Why 'thriller' businesses don't work
I recently read a fascinating book called “Hitchcock: Mastering Suspense”
It was written by a screen writer.
But has a lot of lessons for small business owners. Whether on the marketing side, or, like in this case, the mindset.
Early in the book William C. Martell defines the difference between an action movie and a thriller.
“In an action move, the protagonist confronts the conflict. In a thriller, the protagonist runs away from the conflict.”
Action movies have action scenes.
Thriller movies have suspense scenes, and little action.
Suspense lasts longer than action, and of course, creates long, heightened periods of stress.
“Suspense is the anticipation of an action… once we get to the action part the suspense is over!”
And it’s very similar in business.
When people take action, they’re typically less stressed than those who avoid action for longer periods of time (sometimes, even in the name of ‘relaxing’).
And more:
There are twenty ‘suspense’ scenes that are common among thrillers, that are known to cause that heightened ‘edge of the seat’ stress feeling.
Here are ten of ‘em
1) TRAPPED - Extra points for vulnerable factors (i.e. Not knowing what to do next - all tactics, no strategy)
2) WATCHING - UNABLE TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE IN DANGER (Can't help the client, not sharing the offer)
3) HIDING (MUST BE QUIET) - while bad guys search. (Fear of judgement)
4) OUT IN THE OPEN (the flip side of hiding) - how not to be seen. (Put out marketing, now afraid of judgement)
5) BEING QUIET / STILL / UNSEEN - when bad guys search. (Avoiding difficult conversations)
6) PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE ELSE - will false ID be discovered? (Copying someone else’s personality)
7) MISUNDERSTANDINGS - communication breakdown leads to trouble. (Not really sure what I’m talking about, not constant communication with clients)
8) CREEPING AROUND - REMAINING UNSEEN (lurking, consuming but not creating)
9) RACE AGAINST TIME (i.e. impatience in the business)
10) THE MAZE - lost, confused, trying to find way out while they search for you. (Gettin’ caught up in consuming youtube, the social media scroll)
For the creator, too many of these ‘suspense’ scenes will turn an every day business into the deepest, darkest, and most ‘knife edge’ thriller you can imagine.
Which creates a ton of stress, from a lot of non-action.
Not ideal.
The quickest way to turn the thriller into an action is to end the suspense and take an action. And the more this happens, the lest suspense there is, and the more the business can grow.
Create ‘action’ businesses, not ‘thrillers’.
Something to think about
Speed is everything (stop withholding to go fast)
Before this small business stuff, I was an engineer. It was my first job out of uni. Yes, I did work a bit when I studied, but this was a consistent pay cheque. After living on $30 per week for food, and my car flooding every time it rained, I was stoked to have some cash flow.
This job was a big step in starting to sort myself out.
Anyway, I worked with F-18’s doing crack repair design.
When you go on these jets, they are super ‘raw.’
There’s not even any paint. No leather trim. No fancy digital screens.
And the outside is plain grey.
They look cool, but you wouldn’t call them ‘beautiful’.
They’re built for speed.
For a few years, in one form or another, I’ve been interested in speed. Speed of Steve Jobs. Speed of clients I work with. My own speed, and sometimes, lack of speed. The basic ‘theory’ is that if you do more, produce more, and test more, you’ll figure things out faster.
I’ve seen clients 10X their business in two years.
And others not launch an offer in a year.
The difference is speed.
They get more ‘shipped’ in a given amount of time, they learn more, and they build a greater reputation.
I’ve found that speed may even be the most important ‘characteristic’ overall.
Speed allows you to test offers with your market.
Speed allows you to create a bold reputation.
Speed allows you to execute ideas faster.
Speed allows you to make more sales.
The other day I was talking with a sales manager for a local gym. He does 2-3 x more sales than any of the other managers in other chains. I asked him how? He said he just attacks his work. He’s not any smarter, he just has more speed.
Anyway, that’s enough yammering about the ‘why’.
And know - I haven’t mastered this. I've sat on things for years. I sat in a corporate job, miserable, for years, lying awake at night. I sat on a book I wrote for weeks, before I could send it to the publisher. I've sat on draft emails for too much too long, perhaps hundreds of times.
But each day, I get faster.
I started to hang around people who do things so fast that it blows your mind.
And now, I practice ‘speed’ as part of the work itself.
Where does ‘speed’ come from?
Over the years, I’ve looked back at why some are so stinking slow, and some move super-sonic.
And there seems to be no difference in ‘stress’ or ‘fatigue’.
I realised it’s not just about the effort, or ‘pressure’ we create, but also about the friction.
People who move quickly seem to have less mental friction slowing them down.
In the book - "15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership."
Here’s one thing they said:
97% of people admit to outright lying.
But this isn’t nearly as big of a problem as “withholding.”
Most firms and leaders withhold.
Withholding is refraining from revealing the relevant facts.
We’ve been programmed to withhold and/or lie. We are afraid, so we withhold.
But this makes us slow.
Now, it’s generally accepted that withholding is from fear.
So the question is, what are you afraid of?
Most people are afraid because they are uncomfortable with their truth, or who they actually are.
So they withhold in their training.
They withhold in their relationships.
They withhold in their work.
So, to build speed in your business, and cut over-thinking, we attack this withholding stuff thing right at the jugular.
If this resonates with you, you know it’s going to take time to internalise this.
Nonetheless - here are some prompts that can help you build speed in your business, by cutting with-holding:
Where in my life:
Am I overthinking?
Am I withholding?
Am I doubting
Write out some ideas. When we start to see where you are withholding in one area of life, we also start to see where we’re withholding in another area. The dynamic is the same.
Where can I bring out:
My truth?
My transparency?
My honesty?
Where in your life can you bring out more? Where can you amplify your nuances, or your personal characteristics?
With-holding creates a tone of problems, because it is a bottleneck for speed. It creates back and forth conversations in the mind. It creates lethargy, and doubt.
But when we practice candor, or destroying ‘withholding’ as much as possible, we get faster in our work.
We build speed.
And speed is one of the big keys to business growth.
Want more help with your productivity?
Grab our CEO Hour Framework.
This is a short PDF with three sections to help you plan the week ahead. You can fill it out any time, but we find it’s best when you do it on a Sunday, or Monday, to map out the week ahead.
Become clear, energised and organised for the week ahead, then ruthlessly execute with no holding back
Click below to download.
How to know which idea to work on
A few days back I got a message from a coach in Creator Club.
I’ll withhold his name, because I’m not sure he want’s it to be shared.
No matter:
“I feel like I’m getting in my own way a bit at the moment. I’ve got a ton of ideas I’m working and writing on, but struggling to get them actioned and followed all the way through. I’m working through it but my to-do lists at the moment seem humanly impossible.”
i.e - A lot of ideas, but not a lot of follow-through.
A common little nugget in small business.
I sat back in my chair, looked around my lair, and formulated my somewhat “thick-skulled” take on this.
In essence, our real problem when we have too many ideas is not that we don’t know which one to focus on.
Or, that we focus on the ‘wrong’ one.
But simply that we don’t follow through on any of them.
We get stuck in overwhelm, and that feels horrendous and can create a downward spiral.
So let’s call that our ‘base case’:
Ideas = Infinity
Follow through = zero
Direction = downward spiral
Or something close to that.
This means that relative to the base case, ANY follow through is going to be a win, and, the mere ACT of following through is going to train that ‘follow through’ muscle.
I asked him:
“What are the top three ideas you are working on?”
He gave me three ideas.
“OK cool, which of those is the most fun?”
He told me that the podcast would be the most fun - which was one of his three ideas.
I asked him if he had recorded the podcast?
Turns out, it’s all done, except for the intro and cover art.
The action then, is to momentarily forget all the other ideas, and execute the next step of your most fun idea.
But what if it’s the wrong idea?
What if I should do something else?
Well hold on - nothing was getting done beforehand!
Now, we can work on something we like, AND learn to develop the ‘follow through’ muscle.
Our new situation:
Ideas = Infinity minus one
Follow through = one
Direction = upward spiral
That’s 100% improvement on follow through.
Doing this, we also develop speed (I like to call this learning “same day speed” - get the idea, and execute it / ship it on the same day)
Once that thing is done, then move to the next thing.
Look, there are undoubtably a lot more complex ways to go about this. You could sort your ideas into quadrants of importance, and prioritise them based on urgency et cetera. But here I’m assuming that people know they should be doing all that stuff already - but they aren’t doing it.
Which means it’s as good as useless, and it’s much better to execute the thing you want to do.
Spark the productivity via maximum fun or interest.
Then build momentum you need for everything else.
Something to think about.
Want more help with your productivity?
Grab our CEO Hour Framework.
This is a short PDF with three sections to help you plan the week ahead. You can fill it out any time, but we find it’s best when you do it on a Sunday, or Monday, to map out the week ahead.
Become clear, energised and organised for the week ahead, then ruthlessly execute with no holding back
Click below to download.