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Great book, just ignore the hideous cover!
Fastlane
(despite the cheesy cover) is an awesome book!
By the end of 2011, I knew I had a problem that needed fixing. My
gregarious, Lamborghini-inspired, neon-orange-and-green book cover was a
turd and turned away potential readers. Luckily, I buried my righteousness and
heard the message.
After acting (putting a book into the marketmind), I shifted to ASSESSING.
Every action pushed into the marketplace comes with a reaction, or an
orange or white gumball. Your job is to listen,
even if it isn’t what you want to
hear
. Within months of release, the negative comments about my horrific cover
were about as regular as a Kardashian selfie. Whenever you interact with the
market, two types of reactions are inevitable: (1) the most common, diffusion;
and (2) the desired, echoes.
Diffusion (White Gumball)
Diffusion is when the market absorbs or ignores your message/value
proposition and chooses to do nothing. Despite this, it’s still a reaction.
Anytime you’re presented with a Facebook ad and choose not to click or read
it, the reaction is
diffusion
. Anytime you drive by that new restaurant, uninspired
by its signage and exterior decor, you react by tuning it out as an option.
Unfortunately, diffusion is not deposited into your lexicon and is only
measured by data analysis. If 10,000 people viewed your ad and no one clicked or
bought, the market reaction is 100 percent diffusion.
Market Echoes (Orange Gumball)
On the flip side, market echoes (orange/gold gumballs) are the preferred
reaction we want, assuming that gumball isn’t red.
A market echo is direct
feedback—a reflective, unbiased, and uncensored representation of the
marketmind.
Of course, the ultimate market echo is a click, a sale, or a
conversion. But oftentimes, it’s something else: a complaint, a suggestion, a user-
interface problem, or just an email seeking more information. Whatever echoes
land in your lap, it is your job to HEAR them and then ASSESS them. Is this echo
actionable? Problematic? Is it an opportunity to redirect or reevaluate your value
proposition?
The number-one reason why I can grow my income into six-and seven-
figure ranges is my ability to hear and react to market echoes. This concept grew
my internet company:
morphing from what I thought the market wanted to what
the market actually wanted
. In fact, study business success and you’ll find that
most businesses often evolve into figments of their former selves—it was our goal
to sell X, but in the end, we sold Y.
Saturating the market with your action is great, but you’ve got to tune your
senses and unwrap the gifts of echoes. Inside you’ll find clues to where you
should and should not be heading.
ADJUST
Action and assessment are worthless without ADJUSTMENT. The entire
point of grinding the first two As is to uncover how to react. Recently, I’ve heard
this concept gain fame from others who refer to ADJUSTMENT as a “pivot.”
Well, I started pivoting when most new entrepreneurs were playing T-ball.
Whatever name you give it, adjustment is a strategy redirection based upon
correlated and compounded market echoes.
The key to uncovering actionable feedback comes from recognizing
pattern
echoes.
I used to record all market echoes in a notebook, which I affectionately called
my “black book.” Whenever a pattern emerged, I acted on it. If several people
think your UI sucks, you can bet the marketmind is thinking the same thing. For
example, every new feature addition at your website should come from pattern
echoes. When several people request something you lack, you can bet the
marketmind thinks similarly. The same goes for products: if twenty customers
ask about a certain color you don't offer, you’ve exposed a new opportunity and
revenue pocket. Heed these echoes, add/subtract where needed, and you’ve
skewed value for your market. And skewed value equals more value competitions
won, which means more profit.
For myself, once I learned that my book cover was an abject failure, I lurched
into adjustment: I had the cover redesigned, despite the 8,000 copies already in
print. (If you have an old cover edition, hang on to it—it might be a collectible
someday.) And guess what? Ever since that change, I NEVER heard another
cover comment again. And more importantly, the book went from a few
hundred sold to over 300,000. Thanks to action, assessment, and then
adjustment.
What business failures in your past can be held accountable by failing to ASSESS, then
ADJUST?
CHAPTER 40
THE 7 PS OF PROCESS:
GO FROM IDEA TO PRODUCTOCRACY
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the
afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a
difficult task that demanded our best.
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