The breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions

In another thread, Jason Moffatt said something about feedback that really stuck with me as being an important lesson. I think it warrants separate discussion. His comment... I would suggest that, for a lot of people, that may be the most important sentence you'll read this week, if you just think about it.

We often hear people say that action is the single thing that makes the difference between success and failure. While there's a lot of truth to that, it doesn't explain how some people can take consistent, massive action and still fail.

Jason's comment explains that perfectly, in just 15 words.

It doesn't just apply to direct questions, like "Why isn't XYZ working for me?" It applies to everything. As marketers, we should be looking at all the responses we get, not just conversion rates and EPC. Every action someone takes as a result of their exposure to our messages is, to some extent, affected by our initial communication. It's the other person communicating back.

If we listen to those communications, and adjust to them, we can get more of the actions we want and give our prospects and customers more of what they want - the way they want it. If we're just looking for validation - someone to tell us that we're right - we're not going to adjust, and we'll keep getting the same results.

You don't take every comment you hear as gospel, of course. You look at where it came from, and why the person said it. If it's from some complete newbie in a forum, and they're just saying how much they hate ABC, you should probably ignore it. But if it's your prospects reacting badly to ABC, you should take that very seriously.

People who get my newsletter know that I regularly ask for feedback. I don't promise to reply to it all, but I do promise to read it all. And I do.

I wrote a sales letter for a product last year, and it converted pretty well. I added a significant amount of content to it, and adjusted the copy to reflect that. When I plugged it, the response rate was lower than previously. I figured it was just because so many people had already seen it.

Wrong.

A gentleman who looked at it sent me a note, describing how he felt while reading various parts of the letter. Because he focused on his feelings, instead of trying to analyze the copy, he nailed it. He pinpointed exactly what was wrong with the copy. It was so clear that, when I went back to look at it, I felt foolish for having made such amateurish mistakes.

Made the appropriate adjustments, and the conversion rate is higher than it was the first time, despite the price being almost doubled.

Yay, feedback!

Another example: I get a lot of positive comments on my writing. For quite a while, though, there've been occasional people who remarked on one aspect of it that they found difficult. They could just never quite nail down what it was that bothered them. I was sort of getting it, but not quite.

A friend who's a writer, but not in this business, signed up for the newsletter. He sent me a note pointing out a place he thought I could improve. He was the first one who was able to explain it in a way that made it clear. It was easily the most valuable suggestion I've gotten for improving my writing in all the time I've been online.

Another: I started a project a while back, in an area where I'm more than slightly experienced. I asked a friend for critique, and he pointed out a number of things he thought needed changed. Looked at them and realized he was right. Made the changes, and that project is doing quite a bit better because I looked for advice.

These are the sorts of things that move you ahead in big jumps, instead of little increments. If you assume you're right, you're going to miss those jumps.

The key with each of them is that these were people who were genuinely trying to be helpful, and who were more interested in seeing me get better results than in whether it might hurt my fragile feelings to hear the truth. And they knew what they were talking about.

When people ask, "Do you think this will work?," one of the most common answers is, "Test." That's marketer's shorthand for, "Get feedback from the people who matter, in a real decision-making situation."

If you don't track the responses, as many types as possible, you're asking, but not listening to the answers. If your only answer to low sales is to try and throw more traffic at the system, you're assuming that you've got the best technique you can get. That's just throwing money away.

If you get a consistent response, whether to marketing or to more personal interactions, you're causing that response. If people really like you, there's a reason. If a lot of people think you're a jerk, there's a reason for that, too. The same reason.

The way you make them feel.

If you ignore feedback of any kind, you're falling into the trap Jason mentioned. If you only listen to people who agree with you, you're stuck in it, big time. If you criticize your prospects, blaming them for your lack of sales, you may be too far gone for help.

To help people see the value of feedback, let's hear some more examples. Was there a time you ignored feedback, and what did it cost you?

If you've taken feedback and adjusted based on it, what were the benefits?

What do you consider to be valid and useful feedback, and what do you ignore? And why?


Paul