The Deep-Freezing Strategy® for Entrepreneurs: Preserving Ideas for Future Success

People engaged in business practices are always innovation-driven and continue to search for the next big thing and business opportunity. These attributes give spirit and vigor to the process of growth and advancement for humanity. However, there’s a common challenge many entrepreneurs face: the problem of a lack of focus due to the constant switching between ideas without elaborating on any of them. This can result in projects being left incomplete, resources being used inefficiently, and the diffusion of attention, which can in some way contribute to underachievement. In response to this issue, the author proposed the Deep-Freezing Strategy® for Entrepreneurs as a prescriptive method for organizing and filtering ideas.

The Problem: Too Many Ideas, Too Little Focus

It is usual to see the contractors getting buried in the pile of ideas they formulate in the course of their work. The grass is always greener syndrome infatuation with a new idea makes it easy for a creative strategist to abandon the ongoing idea to embrace the latest idea that has just popped up. While this can be exhilarating, it often results in several problems: 

Abandoned Projects: Instead of managing the existing project implementations, new concepts cover them up, making them abandoned halfway.

Resource Drain: To avoid efficiency decreasing the amount of time, money, and effort invested in the project, their portions are divided among many initiatives, which in turn makes each of them rather weak.

Lack of Systemization: Relentless switching between tasks stifles the ability of owners/managers to embed best procedures into use and churn out suboptimal results

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The Deep-Freezing Strategy®: Preserving Ideas for the Right Time

The Deep-Freezing Strategy® offers a structured approach to managing the flood of ideas without losing sight of the primary goal. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Document Every Idea

Whenever you get an idea, do not rush to implement it, as this may lead to a series of ideas being implemented instead of the best one. However, do not write it in detail on paper to allow negative thinking; instead, one could safely put down the ideas on paper. Include:

Brief Description: State the idea in no more than a few words or phrases.

Potential Benefits: Enumerate the potential benefits and effects that the idea may bring about.

Resources Needed: Make a preliminary assessment of the time, money, and labor intensity of implementing the proposed plan.

Challenges: Recognize risks and obstacles to the achievement of the goals.

Step 2: Store the idea in the “Deep Freezer.”

It is a good practice to set up a repository of ideation documentation in physical or electronic format. This is like a “deep freezer” where your ideas are kept and safe for use at some later time that you may consider appropriate to use them, thus not interfering with the project(s) that you are executing at the time.

Step 3: Focus on Current Projects

Focus yourself and your efforts on the idea or project that is being worked on at the moment. It is to put it at the level of enormous operativity and organizational efficiency. This involves:

Execution: Use the idea to the extreme, with very little left to the imagination, where all aspects of the idea can be sharply and clearly defined.

Standardization: When establishing the project, try to design it in such a manner that it can run fully on its own without your direct input. This might involve:

Some of the sub-processes that are involved are as follows: 

• Developing standard operation procedures (SOPs)
• Developing a competent staff to ascertain process control
• Introducing, where possible, the mechanics of IT, technology, analytics, and automation.

Step 4: Evaluate Readiness for New Ideas

It is only right to go to the deep freezer when the current project that you are running has gained reasonable ground and can almost manage itself out of the many distractions you give it. At this stage:

Review Stored Ideas: Review the concepts noted during the prior phase or pass the given prompt back to the author for reconsideration.

Prioritize: Choose the paradigm with the greatest potential and the most implementable plan.

Execute with Focus: Take the same rigorous approach to this new idea as you did to the last one—follow through to the respective step.

The Benefits of the Deep-Freezing Strategy®

Implementing the deep-freezing strategy® offers several key advantages: 

Preserved Creativity: Ideas are captured and preserved, thus minimizing cases of losing track of good ideas to invest in, and there is a continuously replenished resource pool of ideas for investment.

Enhanced Focus: By focusing on several projects at a given time, the company can capture the resources needed for the successful completion of the project.

Improved Efficiency: Premature professionalization also narrows your ideas’ scope without prejudicing the ongoing operations, since systemizing your projects minimizes their dependence on your participation.

Sustainable Growth: Unlike other methods that focus on business development where several projects are initiated at once, this method encourages more sustainability in the growth of businesses as each project is allowed ample time to be properly nurtured before the next is started.

Real-World Example

Let’s take an example of a person who owns an e-shop and is doing well through it. Over a year, they are presented with theoretical concepts and strategies for launching an entirely new product line, a mobile application and entering the international market. Instead of pursuing all these ideas simultaneously, they:

Write down each idea with precision and store it in one of the special freezers known as the ideation deep freezer.

There is little exploration of new opportunities spearheading new business models; instead, they should choose to build on, expand, and perfect what they already have in store, namely e-commerce tools for managing supply chains and customers.

From their experiences and learning from running the e-commerce business, they can draw from their reservoir of ideas reserved for later implementation as they focus on the aspects that require their direct input and thus decide on implementing the mobile app idea, which can only be successful at this idea, if it has adequate time and resources at its disposal.

Conclusion

The Deep-Freezing Strategy® for Entrepreneurs® is quite useful when it comes to dealing with the constant stream of ideas that come to the table while not wasting ongoing projects. This way, you would prevent the dreaming phase from becoming your worst enemy by keeping track of and having the most important ideas available at your fingertips. As they say, there is a grain of truth in every joke, but not all concepts that may be conceived should be turned into actions promptly. Safeguard your ideas to ensure constant innovation, optimize your processes to enhance productivity, and bring continuity to your business growth through the Deep-Freezing Strategy®.