Anton Kimfors
Welcome to my blog, where I share my work, thoughts, and projects.
Change takes time
Making a change can be done very fast. You can change your offers, the number of employees, the target group, and goals from one day to another. But, it will take time for the affected people to adapt.
It will take time before:
- Your customers are used to your new offers.
- Your employees adapt to the new situation with fewer coworkers.
- The new target group acknowledges you, and it will take time before your company understands the new target group.
- You can measure and go after the new goals in an effective way.
But, just because it takes time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the change. It probably means that you, if needed, should make the change even earlier and that you need to be patient before you analyze the results in detail.
Forcing a business to scale
In my marketing agency, I have earlier offered our service customized for every client’s needs by using top assistance. Why? Because the service we provided was something, our clients hadn’t worked too much with before (or anything). I pretty quickly realized that we need to change this to scale the business the way I wanted.
We would need to be able to offer the services as standardized products, instead of a 100% customizable service. This would allow us to become better at a few different things, and I would be able to take a step back and let the team handle more of the tasks.
But I saw two problems with this:
1 – Some of our clients (and possible future clients) needed personal help with pretty much everything, and a standardized service like this wouldn’t allow that sort of help.
2 – We wouldn’t be able to create as great results as we did right now since this wouldn’t allow us to customize for every part of our client’s business.
However, I realized some things, and we made the switch. It is still very early, but I think the result so far has been great. The first week we got two new clients we would never have been able to get with our earlier way of working. There are tons of benefits to offering your service as products, not only for you but for your clients as well. But what about the two problems above? Well, this is what realized that made me allow to make the switch:
– The clients needing help with pretty much everything isn’t our dream clients. The job they made us do was not the job we wanted to do (even if it paid). By saying “No” to doing everything for these clients, we are making them take a decision. Either they work with us, and take a bigger responsibility themselves (which will create a better result in the long end), or they will have to walk away from our offer. The result is that we are transforming our old clients to the clients we want, or we are freeing up time for the clients we want.
– The argument that we wouldn’t be able to make as good work as before when switching to a “service as a product” model was only partially valid. Sure, some parts of our service might have decreased in personality, but instead, we are delivering the result and allow the client to personalize it. We are even giving them a guide. Managing this themselves does cost the client some hours, but the result is even better.
The parts of our service that haven’t anything to do with knowing the client has become even better. We don’t need to worry about the client wanting the result delivered in this way or that way, we have service (sold as a product), and the client can take it or leave it. Wich allows us to specialize and deliver better work for those who decide to take our offer.
Btw. We pretty much didn’t have a choice. This switch is what we needed to do, and therefore we had to do it. Sure, we will lose some clients and some future clients, but it doesn’t matter if this model enables us to work the way we want and need.
All businesses scale (maybe just not as good as others)
All businesses, services, and products won’t scale, at least not in the traditional meaning. But, every one of these is somewhere on the scale. Some business doesn’t even scale enough to work for one person, some business enables a scale of hundreds of thousands of employees.
Is your business built to scale? Do you want it to scale? and if so, how much?
The lock in effect from the not so good ideas
Leaders and successful entrepreneurs often say, “The idea isn’t important”. However, a couple of years ago, I watched a lecture by Sam Altman, where he spoke about startup ideas. He said that he too thought this before, but now had changed his mind. The motivation behind this was, partly, that when you have decided to work on your new business, you will probably do that for a long time. So, it would be a waste of time to work on a business or project for years if it was the “wrong idea”.
You could, of course, counter-argument and say, “Yes, but if you come with a new idea, you could just go and build that business instead”, but the reality is often more complicated. You might have invested a lot of money, and you have a responsibility to customers, investors, co-workers, etc.
I have in my (so far very short) carrier, taken some bad decisions, and almost all of the major once have been correlated to long-term agreements, contracts, or similar. For example, my business and I signed a client for 1-year but realized soon that the service we offered wasn’t what we should offer. We had the “wrong idea” of what our service should look like, and now we were obligated to keep delivering it for one whole year. It would have been much better to keep the contract on a 1-month basis so we could have swapped over to the new “good idea” quicker.
So, until you know that this is the idea you really want to realize (you should find a way to validate that), you probably want to keep your current plans, projects, and work as agile as possible. Don’t make any commitments to lengthy contracts, agreements, or similar. You want to be able to switch tracks if needed. At least, this is what I wished I had realized a couple of years ago.
Being honest in business is one of the greatest assets
[see title]
Don’t be disappointed if you haven’t given it a real chance
It is so easy to be dissapointed with things even though you haven’t given it a real chance. For example, I’ve been disappointed about not reaching a goal I had set up for this spring. But, when I look back at the past couple of months, I haven’t worked to achieve it.
I’m disappointed with the result, but I really shouldn’t be disappointed at all (or just disappointed in myself). I haven’t worked to reach this goal since I have been prioritizing other things, and if that is the case, it is just stupid to be disappointed with the result.
How to outsource your business (or rather, how to not)
I’m always trying to outsource everything that I should outsource. However, it is essential to know what you “can” outsource. You can probably outsource 99.9% of your business, but outsourcing that much of your business will not give you the results you are hoping for.
What you can outsource is not the same as what you should outsource. What you should outsource differs from business to business. You need to look into what your business USP and to what else is that is important for your customers.
For example, if you have a consulting business, you probably should outsource/automate a lot of your software. There is no need to build new software, just get what you need (outsource) and focus on what’s more important. You probably should outsource and automate a lot of other things as well, like bookkeeping, cleaning, etc.
But you should never outsource the most vital parts, like customer support, selling, business development, and delivering your USP.
How I got multiple million dollar brands as clients for my consulting business
I started.
There are so many different ways of getting clients and closing deals. There are some bad ways, some better ways, and some fantastic ways. But, you won’t find the best ways if you don’t start.
Start with whatever you think is the best way, and experiment! Knock on doors, sen messages on LinkedIn, write blog posts, guest blog posts, cold calling, cold emailing, start a podcast, etc.
Just start and you’ll find a way.
How to employ someone doing the same job you did earlier
Recently, I’ve had some people joining my team. They have gotten tasks that I previously have been taking care of, and therefore I know what’s good and what isn’t. I got a file delivered for review by one of the new team members, and I wasn’t really pleased with the quality. I looked it through, marked everything I thought should be changed, and I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s better if I’m just doing this myself, at least it gets right the first time then”.
I thought that I might send the feedback to my team member together with an example of my older similar files, so he could compare his work with something that meets the specs. But, when I looked through a couple of my more former jobs done, I realized that my files weren’t near as good as his. The quality he delivered on the first try was at least 2X the quality I was ever able to offer.
It is easy to believe that you are the best at things you do, not because of arrogance, but because it’s easier to spot someone else’s faults than your own. So, when hiring or working in a team, look through your own past projects/jobs, and notice that you aren’t perfect either. We all have faults, but by working as a team, we usually deliver the best results.
Sequence matters
It is easy to fool yourself by saying, “I will go to the gym. I’m just gonna watch one more episode of my favorite tv-show”. Most people will, in that situation, most often not go to the gym. However, if you instead have the self-discipline to tell yourself, “I will watch one more episode, but only when I come home from the gym”, then you can be pretty sure that you will do both.
The sequence in how you do things matters, and you should acknowledge that and use it as an advantage for yourself.
Don’t call people, unless you don’t care about them
Calling someone means that you are interrupting whatever the person you are calling is doing. So don’t do it unless it is an emergency.
You have no idea what that person you are trying to interrupt is doing right now. If anyone you want to reach is in the zone, working on something important, do you want to interrupt? If you do care about the person, send an email or similar, and let the person answer when they are available.
Breaking down tasks = Focusing
I often myself in situations when I don’t know what I’m doing really. I might have tried to accomplish the same task for 3hrs, and it should take 20min. It is not that I’m not trying, but my focus is just not there.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the smaller the task, the easier it is to focus for me. I think it is because if an assignment is more modest, there are also fewer unintended sidetracks to follow. Sidetracks that most often won’t do anything than cost time.
So, if you find yourself in a situation where it is hard to focus, maybe you should break down your current task to a bunch of smaller ones. For example, instead of having a “Post a blog post”-task on your ToDo-list, break it down to “Write down a blog post in Word”, “Find a featured image for the blog post”, “Upload the text and the image to your blog”, “Post it and share it on Twitter”.
Is it irrational to trust your gut?
Being rational is to act based on logic, while trusting your gut is to act based on intuition, no matter if it is logical or not. In other words, trusting your gut is what most people would call being irrational.
But, if you have heard about this study from Iowa College, you know that in some situations, it is much more efficient to trust your gut than to base your decisions on logic. In this study, the subjects were asked to pick cards from 4 different decks. The decks had been put together so that 2 of the decks would be the better choice 60% of the time, but the subjects were, of course, not informed about this. The result was that the subjects started to, intuitively, take more and more cards from the winner decks, long before they with logic could describe why.
So, if you know this, wouldn’t it be very irrational not to trust your gut in similar situations?
The reason is more important than the feature
Your ability to solve the problem is always more important than any feature you are adding to the solution. This is true no matter how you are solving the problem, and it is true whatever problem it is.
You probably had a reason for developing whatever product or service you are offering. Don’t give up that reason for an extra feature that one, two, or even 100 customers asked for.
We are all rational. We are all irrational.
It’s very easy to see yourself as a rational person. You have a bunch of information and experience, and based on that data, you make decisions. You are the only person who knows precisely what you know, and therefore you are the only one making decisions based on that knowledge.
For the same reason, it is very easy to believe other people are irrational. Your analysis of them being rational or not is based on the knowledge you hold, but they base their decisions on their understanding and information. Therefore, it is often the case that people believe that they are rational and that others are irrational, but really, we are all just as rational or irrational.
Prepare, Or Prepare To Fail
Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. So you should make sure to solve any upcoming problems before they even do come up! Or should you?
The problem with that strategy is that it is incredibly hard and expensive to first find all the potential problems and much more to solve or prevent them from happening. So, what you could do instead is to gear up. Not with things, but with a team. Make sure that you have one expert in every field in which a potential problem could pop up.
Now you won’t have to worry about each and every problem, and you don’t have to invest a fortune in solving problems that might never have appeared. But, you are still prepared to solve them when they show up. It is your choice – prepare, or prepare to fail.
Why you need 2 computers
Almost 100% of my work is done through a computer—communication, writing, programming, management, etc. However, I try to separate my everyday work and other parts of my life. During the day I mostly work on my consulting business, and when I go home I try to do some programming, I write on this blog and have some other hobby projects (again, everything is on a computer). I also watch some YouTube videos, read some blogs, etc.
I always had a problem with doing this sort of separation. I often find myself working even though I’m at home and should do something just for fun or just relax and recover (and sometimes I’m at work, and I find myself reading blog posts about “how to build a pizza oven” or “why to use Flutter instead of React Native”). What I realized is that my work is always 1-click away, no matter if I’m at home or not. So I thought that I might want to get a new computer, a cheap laptop I can use for this blog, for reading and just browsing at home. My favorite technology e-commerce here in Sweden (Webhallen) offers anyone who buys a laptop a 60-day money-back guarantee, so I decided to take that deal and try out the 2-laptop life.
It’s been 12 days since I got my new laptop delivered, and I can’t see myself ever living without multiple laptops again. My life has become so much more productive, and I feel less stressed than I can remember feeling for a long time. I’m not only more productive with my non-work-related projects, but I’m also more productive at home. Feels like some sort of paradox, but that’s the way it is.
The laptop I got for myself is a very cheap Acer Chromebook R-13 (more about why I chose a Chromebook in a future post).
So, my recommendation is (if you can afford it) to get a second laptop for your non-work-related tasks. Try it out, and I hope you find the same success with it as I did.
Marketing and selling to a specific group of people
The idea of marketing and selling your products and services to a specific group of people is nothing new. But, that idea grows stronger every day. Having the power to say, “this is not for you” is much stronger than the one of saying “this is for you”.
Because saying “this is for you” is something almost everyone does. We want and need something more specific. We want something that is only for our group of people and us. To find that we need to go to someone who tells other people that their product and services aren’t for them.
“What’s the alternative?”
Sometimes when I feel that I’m in a hopeless situation without any winning move, I really want to just give up. In those situations, the best thing I can do is often to ask myself:
“What’s the alternative?”
Often in these situations, there aren’t really any alternatives other than to completely give up. So then I ask myself if I want to give up whatever goal I’m working towards, and if not, I don’t really have any alternative than to keep grinding.
The ToDo app that makes you unproductive
I’ve used a couple of different ToDo-apps in my life so far, and some have been better than others. However, I think most of the teams behind these apps use the “wrong” KPI:s. I’m not sure precisely what KPI they use, but they are for sure not using any KPI directly correlated with their user’s productivity. After all, why do people use ToDo-apps? It is not because they want a ToDo-app; it is because they want to become more productive.
So maybe, ToDo-app companies shouldn’t think as much about the average user time, or how many times a day the average user uses the app. Instead, they probably should focus a bit more on the average time spent per finished task and the number of tasks completed each day.
Less complexity, fewer obstacles, less distraction, but increased productivity.