How to Know When to Quit
28 Nov
On reflection I’m not so sure Winston Churchill was right when he said, ‘never give in, never ever give in’. When he said this in context, it’s fair enough, but the stand alone quote can be dangerous if just blindly followed. That’s true of many quotes of course. In context, they’re fine but isolated they can be misunderstood.
Never giving in can lead to flogging a dead horse. Sometimes certain strategies, products or services should be quit. Google (Notebook), Coca Cola (New Coke), and Sony (Betamax) know this. They’ve all quit on products or services. The guy down the road from me struggling to sell a heavy paper based time management system designed in the 80′s doesn’t know this. He may have mastered his time, but the future of his business makes me apprehensive. He might think he’s comfortable selling what he knows, but things for him are about to get increasingly uncomfortable. Knowing when to quit and when to stick is a smart business skill that many of us struggle with.
Part of the problem is we enjoy a positive vision of an outcome, and our initial energy and excitement on a project sees us making great progress in the earlier days or weeks. But then, we hit difficulties. We lose energy to other distractions. We see problems ahead that we never saw before. Our markets change in time and we don’t always stay engaged with them and their needs. After a while we begin to notice progress slows. Then the initial excitement is replaced by resistance and frustration. And then? Most people quit. When perhaps they shouldn’t have. It’s the same old pattern. Don’t be surprised by it, it was part of the deal of taking your project on in the first place. It was in the small print that you didn’t read. Most successes require enduring and getting through this phase. If the phase didn’t exist, we’d all be highly successful in anything we chose to do. It’s the phase that sorts out the winners from the losers. Seth Godin calls this phase and his book about it ‘The Dip’ (click here), and I highly recommend it.
But sometimes you should quit. So how do you know when to quit? Here’s how; you define the circumstances under which you’ll quit before starting your project. Define the circumstances or feedback you’ll get that tell you that you’re truly at a dead end on this project, and that there’s no way around. Define the information you’ll receive that says there’s no longer term gain in it. Be thorough. Write it down and frame it; “I will only quit when…” Then stick to it. When the going gets tough, the tough read their pre-defined quitting conditions, and then they get going.
But be careful. If you do think it’s time to quit a market or a major vision of yours, there’s still room for error. Consider quitting your various approaches, products and services first and replacing them with better approaches. You don’t usually have to quit the ‘big’ thing. You can quit plenty of the small things, until you find what works and what suits your resources. Google, Coca Cola and Sony know this.
I think the guy down the road should quit the heavy paper based product and work out how to get it online, or for hand held electronic devices. His core market for paper based time management systems, if not already, are soon going to have plenty of time on their hands anyway. If there’s no wind, your kite won’t fly. He shouldn’t quit his market, or his desire to help people manage their time if this is his passion. He can still do that, and if he cares about his market he should provide the tools that suit them, not him. Unfortunately, many people fail to see this and when the going gets tough end up quitting their whole business, or the market altogether. Perhaps it’s time to quit doing that?
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Hello! I'm Mark Moore and I help employers and employees maximise their value to each other.
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