My marketing coach was talking about how we avoid doing the things that make us uncomfortable – especially marketing activities.  He likened this to a musician practicing for a week and then quitting because she hadn’t been invited to play at Carnegie Hall.

What activities are you avoiding because you aren’t comfortable doing them?  Is perfection required to do what you’re avoiding?  Of course, if you want to be a concert pianist you need to be a perfect piano player, which requires years of practice. Do you need the same level of perfection in your marketing or can you live with “good enough.”

Think about some of your marketing tasks you do in your business.  Which ones need to be executed perfectly and which ones are okay at “good enough?”  Yes, of course, your invoicing process needs to be perfect but does your website need to be perfect?  Or can you start with good enough and improve it as you go along?

What about following up with people you meet?  Which is more important to have, a process that’s good enough so that you actually follow up or a perfect process that is too complicated to do consistently?

I sometimes have a tendency to want things to be perfect and to make them so complicated that I avoid doing them instead of starting simple and then adding on as I go.

Could you start by aiming for good enough, practicing until you’re comfortable doing them, then adding on gradually to make it more “perfect.” Remember whatever it is you’re doing, it only needs to be as perfect as it needs to be so that you can successfully accomplish what you need to do.