I just returned from the Masters. What a thrill. Augusta National is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth, and the golf was stellar. My dad and I spent much of the two days stationed around Par 3s. We spent Saturday on the 16th green where we were 20 feet from the golfers as they putted. You could see the green of hole 15 and the tee of for hole 17 from our spot. On Sunday we spent the morning at hole 6 and the afternoon on amen corner – just beside the tee on hole 12 where you could see the green of hole 11, all of 12 and the tee of hole 13. Amazing.Last year I wrote a post on the similarities in mental dichotomies seen in golf and business. On the one hand great golfers and business leaders painstakingly train and plan. On the other hand, they have to maintain simplicity and execute.
In golf you train on details. Keep your head down, swing through ball, pay attention to stance, keep your knees bent, have your elbows create a “V”, swing through waist, maintain balance… But you also have to just relax, stop over thinking it and swing.
In business good planning is a must. Train yourself on cash flow management. Learn from professionals. Spend time on product development and marketing plans. There should be no assumptions or implications in your business model. Everything should be thought through. But good planning without execution is wasted. You must find a time to pull the trigger. You must keep the business model simple.
This is what I stated in my blog post last year:
In my entrepreneurial law / business law practice, I see this with many new technology companies. The entrepreneur is often the technician – the scientist with a great idea for a business. These folks often struggle with moving from planning to execution. They plan for a capital raise but don’t pick up the phone to schedule meetings with potential private equity investors. They plan for product roll out but get delayed in development while trying to place additional features in the beta product. They plan for future employees and officers but fail to execute on product launch which in turn effects cash flow and does not allow for them to bring on the strategic hires. I especially see this with software licensing and SaaS clients where initial start-up costs are not as high as other industries.
Key concept here is to keep you business plan and product roll out simple. Narrow the business plan to the essentials and then pay attention to the details on those essentials. Narrow first; Focus second. Of course, that is often easier said than done.
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