Moonshot Thinking

Would you rather set a sales target of $1M or $1B? The common answer is $1M because it’s realistic.  But if you know that the chances of hitting $1B is 1 out of 100, would you still go for $1M?  Suddenly 1% of $1B or equivalent of $10M seems realistic if you change your perspective right? Then you’ll go for 10 times of your minimum target.

There’s a quote that says, “Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Moonshot thinking is targeting 10X improvement instead of 10%.  Projects fail because they aren’t so ambitious.  The biggest benefit for this mindset is the inspiration it gives to the team to set and meet certain goals.

The first step to moonshot thinking is to not tolerate problems. The biggest problems are the biggest opportunities.  If you don’t tolerate problems then you always think of ideas to solve them.  If this is your mindset, then you will force yourself to devise a strategy and tactics to meet your target of growing 10 times and even if you fail, practically speaking, 5 times, 6 times, 3 times then it\’s good enough.

So what are other steps?

It is also important to check your progress regularly.  With that, you’ll know where you are or having a mindset that good never is enough.  Always think of better ways and how to improve to the next level.

When your target to grow is 10X, then you don’t care about risks, your efforts, resource and energy are stretched enough to disrupt yourself.

So how would one carry this out in the real world?  Ask yourself, are the sales efforts good enough?  Are you exhausting all possible marketing means to generate leads and awareness? Are you diving deeply into customer problems to come up with new products and solutions?  Big thoughts must be followed by big actions.  Go all-in. 

In our company for example, for this year, we aim to increase our leads 10 times, therefore increase our revenue and profits.  With that, we are exploring all efforts to grow our leads from internal digital marketing efforts, outsourced SEM/SEO management and traditional promotion.  When we do not meet them in a few weeks, we regroup and brainstorm on how to reach them until we are successful.

It’s not always about technology.  It can apply to all dreams, aspirations and problems you want to solve.  If you want to write a book, then write a novel instead of a short story.  Create a music album instead of a single.  Aim for marathon instead of 10km.

With moonshot thinking, you’ll dream bigger, exert bigger efforts and achieve greatness!