How to Leap Into the Unknown
This week we helped a client leap a scary hurdle: launching something big, new, and untested. In the best of circumstances there’s much we can’t know about the people we’re trying to inspire to action. What do they care about? What will be enough to move them? How do we stretch our dollars to invest in the right things to reach “our people”?
The project we’re in the midst of this week takes those uncertainties to the extreme: there’s no information, nobody’s done what they’re trying to do, and the dollars have be stretched in so many different directions it seems nothing can be adequately covered. Add to that an organizational legacy of inertia and fear of change, and you’ve got a stressful launch for an exciting new project! Yikes!
We know our client isn’t alone in this situation, so this week: three things to help make the best of scary levels of uncertainty:
1) Articulate and clarify the costs of failure. That’s a big scary word: FAILURE. Break it down. If the launch is a dud, then what? What is lost? Is this the last chance to get it right, or just the first? Will funding evaporate? Board members be mad? Will you lose face in your community. Lay it all out there… then you can work through the Plans B, C, and D.
2) Identify what you think is the weakest link, and work through any potential fixes. Maybe your website still isn’t up to snuff, even after investment and work, but you’ve got to launch now. Is there anything you can do before you can go in and fix it? Perfect a landing page? Focus on making the main ask perfect? What are the immediate next things you can do to make it right, just as soon as you have time/money/capacity?
3) Figure out the first thing you need to learn. You’re about to jump: what’s the very first bit of data you’re listening and looking for? Maybe it’s low hanging fruit: see if this landing page results in email signups better than that landing page. Or maybe it’s partners: did any of them go above and beyond in helping spread the word, or was any partners’ community particularly receptive? Pick one or two things that you can change quickly in response to data that will arrive shortly after launch, and focus on learning what you can.
Making the world a better place is big important stuff, and sometimes we need to leap in big scary ways to make it happen. We can’t always make our efforts perfect, and even if we could “perfect” may not be what’s required. So… we hope you’ll do your best and learn from your successes and failures to make it better. Onward! (And wish our fab client luck!)