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| A cure for the “If this is such a great idea, why aren’t I doing it?” blues Posted: 22 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT
There are two big—and curable—reasons this happens, and neither of them has anything to do with the quality of the idea itself. That is, you don’t usually get stuck because your idea is bad. You get stuck because you haven’t made a decision or you don’t have conditions of satisfaction. Decisions are powerfulWhen you make a decision you choose to commit. You’re saying, This is what I am going to do. This is what I am going to create.” You can have a great idea, a wonderful, juicy, vivid idea, but until you decide to commit, it’s just an idea. It doesn’t matter how good an idea you think it is. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Until you decide to bring it to life, nada. What makes a decision a decisionA decision is a decision when two things happen: You choose and you declare that you have chosen. Choose: The Latin root of decision means to cut off or cut away. And when you choose to do one thing, you are choosing not to do something else. You cut away some possibilities for the sake of the one you choose. Fear of letting go of other possibilities is one of the chief blocks to making a decision. But notice: If you try to keep all the possibilities open, you never follow through on any of them. To make your idea real, you’re going to have to choose it over other ideas. Declare you have chosen: Language makes things happen. We declare things into existence, as when a minister declares, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Your decision is complete when you put your choice into words and declare it to yourself and others. Now what? How vision gets fuzzySo you’ve made a choice and declared it, now what? Many an idea stalls at this point. The original vision gets surprisingly fuzzy. When you think about, you’ll see it’s natural for an idea to get fuzzy after you’ve decided to pursue it. For one thing, you may be a bit shy about the choice you’ve made. Can you really do this thing? Will it work? For another, bringing an idea to life usually involves a lot of moving parts. Many different things will need to be done at many different times. Right after you’ve made a decision, it’s easy to be swamped by all the steps you might need to take. The simple brilliance you started with becomes quite confused. Restore focus with conditions of satisfactionConditions of satisfaction define what has to happen in order for you to be satisfied with how your idea unfolds. They are tremendously helpful in getting beyond vague, if inspired, visions. Once you have set conditions of satisfaction, it is much easier to see what needs to happen for your idea to take shape. Let’s say you decide to start a blog. While it was still a sparkling idea, you felt quite inspired by the possibilities. Now that you’ve declared that you’re going to do it, so many questions crowd your mind. What are you going to write about? How often should you post? How do you get people to read it? Before you start to answer those questions, stop. Check in with yourself and connect with your original reasons for choosing this idea. What has to happen for you to be satisfied with the blog you create? Sample conditions of satisfactionHere are conditions of satisfaction a nutritionist might write for a blog intended to attract prospective clients. In parentheses after each condition of satisfaction are standards for meeting that condition.
Notice that standards describe specifically what you will do–and when–to meet your conditions of satisfaction. It’s also important the standards be something you can control by your own actions. If you live up to your standards, you declare yourself satisfied. Your great ideas don’t need to be stalled by temporary fuzzinessIt’s natural to go through a phase of fuzziness when you have a great idea. Your great idea will look a lot more possible after you’ve made a clear decision and created conditions of satisfaction. Photo credit: Zetson via flickr |
| Posted: 21 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT
You can easily mess up copywriting by trying to get too fancy too soon. In fact, you can turn customers away by forgetting to deliver a simple message about what you do. In fact, if you complete this simple step, your marketing efforts will pay off a lot more because you won't be attracting people to your site or business and then confuse the heck out of them when they're there. Let me explain with an example… Recently an infection meant I was all ready to rip out a wisdom tooth with a pair of rusty pliers, but figured I'd see a dentist so called round and found one that could see me that day. This was not a cheap dentist but as someone who helps in the marketing of businesses I was very aware of the "story" being told once I walked through the door. The receptionist looked harassed at talking to a customer on the phone and didn't acknowledge me or other customers even with eye contact. The sofas in the waiting area were tatty, sunken and old. I counted 2 light bulbs that needed replacing despite their fancy lamp shades. A glass cabinet was used to display a small Lego figure of a dentist, but had no products or service information. The paint was chipped and because of the broken lights, areas were poorly lit. The girls wore dental nurse smocks, but unmatching trousers. They shuffled, looked tired and swore in front of customers. These are all little pieces of a story that I am building about this dentist (if they can't fix broken bulbs and peeling paint, how diligent will they be about my teeth?), but their biggest failing to lose me as a customer was this: They were too lazy to explain the simpleFinally I saw the dentist who listened to my complaint and took an x-ray of the pesky tooth. Once the X-ray came back he pointed to its image and said… “It's infected, it needs to come out, I'll give you some antibiotics to clear it up and we can do it tomorrow now while you're on the antibiotics. Much better to do it rather than wait. If you can't do tomorrow I can fit you in this week. Leave yourself an hour for it to be done. It's really routine.” I asked for further details but it came back to the same story: "I can take it out, when do you want to book in?" When I later explained my hesitancy for rushing into having a tooth whipped out, my fiancé said: "Yes, but it's probably simple to them, they must do it all the time." And there's the problem. While this guy probably took out teeth all the time, I don't have my teeth taken out all the time. He thought because he was confident he could do it, I should be confident too. That's not enough. Never assume that what is routine for you is routine for your customer. You'll lose them to competitors who take a little extra time to explain the simple. I explained I would like to get another opinion in the next week and asked him if there was any danger in that. He replied that if I didn't want to come in on the weekend, he could book me in on Tuesday to take it out… I thanked him, declined and returned to the receptionist. "Did you get a treatment plan?"The girl behind the desk asked. "I don't think so." "Are you booking in to have the treatment done?" I explained I was going to wait. "So do you need a treatment plan?" She looked at me with growing irritation. I asked the question that I could see she had no idea was on my mind. "What's a treatment plan?" She sighed with the strained patience of someone talking to a child and told me it was an outline of treatment that the dentist wanted me to have done. All these things, while routine for those who worked at the dentist, were new to me. When you are writing copy for your business, explaining the simple doesn't just increase retention of potential lost customers, it increases your perceived value. I ended up travelling 300 miles to see another dentist because he took the time to explain what was happening, the choice of options, the pros and cons of extractions. What's more, when I do have treatment, I'll happily make the 600 mile round trip again to have it done by him. This isn't an extreme case. Consumers scrutinise your business the very second they see your website, visit your office or step into your store. The good news? It doesn't take long for you to get ahead of your competitors in this department. Start with your website and instead of trying to find snazzy headlines, or powerful emotional imagery in your copywriting, explain the simple:
All of these elements you see in your business every single day, but your customer doesn't. Take the time to guide them around your workshop (virtual or real) and build your proof, credibility and trustworthiness to improve retention and increase your value to your customers. Image credit: Stock.XCHNG |
Have you ever had a great idea—or two—that you were eager to act on, but you couldn’t seem to get moving? It could have been an art project, a blog, a book. Whatever it was, the initial inspiration seemed so clear, and then? Mush.
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