How to Avoid The “Perfection Penalty”
As I work with people in the Rapid Results Coaching aspect of my business, I see a recurring theme among a number of my clients – namely, the feeling that they (or an aspect of their business) needs to be perfect before it can be successful.
I’ve also seen this outside of my coaching practice for years – people have a “great idea” that they never end up implementing because they are still working out the details and smoothing the rough edges.
In reality, though, rough edges are where the money is made. That’s because perfection is, in general, a lousy goal. Having perfection as your benchmark will always leave you feeling like you’re failing, because you’ll never be there. You’ll never launch your business, your products, your services … all because you’re still trying to make it ideal.
Instead, you need to accept the rough edges. Get whatever it is that you are developing out there, and improve it as you go. It goes against the grain of a lot of conventional wisdom, but the marketplace proves it true for most products (I’ll explain ‘most’ in a moment).
Microsoft Windows consistently crashes, is full of bugs and security holes – and always has been – but it’s the market dominator (at least for now). Why? Because it served a need in a way that was good enough for consumers and businesses.
America Online is another example – constant busy signals, poor download speeds plagued them in the beginning … but they got to market, responded to customers, and they’re still around (at least for now).
And if you have ever bought an information product online, consider it for a moment. I’ve paid good money for eBooks that were obviously not professionally formatted, contained spelling errors, and didn’t read like the author had a flowing, practiced style … but they were still worth every penny because they gave me the information that I wanted.
Remember, your goal isn’t to make the most perfect product on the market … it’s to get what you have to offer out to your customers, to solve their problems, to satisfy their need … do that, and they’ll keep coming back (even if your packaging isn’t top-rate).
Now, to put things in constext, there are some areas where “perfection” is more important … If you’re producing a luxury item like a Rolex or a Lexus, extrordinarily high quality is important to your customers, because they are paying a premium for it. But even Lexus doesn’t say that it’s products are perfect – their slogan is “The relentless pursuit of perfection.”
So chew on that. It’s fine to strive relentlessly for perfection … but do it in parallel with releasing your products and services to the market that’s hungry for what you have to offer.
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