Is 'striving for perfection' killing your profits?

I don't agree. I many times succeeded beacuse I paid attention to some details and others didn't.

Every successful entrepreneur knows that speed and motion trumps slow perfection. In this dynamic world, being fast is more important that being flawless.

Wow your actually saying that you sell stuff that is not up to your own quality standards? Umm .. ok then.

Yea but here is the thing ... hes not selling the comment. The only 'good enough' on a product should be 'as good as I can possibly make it' .. just my 2 cents.

I agree with OP just get it out there! If you want to tweak it and make it perfect you can do that while its out there. I have been guilty of this and kinda still am!

Great solid post that I totally agree with. Speed of implementation is very important if you want to make money online.

There are two quotes that I keep on my white board regarding this very topic from two individuals who make a LOT of money online. I've shared them several times already, but I'll share them again.

Neil Patel said:

"The real world doesn't reward perfectionists. It rewards people who get things done."

Alice Seba said:

"Don't limit yourself by worrying about what other people think".

HTH

I don't think the OP is saying to just throw a ton of crap on the wall and see what sticks - he's saying at least throw "something" out there. I know what he's talking about. You get into this mode of over analyzing your products. Especially when you notice that there may be a competing product out there that looks really nice.


Just get it done and put it out there. And then pay close attention to your customers. They'll let you know if something is not up to par. Then you just fix it as quick as you can - customers love that.

4Day,

Nice post and I agree with the overall concept of not letting perfection keep you from presenting your work.

However, I don't necessarily agree with you on two points.

First jumping from idea to idea as you said above is something that I think most entrepreneur types do. It's in their makeup. They are always thinking of ideas and new things they would like to try. I know that even if I have an idea that is not flawed and seems perfect, I still think about other new ideas, often having a dozen or more keeping me entertained. Multiple ideas are not bad at all.


If you're spending multiple days to proofread stuff there's something wrong with how you're doing it. Proofreading is always important for me and I don't think writers should ever leave this step out. If you don't proofread you're a sloppy writer. I would never suggest putting a product out there and avoiding this step.


I totally disagree. What should you strive for other than to make your work the very best it can be?

Do you strive for average? If so, your stuff will never rise above the mediocre and the commonplace that very few ever notice. You want your work to rise to the top and stand out. That doesn't usually come unless you do the very best you can.

Striving for perfection is not the same as waiting on perfection before you release something. Think about it from your customer's perspective.

Would they rather have your very best effort, or would they want something you knew should be better but you were anxious to just "get it out there?"

Thanks for the thread,

Steve

Agree with OP. We need to pay attention to details, however not to the point of having everything to be perfect before you put anything out. Some of the best-selling authors have spelling & grammar errors in their books too.

I thought everyone wanted to be like Mike.

Microsoft did this for years. Put out half done programs and
allow the first buyers to be beta-testers. Sometimes you
have to improve as you go along. But the real reason isn't
wanting to be perfect, but it is really FEAR. The fear
to launch.

-Ray Edwards

Most people would be better served by trying to be much more perfect than they are now

I'm a perfectionist and I can relate to some of the posts above.
I know my grammar is better than that of a lot of native English speakers.
And I acknowledge that I possess talent to a certain extent.
Yet I don't feel it's good enough to provide anything of value.
This is why it is hard for me to finish what I have started.

It took me almost 20 minutes to write this post and
now I am thinking whether I should post it or not.
I don't think this post has enough value to be worth of posting.
Maybe a bit exaggerated, but you get the point.

It can be a blessing, but also a curse. You need to be able to control it.

And yes, I made a ton of edits before posting this.

Its hard to satisfy perfect in anyones mind

Having high standards is good. Needing everything to be 'perfect', though, well that's a success killer. There's a big difference!

Here's an example:

Someone I know of a few years ago - he built his website and he made it as perfect as he could. The website was fantastic but he spent so long on it and it drained so much of his emotional resources that by the time he came to drive traffic to it he was already 'done'. I mean, the guy was spent. Something that should have taken 1-2 weeks took him months. The net result of that was this particular guy got really angry because he wasn't seeing any results. He had a great website that nobody knew about because he spent so long getting everything right, by which stage he then had to drive traffic to it, but he flaked out right at the time he should have been capitalizing on his previous efforts. He spent too long trying to be perfect instead of taking imperfect action. This guy then convinced himself there was no money in IM and started trolling the forum. It was quite sad to watch really because he sabotaged himself.

So, yes, imperfect action all the way!

The best thing to do is keep it simple and don't over extend yourself. I try to keep my focus very narrow. You get more done that way.

Excellent point. Perfectionism is our worst enemy!

Here is the motto to live by...

"Concentrate on progress not perfection..."

Perfect things never make a dime if the public never gets to see them. I learnt this the hard way. You are much better off getting things out there as they can always be improved later. Besides, nothing is ever going to be 100% perfect so if you always wait for that perfection you will never get your ideas out to the public.

I see this all the time in action:

1. Someone searches for weeks to find just the perfect theme. In 99% of cases the theme won't make or break the site but the lack of content and traffic will. Since on day one (unless you are going to do a massive PPC campaign) you aren't going to have any traffic, why not focus on the content, quickly choose a theme, and start bringing in traffic WHILE you continue searching for the perfect theme.

2. An ebook has 5 spelling errors (not found by a spell checker such as there/their). Once the 5 errors are found paranoia sets in and another complete review is done. This time a grammar error pops up. Mortified the writer reviews again looking for more grammar errors. In the process they find 6 places where an added story would add so much value to the ebook so they add the stories. Adding the stories introduces another grammar error or two and another spelling mistake. Fearing that their ebook is total garbage now, they hire a proofreader. In two days the proof reader comes back with 17 minor suggestions (not errors but where things could be tightened up). Changes are made and resubmitted for review. Then it's discovered that one of the tightened up spots now doesn't make sense since making the other 16 changes. To get a second opinion, the writer gets his sister to review the book and she's not even sure what it's about since she doesn't understand hamster farming. So you figure you need to find someone who can do a review that understands hamsters so you go to your favorite hamster forums and post a request for review. No one responds for 3 days so you start to question the entire project. If people on a hamster forum don't want to read it then maybe it's all junk. So you take another 2-3 days to go back through it and to polish up your review request and post it again. This time you get a bite but the reviewer won't be able to get to it until after the weekend. Meantime you find another spot where the table is a little misaligned. So you fire up Word to get the table back in its rightful position. In the process you discover that because of all the pictures the ebook is 2 MB big and you wonder if that's too much for someone to download. So you come to the WF to ask about typical download sizes. It does no good to publish the book if everyone's internet connection chokes under the load. So you try to figure out how to reduce the picture sizes but someone said you needed a special software. You search for the software but can't find it...

That's exactly how it's happened to me in the past and many others. The ebook NEVER gets published because of 5 minor typos.

I'm not condoning typos or junk. I'm saying to not obsess over this stuff, get it out there, and then make sure you fix any errors that pop up. You do know that most ebooks, websites, software, etc. can be easily updated, right?

Mark

A great thread and thanks for sharing. I totally understand as I deemed myself a perfectionist which by definition: is that you continually look for flaws in your work even though the work itself does the job. I agree & relate to most of the comments and I have been told "produce the product first then perfect it later" - it doesn't mean producing poor quality items (as mentioned); it means producing your ebook/product/service delivering it to the consumer and they will naturally give you feedback - and this is when one can tweak & improve on it to make it as better. You can only do the best you can do (with the skills & knowledge you have at that time) - it's been said: "the worst critic of one's work is usually oneself".

Yes, Action before Perfection....

I used to be a perfectionist and some time ago I realized all the time that I wasted trying to do all perfect before finalizing my works....

I’m a perfectionist too, but I learned to always finish what I start, otherwise my work and my time beginning something will be lost. Many times I spend a lot of time until I will finally finish a project, but I will surely finish it.

I like to feel that my work is perfect (according to my opinion at least). I’m a slow creator because of this reason. I believe that the only way I can surpass my competitors is by being better than them.

Taking massive action is still the main key to getting results. I always think it is better to take action first and then just improve it or make it better along the way. This is more practical as being perfectionist means that no concrete work is being done.

First and foremost, there is no such thing called PERFECTION. So stop wasting time and move time.