Execution Is Everything For Success In Business
The key to success in business is pairing your vision with excellent follow-through.
Here’s how I do it:
If there’s a glamorous part of running a business, it’s the dreaming and ideation.
Dreaming up an idea is fun and exciting and this visionary role is crucial to the success of the business, but with one caveat: every successful visionary needs a killer integrator. According to the operating system outlined in Traction, these two roles are essential for a successful business because a vision without action doesn’t deliver.
If you’re running your own business, you’ll likely have to use both of these personas to bring your vision to life. It doesn’t always come easy to balance these two perspectives, especially when you’re figuring out what it will take to get the work across the finish line successfully. Once you get into the weeds (or dancing with the details as I call it) of figuring out how to deliver on time and at the caliber of your client’s expectations, many projects can double in scope.
Wondering how to balance your visionary and your integrator for consistently happy clients? Remember, ideas are only excellent when they are brought to life. Here’s the approach I’ve honed through years of running multiple businesses:
Clean Your Lenses
The book The 10X Rule suggests that success with important, lofty goals hinges on your effort when you take action. For most projects, you’ll put in 10X more effort than you originally thought. There are a few reasons for this, but I like to think about it in terms of perspective.
When I’m dreaming up a project or client, I’m looking through my ‘visionary’ lenses. My visionary glasses are my blush pink sunglasses because they’re glamorous and fun (plus the future is bright, too :)) The visionary lenses are focused on big-picture goals, strategy, and where the business is going long-term. The visionary is the dreamer of the business.
But in order to actually follow through on those big ideas, I need my ‘integrator’ glasses; my integrators are my gold, Warby Parker Raiders. I see my work clearly with these lenses and I can turn the big-picture vision into reality and assess the approach to deliver the highest quality given the amount of effort I’ll need to put in. If I forget to switch lenses, my projects are messy and unpredictable. I have to make sure my integrator is balancing my visionary.
The implementation of the bigger vision is often brushed aside as ‘grunt-work’, and although it CAN be, it requires just as much attention and detail as your bigger vision. The largest roadblocks to seamless execution are estimating the amount of time the work will require and communicating it early and often.
Overestimate your time
In order to accurately assess your time, put on your integrator glasses, and evaluate these areas of your project:
Evaluate your tasks
Look at the time required
Be realistic about your own effort: how long will it actually take you to do the work?
Understand the goals and expectations of your client
Be flexible
Set realistic expectations + communicate them
Have the courage to change the plan when things don’t go as expected
Obviously, communication is important here, and so is honesty. I’ve learned through running my own businesses that it works best to buffer my work by a couple of weeks. I fully believe in the 10X Rule because I’ve seen how work expands once you’re ‘in it’. This helps me set reasonable expectations for myself and my clients.
Get Organized
Organization is key to successfully bringing a project to life. Organization and planning are life skills that many of us were never taught. If you’re someone who believes you ‘aren’t good at planning or you aren’t an organized person, it’s probably because you haven’t gotten the practice. If you’re working on getting organized, consider these metrics for your success:
Set realistic expectations (remember the 10X Rule!)
Have your systems set up to manage your work (see how I set up mine in this blog)
Set aside time to do the specific tasks with a strategy for completing them
Our culture glamorizes the disorganized visionary, but time management is an important business skill we all should have. I recommend rebranding this into a “focused visionary.” Remember, most things take at least TWICE as long as you first estimate and if you don’t take the time to map out the work, you won’t be able to deliver.
I honed my organization and delivery skills from years of working multiple jobs in the service industry while putting myself through college. When I worked as a server, I was constantly monitoring my time and telling people how I was going to deliver the Prime Rib exactly how they liked it. If it wasn’t to their expectations, I had to course-correct and make it right.
When I worked in the marketing agency world, I was surrounded by visionaries who were doling out work without a clear plan on how to make it happen. I strategized and set realistic expectations for myself and the visionaries I worked for. When you practice setting realistic expectations for yourself and others, it ensures you can always over-deliver.
No plan is ever perfect.
Clear communication builds trust and that is pivotal to your business success.
Over-Deliver
No plan is ever perfect, which is why I plan for the unexpected A-bomb. I buffer 2-3 extra weeks for projects because people and systems aren’t perfect. This buffer creates flexibility so I can course-correct when things don’t go as planned. Estimating extra time also ensures you are able to over-deliver. That’s what I’m hired for: I’m an executioner because I kill it.
The clients I work with want to see the ship move. They want to get their projects done and don’t want to be delayed.
Communicate
Most project or client issues are rooted in miscommunication or lack of. While no project plan is perfect, you’ll have projects that require more time and energy. If your projects are delayed, your clients need to understand WHY so they don’t feel like they’re wasting their time and money. Communicate clearly every step of the way, especially if you need to push a deadline. Clear communication builds trust and that is pivotal to your business success.
When you’re planning almost ANYTHING, you’ll need your visionary and your integrator. Get comfortable switching between these perspectives, organize your time and communicate clearly. Most importantly, get going. You can talk about a great idea your whole life, but if you don’t take action, you’ll have nothing to show for it.
HI THERE, I’M JORDYN
Serial entrepreneur, strategic integrator and financial aficionado.
My mission is to revolutionize the way businesses grow with strategic clarity and implementation. It goes beyond consultancy—as I want to be a dedicated partner in propelling your success with strategy and impactful execution with zest and honesty.