Should we allow all important growth enhancing projects to keep slipping because they are so large that we can never finish them? Or is it important to admit that though perfection should be something we strive for as a business, sometimes it’s better to phase growth, to produce something tangible in key phases and allow the business to grow organically? (Even if that means a few faults are on show at times?)

To answer these questions I’m going to bare all by using sb as an example.

We recently redesigned this website. For months we knew it was to be in with the new. Every minute detail was planned to absolute perfection. We had one major problem though — our schedule kept slipping. New jobs came in and scheduled projects took longer than planned. We never seemed to get the final site good enough to go public with.

About a month ago the deadline to complete this website sailed by. Again. We needed to take drastic action. We bit the bullet and did what every uncompromising business owner is terrified of.

We made phase one of three live even though we knew it wasn’t flawless. For example, we’ve yet to spend time on the SEO (search engine optimisation). A lot of our work comes from referrals and networking contacts, so right now we needed our site and portfolio up more than we needed people to find the site cold. Our portfolio only has three projects in it and does not show a wide enough variety but three up to date projects on show are better than none. These are just two examples from a long outstanding to do list!

In short, you may feel like you are settling for less when you know your customers may spot imperfect aspects of your business. But for a small business that hasn’t got massive budgets or teams of people to get jobs done the conundrum is a difficult one. It’ll be different for every business but overall it’s better to get out there, get active and get visible than to hide away and use incomplete projects as an excuse. After all, a clever step by step approach may help you to appear more human and actually appeal to your potential customers. At least we hope so!

We are sure your maths skills are brilliant, but just to illustrate:

£500 referral — receive £25 from us to you
£800 referral — receive £40 from us to you
£1500 referral — receive £75 from us to you
£2000 referral — receive £100 from us to you
-OR-
£1 000 000 referral — receive £50 000 from us to you

Get the picture? Though we still really appreciate a referral that equates to less than £500 of business we don’t think you’d be that turned on by anything less than £25. If we’re wrong about this then just let us know! Remember, this 5% referral offer is real money that you can do whatever the heck you want with! Hmm let’s think… Drinks all round? New shoes? New toy? Or you could remain true to the spirit of entrepreneurship and put it toward your business or in a savings account! Whatever takes your fancy. It’s just a BIG thank you from us.

Unfortunately there are always rules:

1. This is not a lifelong 5% – surely that would be too kind? We only pay a 5% referral fee for the first lot of work we do for the person you referred. If we’re so brilliant that they come back to us then, well, that’s just because we’re, um, good!

2. We will pay you the 5% referral fee only when the client you referred has paid us in full.