Comments on: Its All About Focus

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:12:07 +0000

Spot on mate. We face this kind of situations in work and in our personal life where we need to attend to a number of plans. Being able to sort out things and plans for the betterment of your business or personal life takes a lot of effort to do so as well as aligning the tasks to do this is essential too. Dale Property Agent

By: Brisbane Property Investment

Brisbane Property Investment — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:56:59 +0000

Well, you had made such an interesting article for sharing you good deeds for focus on the next generation investment plans. I would like to thank you for this effort.

By: Joy Mdivo

Joy Mdivo — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:27:02 +0000

Hi Simon,

am in a charitable institution, and there is need all around. the temptation to try and solve all the world’s problems is great sometimes, but as you correctly pointed out, when we try to do too much, we do not finish anything well. the thing is to make a TO DO list and delete from it what not to do, that way, you are left with what you can actually and realistically do. that’s a great tip that i have shared with my colleagues. thanks for doing what you do, so many of us (here in kenya) are benefitting as well.

By: Brian Requarth

Brian Requarth — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:08:02 +0000

Hi Simon,

It was great talking with you the other day.

Focus is key! What can be particularly difficult is when you are dependent on an existing business model for revenue that you know will not take your business to a desired level. But yes, you are totally right. It was difficult when we had to clean shop and let go of 10 people to refocus our energy on the bigger opportunity. This is never fun, but ultimately is the answer to reaching success in the long term. Being candid with those that are not going to be part of the new focus is the best approach. They need to know where they stand. For the most part people are understanding as long as you are honest and upfront with them.
Expanding on the first part of this comment, a lot of entrepreneurs don’t make the change because to some degree their business is working. Over 9 months ago we decided to drop the website dev and laser beam focus on the bigger opportunity even though we were profitable, it is a nice feeling once you get through the transition and start to gain momentum. Big things to come!

By: Alain Fontaine

Alain Fontaine — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:37:39 +0000

If you focus, you have to make choices. If you make choices, you might make errors. Thus, there is a risk. The risk to chose the wrong goal.

So, let’s rephrase the “Who doesn’t risk, doesn’t win” to “Who doesn’t focus, doesn’t win”. It’s a more positive way to express the same.

By: Jason Rose

Jason Rose — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:50:36 +0000

It is amazing how much you can achive when you have a single focus.

Up unitl October 2006 we were a traditional real estate agency. we did both residential sales and property management. We were a part of a major australasian real estate franchise. We had seen strong growth in our property management division, so the decision was made to sell of our sales division and focus 100% on property management.

Since we have focused we have grown the business from 1200 properties under management to over 2000 and have gone from a single office opertation to four offices and a staff of over 40.

Simon, keep up the blogginf and good luck in your new ventures.

By: Mark Cohen

Mark Cohen — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:34:37 +0000

Nicely put. In his book “The Dip” Seth Godin sets out talking about a quote that says “winners neve rquit and quitters never win”, and how he thinks that totaly wrong. He says winners know exactly what to quit, and when. I think that aligns nicely with your idea expressed here – choose those things that *don’t* lead you to your goal or appear to not be winning paths in their own right and quit them.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:41:00 +0000

This should fall into the “stating the bleeding obvious” category Simon, but it’s a timely reminder that we often bite off way more than we can chew.

The most important sentence in this post, I think was:
“What differentiates the effective people from the rest of us is that they decide what they are not going to do and this decision is based on the goal that they are striving for.”

Cheers.

By: Xavier

Xavier — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:02:03 +0000

Absolutely. I think this is something entrepreneurs often grapple with, because they see a host of related opportunities out there and can be impatient to go after them. But the reality is that effective execution requires focus. One of the best ways to see if someone has a clear strategy is to ask what they are choosing not to do.

What’s interesting is that many people know this at an intellectual level, but for various reasons, focus seems to be hard to achieve in practice (see my post on this at http://www.latentfuture.com/blog/why-is-focus-so-hard.html).