> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://kelfordinc.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Optimization as procrastination — Kelford Labs Weekly - URL: https://kelfordinc.com/optimization-as-procrastination-kelford-labs-weekly/ - Published: 2025-09-03T11:06:03.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T11:04:36.000Z - Description: Getting one client, not all the clients. - Author: Joel Kelly - Tags: avoidance, camouflage, customers, expand, failure, focus, mistake, silver bullet, validate, Weekly Labs, optimization > “‘Stay the course’ is only a good idea if you’re sure you’re on course. > > ... > > Pretending you’re in control even when you aren’t is a recipe not only for mistakes, but for not learning from mistakes.” > > — Donella Meadows, *Dancing with Systems*. **Today, as briefly as I can, I’m going to make my case that *optimization* is often a form of *procrastination*.** What I mean is, if you’re trying to optimize, scale, or grow your B2B service business *before you have a critical mass of clients*, you’re procrastinating on the *real* work. The work of demonstrating *value*. I see this more than I should: Entrepreneurs get an idea in their head about something they think they can deliver and sell. And instead of going out there and actually selling it, they skip that part and go straight to *scaling* it. They start thinking about the software they’ll need to deliver it at scale, and they run off to research content management or ecommerce platforms. Suddenly, they’re sending out mass outreach emails or running ads to drive traffic to their shiny but confusing website. **But what’s *actually* inevitable is that a few weeks or months pass with nothing but some coffee meetings, some vaguely interested friends or contacts, and an overwhelming sensation that they’re on the *cusp of it really taking off*.** What happens next? They start *expanding their offering*, confident that the problem is they haven’t found the right *audience* to target, or that they simply need to offer *more* to get on their ideal prospects’ radars. Pretty soon, they’re taking sales courses, buying marketing packages, and hiring a biz dev manager to “pound the pavement.” By this point, the sunk costs are so severe that failure is not an option, leaving *investing more* as the only alternative. They decide to ‘stay the course,’ even though the course they’re on [isn’t helping](https://kelfordinc.com/did-it-help-kelford-labs-daily/). They get locked in what’s called “[escalation of commitment](https://kelfordinc.com/updated-lets-quit-something-kelford-labs-daily/),” confident that the only way out is through. That the only way to a *sale* is to *scale*. But they were wrong. The way to scale is [*specifics*](https://kelfordinc.com/scale-from-specifics-kelford-labs-weekly/). It’s not about mass appeal, it’s about *narrow* [*focus*](https://kelfordinc.com/focus-further-go-farther-kelford-labs-daily/). **And the real realization needs to be that focusing on scale instead of specifics is a form of procrastination.** It’s a form of *perfectionism* that leads to *paralysis*. As bestselling author Ryan Holiday wrote in *Discipline is Destiny*, “An obsession with getting it perfect misses the forest for the trees, because ultimately the biggest miss of all is failing to get your shot off. What you don’t ship, what you’re too afraid or strict to release, to try, is, by definition, a failure.” “It doesn’t matter the cause,” he writes, “whether it was from procrastination or perfectionism, the result is the same. You didn’t do it.” **So instead of focusing on getting *one customer* (because that’s not enough to be perfect) these entrepreneurs focus on getting *all the customers* in the market.** Because that’s what impresses investors, right? That’s what proves their value, right? But it’s a universal rule of our world that you can either have [*some of everything* or *all of nothing*](https://kelfordinc.com/kelford-labs-daily-some-of-everything-or-all-of-nothing/). And when we attempt to seize everything, we either miss the target entirely or cement resistance against us. Instead, we have to accept that our portion is only part of the market, our success is only a piece of the greater growth of the system. So if we want our share, we must start *small*. We must take something nascent but novel and fill it with [increasing value](https://kelfordinc.com/kelford-labs-daily-increasing-value-marketing/) so that its awareness, impact, and influence grows steadily and sustainably. **Optimization is what you do when you’ve already grown, when you’ve saturated your market and you need to extract additional value from the same or similar resources.** “The essence of marketing is narrowing the focus,” Trout and Ries wrote in *The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing*. “You become stronger when you reduce the scope of your operations. You can’t stand for something if you chase after everything.” From your perspective, it might look like everyone’s moving faster, and maybe they are. But are they [*getting anywhere*](https://kelfordinc.com/did-it-help-kelford-labs-daily/)? Yes, everyone *says* you need to focus on scale. Everyone *says* you need to do mass outreach. Everyone *says* you’re just ‘one weird trick’ away from it all paying off. But in marketing mass opinion is [*always wrong*](https://kelfordinc.com/predictions-are-wrong-kelford-labs-daily/). By definition marketing is about *standing out*. So blending in with best practices is *doomed to failure*: The failure of [stopping](https://kelfordinc.com/the-easiest-way-for-marketing-fail-kelford-labs-daily/), because it wasn’t working. 100 years ago, copywriter Claude C. Hopkins wrote in his memoir: “We must get down to individuals. We must treat people in advertising as we treat them in person. Center on their desires. Consider the person who stands before you.” **And here’s the key: “However big your business, get down to the units, for those units are all that make size.”** To scale, we must have *something to grow*. And nothing times anything is still nothing. You can’t scale a business without customers, you can’t grow a service offering that doesn’t have clients. So we can’t procrastinate on doing the hard work of selling a single person by focusing on selling to everyone instead. Get *one client first*, and let them [lead you to more](https://kelfordinc.com/next-best-not-ideal-kelford-labs-weekly/). **Instead of trying to get them all at once, and getting nothing at all.** --- *Reply to this email to tell me what you think, or ask any questions!* --- [***Kelford Inc.***](https://www.kelfordinc.com/) ***shows experts the way to always knowing what to say.***