"We love what you're doing, and it makes sense for the long term, but we need more now."
My client messaged me.
We were 8 months into a 12 month project, and everything seemed to be going quite smooth. They were pleased ... for the most part.
Except for one thing.
But I had the data to show they needn't be concerned, so I was confident.
I got their message and thought, that's great! Not only had I doubled their 90 day conversion rate (thus ... obviously ... making it much easier to get more in the short term), but they were well on their way to their best year ever.
I got all the data together -
The higher conversions, the greater growth, the 32.5 ROI ad campaign, all of it.
They responded ...
"Well, again you have this long term plan which we love, we just need more now. It doesn't really feel like we are getting more now."
I looked at their messages
Baffled.
What do you mean "feels like it isn't working?"
HELLO
How About We Look At The Data
ThE dAtAAAAA
2x conversion. more sale mean more money. MORE MONEY. RIGHT THERE!
"But ... what if we do all this other stuff instead?"
*smacks head*
The frustration of seeing a highly successful marketing execution get pulled apart by impatient clients ...
I couldn't stand around and argue with them though. They seemed to want to live in a different reality. So I let them go and moved on.
I picked apart that entire experience for months.
Where did I go wrong?
How do you get such excellent results and have it not go well?
I coulda just dusted off my hands, said "not my monkeys not my circus" and left it at that ...
But,
I finally figured it out.
And this is where we step away from talk of clients and business - to the principle and the practical.
New Can't Exploit.
There are two sides to this problem.
Let's talk about YOUR perspective. Or at least the perspective of someone who is trying to figure out a problem, trying to implement a solution.
Maybe you want to make more money.
Maybe you want to lose more weight.
Maybe you want to gain more strength.
Maybe you just want to be happier.
Whatever it is that you hope to achieve and have,
There's a common problem I've observed ...
People have a tendency to have this desire for something they do not have (the more money, the weight loss, the sexier body, the better relationship, etc), and think they need something NEW to get that.
New is attractive.
New gives us a lot of dopamine.1
We think the secrets to our success, the reasons we haven't gotten what we want lies in The New.
Marketers love "New," because we're all so susceptible to think New is going to be the solution to all of our problems.
But how many times have you gotten something New, in all the excitement of what that means, only to still be dissatisfied after getting the new thing?
Here's another problem with NEW.
We think that if we do the NEW thing, we are going to get the result that we want NOW.
"All I need to do is this New diet and I'll finally lose weight! I can see it now, I'll be 50 pounds lighter by the summer (3 months away), if I just do this New diet."
And we're tricked,
Because sometimes ...
SOMETIMES THAT SH*T WORKS
Agh!
It's so frustrating.
The human condition.
One of the things we talk about in TGA is how SMART PEOPLE, like really smart people, are easily deceived into following not smart people because of RANDOMNESS.
This is the whole decision matrix that outlines how the outcome doesn't determine the quality of the decision.2
A good decision which results in a good outcome makes sense to us. We made a good decision, of course it's a good outcome!
A bad decision which results in a bad outcome also makes sense. Same dynamic.
The other two are what screw with our human mindset.
A bad decision that results in a good outcome - we start to think that was actually a good decision.
A good decision that results in a bad outcome - we start to think that was a BAD DECISION. This is where smart people like you and I get tripped up. Because we see the action's we've taken, we see the results of those actions, we take ownership and we think "man, if I had made a better decisions I'd have gotten a better outcome."
And we also see other people who make bad decisions, and get a good outcome, and we think that because we would have made different decisions, *we are flawed.*
This is why I like to say, focus on Making Decisions Better, not Making Better Decisions. Because the ONLY thing you can control is the way you make decisions. There's too much out of your control for you to have any further impact on the outcome.
(This is also why The Champions Mind3 - which is adaptive to the truth of reality - is such a powerful frame to understand)
Sometimes you made a great decision, and you get a bad outcome.
That's called life.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life."
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard
So it's the same thing with New.
We observe someone else choosing to do a new thing and getting a great outcome, and we think that's a good decision. We think that's the way to do it.
The truth is different.
The truth is, New Can't be Exploited.
A quick aside on the Explore/Exploit concept. This is one of the barbell frameworks we use.
On one side, you have Explore. These are actions which tend to have huge upside potential, but there are many unknowns involved - including how much time it will take to see that upside.
On the other side you have Exploit. These are actions which tend to not have huge upside potential, but where you can get a result quickly and reliably from them.
Check out Explore / Exploit as outlined in "Do The Least Possible" for the whole "Casino" analogy.4
If you don't know what I'm talking about,
You better just go read that article.
Otherwise,
I'll just go into it.
I will. That's a threat.
I'll give a whole 'nother article INSIDE THIS VERY ARTICLE
I'll do it!
...
Or,
Just go read the other one.
The conclusion to the Explore/Exploit Barbell is that,
If you have a limited amount of time and you need or want an outcome in that limited amount of time, it makes more sense to Exploit. If you have limited resources and need or want an outcome with those resources, it makes sense to Exploit.
On the flip side, if you don't have a limited amount of time or resources, if you can take a lot longer to figure things out, then Explore may be the way you want to go.
The benefit to Explore is much greater upside. The "risk" is not getting what you need or want in the short term (a risk that isn't relevant if you appropriately assign your need and time preference).
Explore may also be necessary to make significant change.
Part of the reason for that is because ...
Exploit is about taking advantage of what you already have or have done.
Now,
Exploit ain't a bad word folks.
There's definitely negative connotation with the word Exploit. But let's be clinical in our discussion.
Exploit means to do that which you already have and or to do that which you are certain will get you a specific outcome.
A quick business analogy.
As a freelance copywriter, I might Explore by starting a partnership business with someone. There are a lot of unknowns there, but if I get a cut of their business, I might end up with a huge upside - it will probably just take awhile, and the time it's going to take can't be known.
On the other hand, I might Exploit by doing what I have done most successfully to make money for myself, and go get clients for whom I can build out email strategies and systems. I've done that, I know what it takes, how effective it can be, how long it takes, etc. There's just not a big long term upside in that action (land one client, make $X, land another client, make $X, rinse repeat, up/down cycle with limited results potential).
A quick fitness analogy.
Personally, my best fitness has come from 3 things - walking, riding a bike, and lifting weights (mainly squats/deadlifts and similar).
If I want to lose weight, get fitter, I could Explore and do something new like Crossfit. That sounds like hell to me, but if I felt a need to change a dynamic and go for something different, I could Explore with that something different and see what it does for me.
On the other hand, I could Exploit what I know works, and just walk and lift weights more than I do now.
To take this a little further, because I talked about this dynamic in 'Do the Least Possible' (linked in the footnotes), if I want to lose weight, but I don't have a time bound preference (in other words, I don't need to Exploit something), I can slow down, try new things, and see if I can land on a practice that works better for me (one which doesn't result in me regaining weight).
If I need to lose 20 pounds in the next month (like, if I'm gonna die otherwise), I know how to do that, because I've done it before. So I Exploit the process I've done before to do that. (Strongly emphasize need, because there's a downside to that Exploitation)
Ok I guess I talked a lot more about Explore/ Exploit than I thought I would.
But just THINK about it,
I could have kept writing.
Because I HAVE THE POWER
Muahhaha.
NO WAIT
I forgot,
You can leave.
Don't leave, ok?
Here's why this is important:
Have you noticed in every explanation and depiction of Explore/Exploit,
How Exploit is ALWAYS something you are certain will work?
It's known.
That's the definitive nature of Exploit, it's about taking advantage of something you know will work, because you know the results you get from the thing you are Exploiting.
That means,
NEW can't Exploit.
Because New is opening the door to a bevy of unknowns. Unknown time frame. Unknown results. Unknown randomness. Unknown impact on the rest of the systems.
Let me summarize
(I promise this will be brief)
((no seriously, trust me))
Smart people like us get tricked into thinking the Shiny New Thing is going to solve our immediate problem.
But it can't.
The Shiny New Thing can't ever solve our immediate problem (reliably).
Because it's New. Which means you can only Explore with it. Which means you can't reliably use it for a time bound need.
When you go for the Shiny New Thing because you think it will solve your problem now because you've seen that happen for other people...
THATS GAMBLING
I've seen someone win the lottery, I’m sure we all have - not personally, but the news is all too happy to report when someone gets a life altering windfall.
New Thing applied in the Short Term = GAMBLE.
(See, I told you I'd be brief)
How is this perspective useful?
Let me bring it back to my story from the beginning, with my client, as I worked as freelance email copywriter/strategist.
My client had long term and short term interests. While I was clear on the long term goals and the path for making that happen, we both made this critical error:
They viewed the NEW thing, the long term thing, as the answer to their short term need.
I did not see this. That was my error - I had to rely on them to figure out their short term goals, because they weren't employing me for them (even though eventually they saw me as responsible).
Nor did I, at the time, understand the balance of Explore/Exploit and how perception of our needs and desires, factors into this.
Because even when The New Thing produced results, they couldn't perceive it as anything other than a long term play.
And I think that's because of this base truth:
Despite how much we might fall victim to our own human mindset, to be tricked into thinking that our good decisions are bad because of the outcome, to be tricked into thinking we need something new to get the answer we desire now ...
We KNOW, deep down, that NEW is not going to reliably get us a short term answer - because NEW is by it's very nature unknown.
The unknown can't be reliable.
New Can't Be Exploited.
Personally, I know this now, I see this now.
When I work with a client I can consciously, up front, be crystal clear about both short term needs AND long term goals - and in addition to that I can with clarity differentiate which activities fall in which places.
I can advise my client that though they have a short term need, the NEW thing they want to do is not appropriate to achieve that. And then I can use The Rear View Mirror to advise them on solving their short term need.
And you know what YOU can do ...
Replace the words "a client" with "myself."
Whenever you are trying to solve a problem or make a change, be crystal clear with yourself on your short term needs and your long term goals ...
And then don't allow yourself to be sucked into the idea that NEW is going to serve your short term needs.
There's one thing we haven't really spoken about yet.
I'd like you to sit down with me,
And put on your DALA Glasses for this one.5
m'kay??
Just have a seat.
m'kay?
Right here.
I'm gonna speel it out:
This is all really a lesson in understanding the NEED you truly have.
Especially within a time bound perspective.
This is the frame to use.
What is your time-bound NEED?
Do you need something right now?
In the next 90 days?
In the next 180 days?
Be crystal clear about the NEED.
A lot of times we say we "need" something, and if we're truthful with ourselves, it's more of a preference.
If you can't be clear and truthful with yourself, this won't work. (And, to pull the client frame, if you can't get your clients to be clear and truthful with themselves, this will be difficult)
Well,
Honestly if you can't be clear and truthful with yourself, stop reading this and go work on that. Noodle on it. 6WU it.6 Dig into your own truth. Explore DALA.
Stop being an a-hole (to yourself).
All I've unraveled here is basic explore/exploit.
If you NEED something in the short term, you look to Exploit.
When you look to Exploit, you use the Rear View Mirror.7
What has worked for you before? Do more of that thing.
If you DON'T NEED something in the short term, you can Explore. And that is when the door of possibility is opened with NEW.
That's it.
If you find yourself looking to NEW in order to get something in the short term,
You are just gambling.
And well ...
'Nothin' wrong with that. Just be truthful with yourself.
DALA.
This concept is also why "doing the least possible" (MED) is so valuable.8
Because as you figure out your short term time-bound needs, if you figure out the absolute least you need through Exploit, in order to move forward with Explore, you are putting yourself in the position to solve your short term problem, minimizing your short term risk, while limiting the resource expenditure, which means minimizing your long term risk, while opening up your best possibilities, and maximizing your long term gains.
OR
In other words, you do everything you can to be truthful and know yourself, so you can do the least possible, to risk the least possible, to gain the greatest likelihood of the reward you are after.
Welcome to The Guardian Academy - because that's what we're ALL about.
(And stop thinking The Shiny New Thing is gonna solve the problems you have now)
Live to learn. Give to Earn.
PS. Explore vs Exploit is one of the most discussed topics at Guardian Events and on calls. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Looking forward