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2316 : STEP FOUR – PLANNING FOR IMPLEMENTATION

locked to the rock to avoid additional risk. A business start-up is
similar, in that it is often in your interests to exploit a few areas of
uniqueness and use standard, easily available elements for the other
operational elements which make up your business idea.

Internet Securities, Inc., for example, launched its financial information
service by tailoring an off-the-shelf software package rather than
investing in a bespoke system. Similarly, Michael Dell launched his
highly innovative direct-to-consumer Dell Computer operation using
entirely standard components. Likewise, Karan Bilimoria accepted beer
bottles whose size was standard to India but outsize for the UK market
because it avoided the need to commission an additional bespoke
element in the Cobra beer concept.

the need continually to influence and sell No matter

how compelling the advantages of your new business idea appear to be,
these advantages mean nothing if appropriate people other than
yourself cannot be persuaded of their value. This means you must
continually influence, and sell to, all those on whom you depend for
money, labour, support, endorsement or sales.

This applies as much to the pre-implementation planning stage as it does
to the implementation stage and thereafter. Remember Gary Mueller,
continually using his influencing skills to enlarge his network of contacts,
using them for insights into e-commerce or the Warsaw stock exchange.

Whether you are seeking to influence a hard-pressed boss, to whom
your idea if presented in the raw may well just represent further work,
or whether you are seeking the support of an outside backer who is
regularly barraged with such requests, you can follow the simple four-
step influencing process outlined in Re-inventing Influence – how to get
things done in a world without authority (see Table 6.3).174

The task ahead is often complicated for the individual entrepreneur by
a perceived lack of credibility among stakeholders. As we have seen
earlier, James Dyson and Anita Roddick both suffered in one way or
another from this adverse perception.

You should remember that every interaction represents a chance to talk
up your business idea. It is all part of the selling effort. It also provides
the opportunity for feedback from other people’s points of view
which yet again may provoke further improvement in your business
idea.