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Business Assumptions You Need to Know About

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Jesse Gee
Jesse Gee is an entrepreneur who has successfully built over a dozen businesses in the construction, finance, & insurance industries.

Everyday we make assumptions just to get by, I assume that when I’m stopped at a red light that it will eventually turn green, I assume that when I drink my piping hot coffee it will actually be hot, and that when I try on shoes of the same size they will fit both my feet. Making assumptions is how we make sense of the world but it is not always the smartest when is comes to entrepreneurship. Sometimes assumptions can backfire leaving you having worked hard with nothing to show for it. Vincent Ruggiero, in his book, The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought, provides some examples of assumptions you should avoid.

The assumption that others familiar with the problem or issue will share your enthusiasm for your ideas

We live in a world of opinions and and everyone seems to have one about most things. It’s exhausting. However, just because you might share and opinion with others regarding the same matter, doesn’t mean that they will share your feelings. Just because you are discussing the same idea doesn’t necessarily mean that your idea is useful; tread lightly, your innovation may be just what’s needed but more often than not, if you are pitching to an established team, it has already been considered. For example:

In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank and oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days. During this time, BP (who owned the sunken rig and was thus responsible for the disaster) received thousands of suggestions including: shoving trash in the leak, bombing the entire well and blocking the leak with a large shower curtain. In the 87 days the well was leaking, BP received close to 100,000 calls and emails with novel ideas of how to rectify the problem. In the end, a relief well was drilled and the leaking well was filled with cement. Throughout the 87 days, the country, and many parts of the world were riveted, as evidenced by the thousands of people with ideas of how to fix the problem. However, just because thousands of people shared a righteous concern for the ocean and it’s inhabitants didn’t mean that BP wanted to hear every single hair-brained idea.

The assumption that small imperfections in your idea will not affect people’s acceptance of it.

In any well designed pitch, there is a point in time where small mistakes do not affect the outcome. When brainstorming or creating drafts, little errors are expected, identified and corrected. However, as you get closer to your final product those slight imperfections become akin to tiny ticking time bombs, just laying in wait to implode all your hard work. A single typo can give the impression that you do not pay attention detail, and that can have a snowball effect on your presentation. Consider this:

When the Affordable Healthcare Act was introduced, the website was riddled with flaws. In a time where many Americans were suspect of this new system and questioning how it would work, to have the website malfunction was almost catastrophic. This flaw in the website almost made it seem as though the whole system was defective. Irregardless of your opinion on the matter, having the website, which should have been tried and tested to excess, not work cast a dark shadow on the entire system. Details matter, and lack of attention to them can overshadow all of your hard work.

The assumption that if your idea is clear to you, it will be clear to others.

Consider what you have been working on. Your idea is likely always on your mind, whether in the forefront or not. You live and breathe it and once you have perfected the idea you want to share it with others. However, you are caught up in the jargon, you have spent so much time thinking and speaking about the nuances of your concept that when all the words fall out of your mouth they make perfect sense…to you. This is not an error of clarity, you likely were perfectly clear, but when presenting to others not as well versed in the subject, your message can get lost as it soars over the heads of your audience.

Way before Snapchat, Facebook, MySpace or even Friendster there was Six Degrees. Based on the concept popularized by the party game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, which suggested that any actor in Hollywood could be connected within six steps to Kevin Bacon (ex: Sally Field was in Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks who was in Apollo 13 with Kevin Bacon), Six Degrees was considered the first social networking site. However, in 1997 the internet landscape looked much different than it does today. For many households, internet speed was slow and expensive and sometimes commandeered your phone line. Convincing people who may have just learned how to email that they could get online for fun and connect with people they haven’t seen in a decade was difficult. At a time when most people only used the internet for school or work, trying to explain that it could be fun too was next to impossible. As evidenced by the proliferation of social media now, the creators of Six Degrees were obviously on to something but were unable to sell it to their audience. What was clear to them was not clear to their audience.

The assumption that the people who stand to benefit most from your idea will accept it automatically without any persuasion on your part.

You may have a fantastic idea, it may be the kind of idea that would revolutionize an industry but remember that you are selling this idea, no matter how exciting it is. Even the people who would stand to benefit most from your idea are not going to knock on your door and throw money at you. On the contrary, you are responsible for persuading your audience that your idea is remarkable.

For example, people have been sewing garments for centuries, but when the home sewing machine was first perfected the inventor, Elias Howe, was shocked that the market didn’t welcome him with open arms. He assumed that the mere introduction of his machine would be enough to lure the industry. Instead, he had to seek success in Europe, in a smaller market, before his product caught on in the American Market. Had he pushed, and sold his product more effectively, it could have taken off years before it did. The sewing machine completely revolutionized the garment production industry, but it did not do so without a little persuasion of the people who mattered most.

 

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