Listen to the experts

It took me many years to realise that experts are not experts at all, just people with opinions based on experience.

Before attempting to get T2G off the ground, I spent too many years listening to the experts telling me an idea wasn’t going to make it. That it had been done before or that there wasn’t a market for it.

And they were probably right……some of the time.

People with experience should be listened to. They will offer an insight into a particular market or industry. Their suggestions and feedback are important but only in the name of research to help the entreprenuer refine his idea or simply to prove his own stubborness.

Without an ability to ignore the ‘no-brigade’ an idea will remain just that. Stubborness and the desire to prove the doubters wrong is what gave birth to great advances in medicine, technology and business.

From The Beatles to the PC and a lot more before and since, the experts have been proven wrong.

But sometimes, of course, they’re right. If you say ‘no’ often enough the law of chance must prove you right sometime.

So when should ’no’ mean ‘no’ ?

Just Say No

First thing to say about entreprenuers is a liking for the word ‘no’.

‘No’ is like an adrenaline rush to any budding or established entreprenuer. Whether it’s the bank manager refusing a loan, a supplier refusing credit or the first target customers politely giving the thumbs down. No doesn’t mean what it means to most people.

For the budding business builder, that little word means “I’ll show you – you may dismiss me now but boy will you regret that.”

The one group of people who rarely say no to the would-be entrepreneur are family and friends. And for that reason they are the worst type of market research available. Of course family and friends are the quickest and cheapest research available and occasionally they will have some useful suggestions but generally they do not represent the target market, do not understand the product (as they are unlikely to use it) and of course, like to say …yes.

You know how it goes.

“Great idea.”

“Wish I’d thought of that. “

“You’ll rake it in.”

Reality check…

Of course their motives are above reproach. They want to encourage. But without the knowledge and experience that is relevant, that’s all it is – blind encouragment without the ‘tell it as it is’.

And so these positives encourage our entrepreneur. Encourage him to ignore the growing list of no.

Yet sometimes the ‘no’ is correct. The self-belief that an entreprenuer has will stand him in good stead and many times have the doubters been proved wrong.

James Dyson who eventually revolutionised the vacuum cleaner market found it impossible to launch his bagless cyclone cleaner in the UK – the status quo of the existing market was too important to the established players, so he launched in Japan through catalogue sales (bright pink was the first colour!) but still found it impossible to convince UK or USA manufacturers to manufacture it for him.

So what did he do? Give up? Not a chance. He set up his own manufacturing plant and by 2005 the bagless cyclone was the market leader in the USA and other manufacturers had joined the bandwagon with their own versions.

Interestingly the selling point was not the suction efficiency that the new techonology produced, rather it was the ’say goodbye to the bag’ slogan that kick-started Dyson’s success.

So do we assume then that the entreprenuer should never give up, never accept no. Resilience is certainly a key feature of their make-up. Self belief even when the doubters are circling is essential yet the same history that produces the Dyson’s of this world also gives us believers who never give up even when the evidence is stacked against them.

The successful entreprenuer as opposed to the wannabee knows when to call it a day and move on.