The Secret Steps

1. Have a really, really good idea. Don’t bother with “good” ideas. We all have those all the time.
2. Summarize your idea in short, choppy sentences suitable for bullet points. Drop articles, verbs, and anything else that gets in the way. Have you ever known a successful grammar teacher?
3. Identify forceful art that is in some way related to your points. Got a great idea to make cars safer? Find a picture of a monkey driving a car! Or that movie of the monkey washing the cat! Or that kitten hanging in mid air! That’s classic.
4. Combine the results of steps 2 and 3 on slides in PowerPoint. Remember: Good ideas fit on slides. After all, if you can’t fit it on a slide, how are you going to prepare an elevator pitch? But I don’t have time for that, because we’re on to the next step!
5. Read the slides to a room of otherwise intelligent people who are already successful because they followed the Secret Steps. They’ll love that kitten picture. The kitten’s just hanging there, and it says “hang in there!” So cute. What were we talking about?
6. Pick three points from your presentation to re-emphasize on the last slide. Keep them short. I recommend you keep them to single words, if you can. Something like “monkey washing cat.” That’s the “hook.”
7. A long process of phone and email tag ensues. Be forceful! Remind them of the three points. It won’t hurt to say how brilliant your idea is, and how these folks are super smart because they “get it.”
8. Profit!
9. Repeat.

Conclusion

Remember: All projects eventually fail, even if they succeed first. Going to the moon? We don’t go there any more. WW2? That war is sooo over. Curing polio? Now there’s very little money in polio research.

The trick is to realize when the project is about to fail and get out fast. I recommend bailing out right after the project kicks off, since that’s the only time you can be sure the project isn’t failing. Then you get a reputation as a starter, an entrepreneur, a “go to” guy.

Now, go forth and $ucceed!