In the past four years, I’ve become more and more involved in entrepreneurship due to my work with Studer Community Institute and my position as entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of West Florida. During this time, I have met with hundreds of people who want to start a business or to grow their business. I have also met with some hoping to not lose their business. They all have lots of questions. Entrepreneurship is not easy.

This past weekend, I spent time with a very successful entrepreneur named Shannon Kennedy. He and his brother Shawn have built and continue to build a very successful insurance development company called SASid. Shannon shared the growth of the company and also shared a pitch deck he had created in case he decides to look for additional investment. He then asked my advice. While we discussed many facets of the pros and cons of getting investors, my main advice to him was to narrow his scope. For most entrepreneurs, I find that it’s better to be “narrow and deep” than “wide and shallow.”

This is particularly hard advice for many entrepreneurs to take. Entrepreneurs are often filled with ideas. They are bundles of creativity. They are confident and often not as risk-averse as most people. After all, how many people are willing to put their career and often their home on the line to launch a business? It is hard work with many more failures than successes.

Tommy Duncan is CEO of Trusted Health Plan, based in Washington, DC. Years ago, he made a presentation at EntreCon, the two-day conference in Pensacola, Florida, for business and community leaders. He showed a slide that basically advised not to do too much research before starting a company. While it was tongue-in-cheek, his point was that after you discover the long work hours needed and the high failure rate, you likely won’t start one. Luckily for us, Tommy did. His company provides great service to many Medicaid recipients in the DC area. 

Many good things have a downside. For entrepreneurs, the unintended consequences of their many great ideas are their many great ideas. What I mean by this is it’s easy for them to spread themselves too thin and become distracted. Often by trying to implement too many ideas, they miss out on the few key ones. They also struggle with saying no. Entrepreneurs are always busy and due to their nature most likely always will be.

I often ask groups I am working with, “How many of you have a full plate at work?” Every hand goes up. I then say, “If I asked you this same question five years ago, how many hands would have gone up?” The answer is all of them. My conclusion is most people—and certainly every entrepreneur I have met—are full-plate people. They think, As soon as this project, sale, etc. is done, my plate will be less full. But do you know what they do? They quickly put something else on the plate to fill it up. So the key is to make sure the right stuff is on the plate and in the right proportions and that other things are left to the side for later. I have found that to suggest to an entrepreneur to forget any one of their ideas is painful. My approach is to suggest they put it to the side for now. 

First I’d like to suggest three books that touch on the “less is more” subject: When Less Becomes More: Making Space for Slow, Simple, and Good, by Emily Ley; Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown; and The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers, by Keith R. McFarland. All three are great reads for anyone wanting to learn techniques that create success at work, at home, and in life in general.

  Now here are a few tips I’ve learned from others as well as my own experiences: 

1. Start with a no. It is much easier to go from a no to a yes than from a yes to a no. You can always say, “Not at this time.” In the book Essentialism, the author shares that for the first time in history, due to technology and the access to information, that the preponderance of choice has overwhelmed the ability to manage it. Mr. McKeown feels that humans have lost the ability to filter what is important and what isn’t. Psychologists call this “decision fatigue.” The more choices we must make, the more the quality of these decisions deteriorates. I struggle with this myself. I get so concerned that people may not like me, for instance, that I say yes and then wonder what the heck I was thinking.

2. Ask yourself, Is it essential? What if it does not happen? Creative people often find it hard to stop with the ideas. The belief that we can do it all and have it all has long been a myth, sold by advertisers. I start out preparing for a presentation with lots of PowerPoint slides and then have to narrow them down. It’s not that they are bad; however, with the time allotted, I need to figure out the minimum amount needed to make the points. Less is better.

3. Practice being unavailable. Often entrepreneurs put in so many hours that the workforce gets overly dependent on them. By being unavailable at certain times, it creates opportunities for others to step up. It shows trust. If you are a leader and cannot take time off, hold up the mirror. This means you have not developed a sustainable culture for the business or a sustainable life for yourself.

4. List your products. By each one, list the revenue it creates and the resources it takes. Then ask yourself what would happen if you took the resources being used by the products with the least amount of revenue and put them toward the ones that are doing the best. I bet the company would do better. Ever notice those companies that have the best focus do the best? They know what works. They reduce their scope and go deep in the areas that have the best return. A good company spends as much time stopping things as starting things. Yes, it is hard to do because the idea sounded great at first and was supposed to work. But when you find it isn’t working, it’s time to move on.

5. Don’t let yourself be distracted. In talking with investors, they are very sensitive to the company founder or CEO getting distracted. Is that new idea or product going to take time away from other things? And is it worth it? Often it is not.

It’s our human nature to think that more is always good. When I was working in healthcare, I was at a hospital that was struggling to get better results in patient experience. They showed me the list of actions each nurse manager was to do each day. There were eight items. I recognized them all for they were in my books. They asked for my advice. I suggested they pick one of the eight items and do it well. Then they could see what the second action should be, assuming that one was needed.

This approach works. While it seems counterintuitive, doing a few things well is better than doing lots of things fairly or inconsistently. And I find it’s also less stressful and a lot more rewarding. When you start getting results and positive feedback, you’ll most likely get a surge of momentum that helps you move forward in a smart, measured way.