"New" Can't Be Exploited
Level 5: Master Player
"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.