Gardeners know the score. They plant tomato seeds hoping that they’ll grow into tomato plants and give them - yes, you’ve guessed - tomatoes. They know that they’re in for months and months of nothing but giving care an attention with no immediate return. Watering… transferring from seed trays to pots… in and out of cold frames and greenhouses to make the best of the weather. It goes on like this for months… WITH NO TOMATOES!

Then, if they do all of that, they should get some tomatoes at the end of it (but might not). At no point do gardeners say, “well it’s been two months now and I don’t have any tomatoes. Yes, I know the seed packet said five months, but I still thought I’d have something by now (for no reason).”

You can see where I’m going with this can’t you…

New business development also takes time to yield fruit, but not a specific amount of time I can promise you (we’ve genuinely won new business for clients in the first week, but don’t expect that every time!). All I can promise you is that if you start a project, the thing that will definitely kill it is giving up on before it even had a chance to success.

A gardener wouldn’t plant seeds if they knew that they’d have no more water one month in, so don’t start a new business project if you know you won’t have enough resource (be that money, patience or belief) to see it through to a point where it’s reasonable to expect it to bear fruit.

if you hear someone say “don’t expect anything for six months” then don’t expect anything for six months. If you hear them say those words but then hear yourself say “yeah, but we’ll probably get something before then” slap yourself. You’re reading the packet all wrong.