What To Do When Everything Breaks At The Worst Time
I was working with an Ed Tech client who was having trouble simplifying the on-ramp for new customers.
The interface looked friendly, but there were a lot of features and you had to learn a lot of new jargon to really get the benefits.
Plus, it was super buggy because they had just pushed a new version that wasn’t rigorously tested.
So as part of being a consultant, I was working through the on-boarding workflow with a live customer.
It made sense when I walked her through everything but then, later in the week, when she needed it most, the software broke.
She emailed me in a panic saying she wasn’t going to have her charts for her big meeting on Friday.
I worked through it with her and got her half of the way there. I got her the data but she has to make her one charts in excel because our tool wouldn’t be fixed in time for her meeting.
She said “it’s okay, I’ll just have to use my old excel charts. I was just really excited to look cool in front of everyone at the meeting.”
But here’s where it gets good.
Immediately after we hung up, I ordered a pair of wayfarer-style sunglasses (in the color of Ed Tech company’s branding) and sent them to her office, making sure they’d arrive on Thursday.
I also included a message saying: “thanks for your patience as we fix or software. We’re super bummed that it broke right when you needed it most. That was so frustrating and we’re in the process of improving our testing environment so these massive bugs don’t hit users. In the meantime, I hope these sunglasses help you look cool in your big meeting. You have the data you need to melt faces and blow minds. Go get ‘em.”
Do you see what happened?
It took a little extra time and about 15 minutes.
She emailed me on Friday morning saying that our company was the best. She was bragging to her co-workers about how we handled the situation and that she knew we were in an early stage where bugs were normal. She was going to stick through it with us because we believed in the same thing and gestures like this really made her feel like we had her back.
Boom.
Customer for life.
And it cost $14 on Amazon.
2 Minute Action
Maybe you don’t have customers, maybe you do.
Maybe you have students, or attendees, or subscribers.
Pick someone who doesn't seem to be having a good day or maybe who had it rough yesterday.
Take 2 minutes to do something special for someone.
You don’t need to spend a lot of (or any) money.
You just need to make them feel special like you’re on the same team.
Because that’s how we make the world better, right?
By bringing people closer together.
How Seeing The Rain Can Launch You Toward Success
You know the guy selling sunglasses on the street?Well, that guy does something smart.As soon as it starts raining, he's selling umbrellas and ponchos.Might sound pretty obvious but there are many businesses that just don't adapt to market conditions.
The tricky part is seeing the rain.
Blockbuster said: "our data show that people still like the experience of walking into a brick and mortar store."The trouble is that this was true--at least, it's what people reported to be true. It's what the customers themselves thought to be true.It's just that, when faced with the choice, people prefer sitting on the couch and watching Netflix."Self-report" is a pretty poor assessment of the truth unless you're literally just looking for people's perceptions.A better assessment, in science, in business, and in life is the assessment of actual behavior.Measure actual market behavior and you will find the truth.See the rain and it'll be obvious that you need to sell umbrellas.
2 Minute Action
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.What are the ways you're measuring your success?Sales? Impact stories? Market Share? Lives saved?Take 2 minutes to identify 3-5 ways you're measuring success.Once you've got a few, ask yourself: "how will I know when it's raining?"
How The Data Will Hurt You
Blockbuster said, "our data show that people still like the experience of walking into a store and choosing a movie."The FBI had all the data they needed on September 10th in their Sentinel program, but they were unable to communicate on time.So what happened?
BLOCKBUSTER
People like sitting on the couch and watching Netflix for $7 more than going into a store. And Blockbuster's billion-dollar empire is down to one remaining store somewhere in Alaska.They thought they had all of the data in front of them but weren't looking at the whole picture.
FBI
The FBI didn't know what they knew. They had everything they needed to put the case together but their Virtual Case File system couldn't help different departments put the picture together.They had records of Al Qaeda activists entering the country in the weeks and months before 9/11. One office was suspicious of a specific terrorist.Another department wondered why so many suspicious foreigners were getting flight training. Another had someone on a watch list but never told anyone. No one in the Bureau ever put it all together
The Moral of the Story
Obviously, we can see here that having the data is important, but processing and analyzing it is equally important for a successful outcome (at least in a zero-sum game like these examples).The issue with the "Information Age" that we're living in now is that we're flooded with what looks like data. Yet, scientific literacy in the United States is surprisingly low considering the resources available.I'm not talking about fake news and Twitter bots.I'm talking about what people choose to believe without inspecting the source of information.The insights that can come along with analyzing data are just as inaccessible as if we had no data at all, and sometimes worse.The data are useless if we don't have the critical thinking skills to detect what's b.s. and what's valuable.The data are dangerous if we mistake b.s. for value and proliferate it.
2 Minute Action
What is a primary source? Secondary source?What does "empirically supported" mean?It takes 2 minutes to look up these definitions. Hopefully, they help you ask better questions about the information that enters your view.It's up to you to define your world-view and perspective.Use data.Be relentless in your pursuit of the truth.And when you err, err on the side of helping others.