In mountain biking, it’s common knowledge momentum is your friend. If you come upon some rocks or tree roots in the trail and slow down out of concern or fear, you will more than likely go over your front tire, also known as an endo. It’s not very fun and you won’t get to your destination in one piece if you keep it up. You actually want to pedal through that stuff because momentum is your friend.
A client shot a great video inside their retail space sharing important information related to COVID-19. I loved it because it came straight from the owner. He looked into the eye of the camera and calmly gave valuable information. It was short and high quality from a simple iPhone. They scanned the items he was talking about and even showed some of the rest of the store, which, by the way, had recently been renovated but this was weeks after lockdown, and it didn’t feel appropriate to talk about hey, come in and see our newly expanded hardware department and look at our shiny new renovation!
What did feel right was to talk about naturopathic ways to boost your immune system. (with the beautiful renovation in the background speaking for itself.)
They sent me the video for my review, and I said “It’s perfect, publish it.”
To which they responded with many questions like:
- What about the video intro/outro graphic we discussed? Shouldn’t we wait for that?
- How long do we want each of these videos to be?
- What is our publishing schedule?
- Should I buy lighting, better camera?
- And ten more questions I won’t include here.
When I said the video was “perfect, publish it,” I meant the video is perfect for now. Publish it. Don’t allow overthinking to hold up the thing you are launching. Later that week, another client shared an article with me he wanted to share socially, and I said do it, but he said he wanted to wait to have a social media strategy in place.
Planning is good. Don’t get me wrong. But there is a balance between figuring out all the details of something and just getting it out there so you can iterate and improve from there. Maybe no one will like the videos, the product, the podcast you are trying to launch. Perhaps you’ll get some feedback and modify accordingly. SLACK didn’t launch a perfect product when they went out to market. They put out a minimally viable product and let their users help drive the progress from there. Instagram looked very different when it first launched than it does now. They’ve slowly rolled out features and interface improvements.
“But wait,” you might be saying, “We don’t want to put something out that isn’t a polished reflection of who we are!” To which I respond, get over yourself. In the words of Matt Church, “people aren’t paying that close attention to you.” Well, it’s true, and they definitely won’t be paying attention to you if you aren’t putting anything out there.
The other thing about mountain biking most of you know is if you stare at the thing you want to avoid, you will crash into it. Therefore, focus only on where you want to go.
My advice: Make sure you aren’t overthinking things. That podcast can launch without the perfect name. Hey, I still don’t have a good name for this newsletter but I’m publishing fortnightly anyway. Your video can go out now with the understanding that the series will get upgraded as you progress. Best laid plans never go as planned anyway. Don’t hold yourself up for that plan you keep meaning to develop.
Pedal through the obstacles and you’ll make it to the other side a better rider than before.
Start with something now.
Take care out there,
Stay in touch.
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