Are Your Customers Discussing Your Business (the good and the bad)?

In this episode, Tara goes behind the scenes to share an experience about what happens when your customers start to notice that you are operating your business with duct tape and paper clips and what they do about it...

About Me:

Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

Join us each week as we dive into different strategies, tactics and tips you can apply immediately to your business.

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Mentioned in this episode:

https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
Hey course creators, welcome to today's episode of
the course building secretspodcast. I am thrilled that
you're here today. Hey, I likethis location so much that I am
back here for another episode.So it may, who knows, it may be
my new permanent location.
Alright, in today's episode, Iwant to talk about your
materials, your videos, yourworkbooks, your PowerPoint

(00:23):
decks, if you do those, and justin general, that kind of the,
the assets that you provide topeople. Okay, so when you're
first getting started, we 100%recommend that you take the
strategy of Done is better thanperfect. Right. And so you're
taking imperfect action? Now, Iwant to talk a little bit about

(00:48):
that. Because, yes, we teachthat, yes, 100%, I believe that
it's better to put something outthere, then, than to not get
something out there at all.Okay, but there are certain
levels to this. And so I want tojust review those today. Because
I think that there's a littleconfusion, when people say, hey,
just do an 80% solution, just doan MVP, just put, you know, put

(01:14):
your first draft out there. And,and all of that is 100% true.
However, there's a differencebetween sort of putting out a
draft. Because you have, youdon't have it like locked and
loaded yet, like you're stillrefining the message, you're
still you're still sort ofperfecting it. There's a

(01:37):
difference between that and justbeing sloppy. And I want to talk
a little bit about that today.And the other thing I want to
cover today is just because youstart there, right, you start by
taking imperfect action so thatyou get started and you and
you're not really going to knowexactly how to refine it until

(01:58):
you're working with people,right? Because they're gonna
have questions, you think maybeyou're being really clear, and
they're not sure, right? So. Sothere's going to be a certain
amount of iteration that happensin all of your materials. And
that's totally normal. At somepoint, you need to
professionalize those roughdrafts, right? Just like when

(02:19):
you're writing a paper forschool, you start with a rough
draft, and then you continue Leerefine and revise it until it's
a polished and finished version,you don't just like publish the
rough draft, right?
However,
so that's one concept. But like,just I just want to be clear
about that, that at some pointin your business growth, you

(02:40):
actually have to go back and,and make a final version, right,
you have to make a professionalversion, staying in imperfect
action for your entire businesscareer, right? Like, you launch
your business. And then fiveyears later, you're still in
imperfect action mode, whereeverything is just sort of a
thrown together.

(03:02):
Endeavor is not actually goingto help you grow and scale your
business. I'm telling you rightnow, like it's not going to
happen, your customers, at somepoint are gonna go, what's
happening, right, like, at whatpoint in time? Is this going to
be professional? Right? At whatpoint in time? Can I have 100%
confidence that they're payingattention to all the things

(03:27):
and so
so you need to be payingattention to that, right? Like,
imperfect action isn't a statethat you stay in forever. Okay.
So that being said, when youfirst get started, and you are
doing your rough draft, there isa difference between a rough
draft and sort of a sloppydraft, right. And so let me just

(03:47):
explain what that means. So ifyou are, say you're building
your a PowerPoint deck, becauseyou're gonna do a presentation
to your customers. Now, yourmessaging may be a rough draft,
right, you're taking imperfectaction, you may not exactly have
the messaging, right, you maynot have exactly like the key

(04:08):
points that are going to staythe key points forever. You may
need more images, you may need aprofessional brand, like there
may be things that you need inorder to kind of lock and load
it as a final version. But onething that is is is not

(04:28):
imperfect action is justslapping something together and
having typos and misspellingsand just random stuff that makes
it look like you just like youdidn't pay attention, right? You
didn't care. And and it's just ait's just something that that

(04:52):
doesn't mean a lot to youbecause you just put it together
at the last minute right so sothe perception is people are
really
really open to taking imperfectimperfect action, they're really
open to being a part of a betato being able to provide
feedback. But that doesn't meanthat they're willing it and, and

(05:13):
accepting sloppiness.
And if you want to erodesomebody's confidence, be
sloppy, right? So if you puttogether a PowerPoint
presentation, take up, take the,the couple of minutes to either
review it yourself and make surethere's no typos, or hand it off

(05:34):
to somebody on your team andsay, can you just review this?
Look for any grammaticalproblems look for any
misspellings look for anythingthat doesn't seem like it makes
sense. So that when I presentit, I'm at least presenting the
best rough draft that I have, atthis point in time, it doesn't

(05:54):
take a lot of time to just spendreviewing, and and polishing
your rough draft. Right. So arough draft does not mean sloppy
draft. So I just want to bereally clear about that. Because
what's happening in the minds ofyour customers, as they're
looking at your presentation, orthey're listening to your

(06:14):
presentation, is they haven'tspent the time. They don't care
about me. And
and they're not professional,right? And what happens is that
they say, Well, I wonder whetheror not this level of detail or
attention

(06:36):
is in the deliverable ofwhatever it is you're
delivering. Right? So say, forexample, you are helping
somebody with their finances, ifyou have a PowerPoint deck
that's full of typos, and itjust is looks like it's been
thrown together? Is that how thecustomer is perceiving what

(07:01):
you're doing with with theirfinancials? 100%? Right. Like, I
wonder if what they're creatingover here is thorough is, are
they paying attention to thedetails? Are they just throwing
something together. And so youhave to realize how your

(07:21):
customers perceiving thatparticular situation, right, if
you're putting somethingtogether just in time, because
either you don't have time tofocus on it, or,
you know, you, you, you justwant to be in the moment, like,
it's still important to reallythink about the perception that

(07:41):
that's putting out there foryour people, and how it starts
to permeate throughout yourentire business. So I was just
recently at an event and andthis conversation came up,
there's a, during thepresentations, there was a lot
of typos, there was a lot ofsort of, I would say rookie
issues, that if somebody elsewould have just reviewed the

(08:06):
PowerPoint decks, it would haveeliminated all the problems,
just was not polished andprofessional, let's put it that
way.
And, you know, for me, I tend tosee all that right, like, part
of my job is helping people, youknow, work on their materials
and create digital assets. Andso I my brain has the red pen

(08:29):
just automatically runningthrough anything that I see.
But, um,
so I so I'm aware of the factthat like, I see all the things
right, I like, if there's amisspelling in anything, it's
just like, it is just like aglowing beacon. And I just see

(08:50):
it, but
so so so I say that because Itend to be the one who is just
like, oh, my gosh, okay, well,you know, this would be a really
easy fix.
But we were out for dinner. Andthere was a conversation that
was happening and, and somebodybrought up the PowerPoint decks

(09:10):
had a lot of misspellings. Therewas a kind of a flyer that was
sent out, professionallyprinted, probably cost, I don't
know, maybe three to $5 each toprint. And it was full of errors
full of misspellings. And it wasa $4,000 program that they were
launching, and it was full ofissues full of errors. In fact,

(09:34):
one of their their top headlineswas misspelled. And, and so you
know, you look at it and you'relike, Okay, well,
do I want to pay four grand fora program that it can't even get
the flyer, edited? Right, like,what does that say about what's
in the program? What does it sayabout how they're, they're

(09:56):
paying attention to the detailsof the experience?
So, of making sure that I'mgetting results of, you know,
like, what what's happening inthe rest of their business, if
they, if their, their materialsthat they're putting out there
on a high ticket offer are notproof read, right? Like, to me,

(10:17):
there's some issues going onthere, right? Like, there's
chaos happening if that level ofbasic
professionalism isn't there. Soagain, I tend to be more
critical because I'm looking forthose things, I help companies
kind of fix all of that in theirentire business, as they're
looking at their customerexperience.

(10:38):
You can call it like I helpedcome in and professionalize
businesses that are running withduct tape and paper clips. Yeah,
that's what I do. So again, Iwould expect that I would see
those different things. Butanyway, so we're at dinner, and
somebody else brings it up. Andthey're like, Well, I don't know
if I want to be a part of thisnew program, if they're not

(11:02):
paying attention, even to theirPowerPoint decks, or to their
materials, enough to get thespelling correct. And she's
like, so. And she said, thatshe's like, so what else? Are
they not paying attention to?Right? Are they not paying
attention to me, my particularpart of the program, like, you

(11:23):
know, the, the materials, the,those specific things that they
have to turn in, in order tomove forward in the program, or
to their results. And she'slike, Hey, I just, I love being
a part of this community. But Ijust don't know, if I want to
pay a premium pay all thismoney, if I don't have

(11:47):
confidence that the business is,
you know, put together enoughfor me to get results and trust
that, you know, my money, my allmy, all the different things
that they're contributing, aregoing to be taken care of.
And, and a lot. So you thinkabout it from both perspectives,

(12:10):
right? Because, of course, whenshe said that, I was like, yeah,
that's, you know, that's whateveryone else is thinking,
right? There was probably 10people at the table. And
everyone was like nodding like,yeah, it just seems like maybe,
maybe they don't have their acttogether. And,
you know, maybe this isn't theright. This isn't the right
solution, which is a reallyscary place to be if you're a

(12:33):
business owner trying to make animpact, and you know that you
have the ability to make theimpact. You don't want your
customers sitting around a tabletalking about something as silly
as typos on different documentsor on presentations. But when
you don't realize how powerfulthat sort of nonverbal messaging

(12:57):
is, you miss it, and you don'tget why people are leaving, you
don't get why there's morecomplaints, you don't get why
people are coming up to beinglike, what the heck, like, why
don't you have somebody toproofread your stuff, right?
It's not about the typos, it'sabout the message that it's

(13:17):
sending about the rest of yourbusiness, because that's an
indication that something iswrong, right? It's a symptom to
the bigger problem. And thebigger problem is that if you
can't take care of something sosmall in your house, then
there's, it sends the messagethat there are bigger issues

(13:39):
that are going on that aren'ttaking care of. And, and so at
some point, that MVP, that roughdraft needs to turn into a
professional solution,especially as you go up in terms
of a higher ticket price, right?As you go up to asking your

(14:00):
customers to commit to you tospend more money, you also need
to commit to them to createsomething that provides them a
fast, easy and consistent way toget the results. Right. It's
hard enough for people toactually take action. Right?
It's hard enough, we consumeenough brain calories, trying to

(14:24):
learn something,
kind of take something in newand adjust our behavior, adjust
our skills, and and move thingsforward. Right? It's hard to do
that, right? You get into acertain place where you're like,
This is where I am, and this iswhere I want to be. But in the
middle, you actually have to dosomething right like learning
isn't passive. Skill Building isnot passive behavior. Change is

(14:47):
not passive. You have to dosomething. So your people are
struggling just to get theenergy to change their behavior
in order to get to the desiredresult that they want. You
You creating chaos within thatwhole process is almost
insurmountable for yourcustomers.

(15:08):
Right? If you think about it,like, like, if you are trying to
run on the treadmill, let's justsay that right like, so you're
trying to run on the treadmill,maybe you're going from couch to
5k, right, so three little overthree miles. And so you're
trying to train for this 5k. Soyou get on the treadmill, and

(15:29):
you start and you start small.And then you build up to your
goal of running three miles, sothat you can run this 5k Say, at
the same time that you'rerunning on the treadmill, your
dog is underneath you or thepower keeps going out. Or you're
like somebody's throwing wateron you, or like there's just all

(15:52):
sorts of crazy obstacles thatare in your path as you're
trying to run. And it becomesharder and harder and harder and
harder to accomplish that threemiles if you're constantly
trying to overcome hurdles, andobstacles that aren't even
necessary to get from point A topoint B. Right. And so so often

(16:14):
as, as business owners who aretrying to scale right, high
growth companies that have donean awesome amazing job at sales
and marketing, are trying toscale their their inadvertedly
at adding more obstacles andhurdles into their customers
path that are totally notnecessary to the process. Just

(16:34):
because they're not consideringhow what they're doing is, is
affecting the effort that yourcustomer has to take. And, and
so that's like, it's such acritical component. And it
starts with something as littleas a typo on a PowerPoint deck,
or

(16:56):
a typo on a marketing flyer oron a workbook page or not even
having a workbook page, right,like you're presenting this
amazing material, and you don'thave anything to help your
people actually like,internalize what you're
teaching, you're you're missingthe boat, you're making it more
complicated. You're you'remaking it harder than it needs

(17:19):
to be. Once that happens. Andyour customers are like, Kevin,
it's hard enough for me just tolearn this and apply this in my
own life with all the otherthings that I have going on.
Now. They're, they'reintentionally throwing extra
hurdles and obstacles at me. I'mout. I can't do it too hard.
Right? And so, so consider that,as you're looking at how do you

(17:45):
not only build your onlineEmpire, but
when you're growing and scaling,consider all of the different
things. So take imperfectaction, right Done is better
than not done, right? Likelaunch your thing, do your beta,
but then you have to shift intohow do I make sure that I'm

(18:08):
delivering something that's notputting more obstacles and
hurdles in people's way, so thatI can continue to grow so that I
can deliver the kind ofexperience that I want to
deliver so that my people getresults, right? And then clean
up your house, make sure thatyou don't have silly mistakes,

(18:28):
or issues or errors that arejust not necessary, right?
Always have somebody just like,look something over just just to
double check, right?
Again, with the intention of howare my customers perceiving
this? How are my people? How arehow am I making my people's
lives easier so that they canget results? Right? It's it's

(18:53):
not about the information you'reteaching is about all of the
things that are happening asyou're trying to help somebody
get from point A to point B. Sohopefully this serves you. If
you want to talk more about thisor kind of get into maybe some
examples that you're seeing inyour business, give me a shout.
In fact, if you're seeing thisin your business, I would love

(19:15):
to have you be a guest on thispodcast and we can kind of riff
through like what are some? Whatare some ways that you can
overcome that? What are someexamples that would be really
easy to kind of eliminate thosehurdles and obstacles that
you're not even meaning to putin your customers path so that
you can continue to grow and youcan continue to scale from the

(19:36):
inside out. Alright, there yougo. Have a great day. You