Perfect Is Making You Poor

Your job as a Thought Leader is to get your thinking out into the world. You have to think, sell and deliver. If you are a perfectionist, you can end up thinking, thinking and thinking. Refining, improving … but never selling and delivering. Or as Seth Godin would say, never shipping.

My designer (and best friend) Mike is a genius at what he does. He has a brilliant eye, and is a great design thinker as well as an amazing designer. He’s always got my back, and doesn’t want anything substandard to go out representing me. I love having someone who wants it to be impeccable on my team, and I love great design.

But make no mistake, I want it out. If I have a website, I want it up now. If I have a new program, a brochure, an offering … I want it out. It’s a healthy tension to have in my practice – me wanting it shipped and Mike fighting for great design.

Matt Church is a prolific shipper – he gets stuff out. He publishes a prodigious amount of writing, does a lot of thinking, and launches more substantial new programs in a year than most of us will in a decade. It’s how he has run his practice at well above black belt for over a decade.

He launched a Million Dollar Expert website and put together a brochure as part of launching the Million Dollar Expert Plus program earlier this year.

In the middle part of the brochure there is a heading that Mike doesn’t like.

He thinks the Game Plan done around the G is bad design. Mike’s right. The thing is he’s probably the only person who is going to notice it. The design of the whole brochure is professional, it’s good enough. Better to get it out and start selling and delivering, than to take another day or week or month to get to get it perfect.

Where is perfection costing you money? Love to hear your thoughts on the white belt to black belt discussion forum.