Thanks For Your Feedback
In an earlier part of my career, I worked in social for a brand. This is challenging work, because very rarely do you have anyone in the community reaching out saying “you’re doing fine”. No, you get some people who are thrilled with what the brand is doing, but more often than not you get people who are convinced that you stayed up all night in order to personally wrong their families. There was no point in arguing with the upset posters, so my team and I would just go into “thanks for your feedback” (TFYF) mode. [Aside: this is not to say that the brand never made mistakes; when we did, we would own them.] TFYF essentially translates into “I hear you, but I’m not going to do anything with that info”.
When you have an idea or a plan, it stinks to hear someone say, “why are you doing it that way?” or “you’re missing something big here”. Of course it hurts - it’s something you’ve put energy and thought into, and there’s someone in front of you pooh-poohing your ideas and dreams. It takes courage to ask for honest insight into what you plan to do, and it’s important to ask the right people to chime in.
As I was concepting In Your Pocket, I was fortunate to be able to bounce ideas off of people, and so many folks said to me, “oh yeah - you should do this!” And that’s fantastic and validating and all that… but was I just seeking positive opinions? Was I truly interested in constructive criticism and strong feedback? Would people be willing to give me that? Was I letting people know that I was open to that? Could I handle that? Could I manage to not just toss off a flippant “thanks for your feedback”?
Turns out, yes. During the pre-launch phase of In Your Pocket, I made it a point to reach out to people who want me to succeed and weren’t worried about giving me feedback that might get under my skin. I needed people to poke holes in my ideas so I could fine tune them prior to getting business plans in front of stakeholders. I needed the potential problems to be pointed out so I could address them. I needed the reminder that I can’t be successful totally siloed.
Who are the “right” people to ask? I can’t issue a blanket statement on that. For me, it was asking people who I care about, who I respect, and who - in some regards - intimidate me. Not “intimidate” in a bad way, but very clearly know things that I don’t and think in ways that I don’t. And they’re people who know, without a doubt, the way I use “thanks for your feedback” and they would call me on it. That’s the kind of accountability I needed. It took some courage to ask for it, but I’ll be forever grateful that I did. They pointed out problems with the way I thought the website should look, the name of the business, financing and more. They pushed me to consider unwelcome possibilities.
And I absolutely - in all honesty - am thankful for their feedback. In Your Pocket wouldn’t exist without it.