Alice Benham shares her advice for getting projects off the ground quickly.
As business owners, we all strive to be creative and innovative, constantly coming up with new project ideas that might fill a gap or solve a problem for our clients, but the real challenge lies in executing them. Too often, we find ourselves stuck in the idea phase, hindered by the thought of having everything perfectly in place before taking action. The result? Many of us end up talking ourselves out of getting started altogether, when what we really need is to embrace imperfection and learn as we go.
Of course, the fear of failure can be paralyzing, especially when statistics show that a staggering 65% of new projects fail. Nevertheless, it doesn't have to take months or even years to get an idea off the ground. By adopting the right mindset, staying focused, and planning strategically, it's possible to launch a project in just a few short weeks. This philosophy was put to the test by Alice Benham, a business and marketing strategist who successfully took her stationery venture, OnPaper, from idea to market in six week, selling out within days of its first drop.
“Quick (and messy) action has always been in my nature. It’s easy to be held back by fear or never start because you don’t feel ready, but by taking action as soon as inspiration comes, I try to stop those feelings from interfering.”
Alice’s love for business started young, when she started freelancing as a social media strategist at the age of 17. Now she supports other business owners by helping them work on, rather than just in, their businesses. “Whether looking to scale, pivot or simplify, I help my clients clarify their vision, adapt their business model, streamline operations and improve marketing.”
With the holiday season fast approaching, Alice Benham was faced with a crucial decision - wait until the following year to launch her stationery venture, OnPaper, or take action immediately. Choosing the latter, Alice decided to seize the opportunity. “ I knew we needed to launch the products before the Christmas rush, so the timeline was tight.”
In weeks one and two, Alice mapped out the plan, focused on branding and legal requirements, and shared the news with her community. The next two weeks were focused on product development, including finding and testing suppliers, whilst the final two weeks were spent getting ready for the launch by ordering packaging, creating the website, setting up a mailing list, and getting her community excited.
For anyone feeling inferior to Alice’s productivity and seeming ability to launch with ease, it’s important to point out that this wasn’t her first rodeo. As a seasoned pro, she had certain advantageous elements already in place that enabled her to hit the ground running. “In the summer of 2020 I was given the opportunity to create a small range of stationery in collaboration with an online shop,” she recalls. “[I could] test my ideas in a pretty risk-free way and the success of that range definitely allowed me to start OnPaper with more confidence and clarity, because I already knew what people did and didn’t like and I had spent over six years building an engaged and relevant community, so I had customers ready and waiting, which definitely helped.”
This doesn’t mean that the launch came off without fears or hitches, however. Knowing little about running a product based business, Alice’s biggest fear was that the quality of the products wouldn’t meet her standards, so she and her team went through ten sampling rounds before getting it right, taking her timelines right down to the wire. “There were definitely moments where it looked like we needed to delay launch, but thanks to a fantastic supplier and lots of late night drives, we got it right at the final moment. We didn’t actually get our hands on the right products until 10pm the night before launch.”
And despite having built up an engaged audience, like any entrepreneur, Alice still had fears that no one would care and the products wouldn’t sell. This, she says though, is “nothing new,” and shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to take action.
“Fear is a massive one that I see come up for my clients and experience myself and it’s so normal. We fear what people will think, we fear getting it wrong, we fear letting ourselves down - fear exists any time you’re outside of your comfort zone which sadly for us business owners, is most of the time. I try to see fear not as something to get rid of or wait to pass, but to learn to take action despite.”
Here are five steps Alice took to move out of inaction and get her idea up and running as fast as possible.
Test the market, depending on the risk
“When you’re launching something, you’re placing a bet on the fact that people will want it, so before you put in a tonne of work it’s pretty helpful to check that,” Alice advises. Basically, it’s really important to figure out if there’s enough interest in your product or service beofre you invest a lot of time, money or effort into it. The level of caution, Alice says, depends on how risky the venture is. “If you’re launching a podcast or online course, you’re likely only losing a bit of time and pride if it flops, whereas if you’re launching a product or a whole new business, you’re taking a pretty big financial risk and may want to check you’re going in the right direction first.”
Map out a plan
When there’s a lot to do to get something off the ground, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and slip into doing ‘busy’ yet ineffectual work as a way to feel like you’re accomplishing something. To combat this, Alice suggests making a plan. “When you’re on a tight timescale and budget, every action matters. Start by brain dumping all the things you need to do to launch, then the tasks in a logical order. You won’t follow it perfectly but it’ll help you make the most out of your time and not miss anything important.”
Start simply
When you're accustomed to giving your all to ensure the success of your business, it's common to make things more complicated than necessary when starting a new project, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
“It’s easy to get carried away and think you need to launch with [something] super complex or impressive, but what if you started simple?” Alice challenges. Nailing one key product or offer and doing it in a way that’s easy for you and the customer will create the best foundation to then diversify and improve down the line.”
Create hype
As the one promoting your offers on a regular basis, it's easy to assume that everyone is weary of hearing about them. You have to remember, though, that not everyone will come across all of your marketing attempts, which means that repetition is necessary to effectively get your message across.
"You’ll give your new thing the best possible chance to succeed if you shout about it in the run up to launch,” Alice says. “Bring [your audience] with you on the journey, create a bit of mystery around what you’re doing and don’t make launch day the first time you talk about what you’re launching. People love new things and we're all inherently nosy, so capitalize on that!”
Take messy action
The worst thing you can do, Alice says, is compare your efforts to those of people who have huge resources. “Unless you have a massive team or unlimited budget, you’ll find yourself feeling a) behind and b) like you can’t do it almost every day, but that’s ok! Each day, look for the small actions you can take, as they all add up.”
You can follow Alice and her work on Instagram here.
