Overthinking? Be brave – make a Lottery leap

“Overthinking, and the procrastination it creates, is caused by trying to make perfect decisions in a world where perfect decisions only exist in hindsight.”

Is overthinking crippling your charity’s future health?

The appetite to take risks in order to learn and grow is an essential part of a healthy development diet. Without creative bravery, you are destined to under-perform.

Here at Bee Ethical, we make our decisions in a room that is a mirror – an equal blend of financial stakeholders and creative stakeholders.

There’s equal voice and the stage belongs to everyone, no overthinking.

That balance builds solid foundations and ensures our strategies are ambitious.

These strategies and learnings have helped us to build Britain’s biggest single charity lottery – a product that is still growing at record-breaking levels. 

The Keys to Growth

Today, we open the Bee Ethical bible to growth – here’s five quick lessons from the last 12 months that could alter your charity arc and lottery performance. 

1. Quitting is a skill

Knowing when to pivot and change direction is a trait shared by those with successful lives and businesses. It’s a behaviour that really needs to become more prevalent in the Third Sector. A good idea isn’t a good idea for life, you have to know when projects, systems and beliefs are becoming toxic. And then exit. Starting again isn’t failure, it is wisdom.

2. Growth is painful. Change is painful

But nothing is more painful than being risk averse and marooned in a place of certain failure. So, there really is no choice, you have to learn to change, and if you’re not prepared to change, you really shouldn’t be there. Taking no risks is the biggest risk of all.

3. Press the pause button and remember the purpose of your charity

Write it down in its purest form. Now repeat it out loud. The chances are you’ll deliver that mission more effectively if you have more revenue. So the real question is: Am I doing everything I can to raise as much money as possible?

4. Once you find a formula to success, it’s about consistency and endeavour

The success of our lottery products was only 20% inspiration and exhibiting alternative behaviour to the market. 80% was down to remaining consistent and loyal to those tactics and strategies. Commit to consistency and growth will follow.

5. Never stop learning, never stop testing, and establish this in your charity culture

If you keep planting seeds – new ideas – some will bloom, some will be weeds, but there will be growth. Many organisations we interact with are on a treadmill of ‘do and repeat’ not ‘test and learn’. If they’re working to a great plan, that may not be a bad thing, however, it’s a disaster if the core objective is broken. 

Need help?

The Bee Ethical Group is a specialist in managing, and growing, charity lotteries and ensuring lottery products that have a diminishing return are relevant and future-proof.

If you’d like a free lottery MOT from the Bee Ethical team, we’d be delighted to look at your model, software systems, marketing strategies and attrition management.