Embracing Imperfection for Business Growth

Tina Smith: 0:00

But I was listening to Seth Godin talk about some marketing stuff and he said that mediocre people aren’t bad at what they do. Mediocre people are afraid to fail, so they don’t try anything. Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast. I’m Tina.

Amanda Ballard: 0:23

And I’m Amanda, and we’re here to make marketing easier for natural products businesses, so you can reach more people and change more lives.

Tina Smith: 0:33

Hi there and welcome back to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast. I’m here with Amanda Ballard today and we are going to be talking about perfection being the enemy of progress, and this is near and dear to my heart, because I like things to be right. Amanda, I don’t know how you might feel about it.

Amanda Ballard: 0:52

I have issues. So just to fill you in, because I feel like you know you might know this about me, but most people might not I was a straight A student in school and B equaled bad, so this resonates very, very well with me, and I’ve had to wrestle with this idea of being okay, with being good and not perfect, especially in my professional career. So, yeah, that’s definitely why I wanted to talk about this.

Tina Smith: 1:26

Yeah, it’s really funny too that you say that. That brings up all kinds of memories for me as well. I was a straight A student and I did not like a B. Coming home with a B, we wouldn’t get in trouble, but it was just like, oh man, I could have, I could have made an A on that, and then I would second guess all the things that I did that led to a not perfect score. It could be on a test, it didn’t even have to be for the subject matter, but that was a big deal. We were performers in my house, educationally at least. Well, we were performers, let’s be honest, and so I think I do wonder if that might have contributed to it. This idea of failure is not an option was a lot of what was sort of. It’s just how we lived. I don’t remember my parents enforcing that or really saying it, but um, I think it’s us.

Amanda Ballard: 2:31

Maybe it’s the middle child syndrome could be.

Tina Smith: 2:34

Well, but I will say, like my older sister definitely is a perfectionist and she is concerned, and she is concerned, highly concerned, if things aren’t exactly right, probably even more than I am. So I don’t know if it’s just a middle kid thing, but now we’ve outed ourselves, we’re both middle kids guys. So if you were wondering, like, what’s the problem?

Amanda Ballard: 3:02

Now you know.

Tina Smith: 3:04

It explains everything. Explains a lot, for sure. But I was listening to Seth Godin talk about some marketing stuff and he said that mediocre people aren’t bad at what they do. Mediocre people are afraid to fail so they don’t try anything, and I thought that was interesting because, I don’t know, I’m sort of wrestling with how I feel about that particular statement from him, but I will say I think that not failing as a business, on purpose even, is something that contributes to mediocrity as a business yeah, that’s a really interesting thought and I could.

Amanda Ballard: 3:50

my gut reaction was like oh, I’m offended because I’m like don’t call me mediocre just because I don’t want to fail. But it makes total sense Because, yeah, if you don’t, if you’re not willing to take the risk at failing, like you could miss out on greatness. So it makes sense, like you’re always, you’re just going to be fine, yeah.

Tina Smith: 4:17

So that does make a lot of sense by that statement when I was listening to it this morning and it did make me think about what we were about to talk about. So I think this is a perfect segue into talking about perfectionism. And when we’re talking about it, of course, if you’re a manufacturer and you have to make sure that your product’s safe, that is the perfect time to be safe. Yeah, perfect, like, do that right. So we’re not saying like take risks everywhere.

Amanda Ballard: 4:51

Right, right, but where do we see people, business owners in particular, falling into this trap of perfectionism in their business and it ends up slowing them down in the long run.

Tina Smith: 5:05

Yeah, I think it’s when I find it a lot with design. I find it a lot with emails, just emails, just the words in an email. And so, or hey, I don’t have all the right words to say just yet to do this educational seminar myself, all the right words to say just yet to do this educational seminar myself, when I know, basically the four or five tenants I want to talk about to people, and I know only eight to 10, maybe 12 people are going to show up and I still don’t do it because it’s not going to be perfect yet. And I think those are the perfect places to fail Getting the words a little bit wrong in an email, getting things that look OK but aren’t brilliantly designed.

Tina Smith: 5:55

And even these moments where it’s low stakes, in front of 10 to 12 people, for you to get up and get a lot of great feedback around your education, because people are going to be like, okay, well, that didn’t mean anything to me, but I really would like to know this because you’re going to have personal conversations with people. So those are the moments, and especially when I talk about email. I know you want to get most of the words right whenever you’re sending those out, but the fact that you’re connecting on a regular basis. Being consistent is way more important than being perfect in the email game.

Amanda Ballard: 6:32

Right, because in reality, who’s going to remember every word that you wrote in an email?

Tina Smith: 6:37

They’re not. And one of my favorite emails to read all the time is from a lady named Geraldine Carter who does coaching for financial businesses, and at the bottom of her email there’s always a PS and she misspells a bunch of stuff in there and she’s like sorry for my typos, and you know this is going out every day of the week and so I’m going to have typos. But she makes it funny because she misspells everything on purpose and I think if we can not take ourselves so seriously, like I know, everything sort of lives forever in the world of social media and you don’t want to make any like huge faux pas, that’s not what we’re talking about Like do it and move on. I’m talking about just sending an email saying what your promos are for the week, and we’ve had people really not be able to do that because they’re worried that they’re not using the right words or if it doesn’t have the right color, and so it’s like sometimes you just got to get some stuff done.

Amanda Ballard: 7:35

Yeah, yeah, or it just it takes so much longer than it should like. By the time you could have sent that email, but because you agonized over every word and every element of the design, you exhausted your energy for the day and then you’re a vegetable for the rest of the afternoon. Because you just spent all of this energy on something that, at the end of the day, you’re trying to communicate one thing, and it didn’t have to be such a big deal.

Tina Smith: 8:05

Yeah, and you know we probably contribute to that sometimes because we’re like, oh, this is fine, but it could be so much better if you would just have one call to action or if you just have this high color contrast here or if you just did this. And there are always ways to improve these things, to increase opens and clicks and all the things. But honestly, like, the consistency is way more important than all of those things I just talked about, because those are incremental improvements and I promise if you go from zero to once a week emails, that is gonna be the biggest uptick that you’re gonna see. And then everything else, like the colors and the colors and the language and the buttons and whatever it is, that is going to be an incremental increase off of the base that you’re building by just communicating on the reg. Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Ballard: 8:57

So what are some maybe some higher stake things in operating a business that business owners want to have all of their T’s crossed and their I’s dotted before they actually do the thing?

Tina Smith: 9:14

Okay. So here’s an example of something that I was talking about the other day with a client, and it’s things like when you decide to do a giveaway, there are rules in every state. So, especially if you’re servicing multiple states and you have to have a language in your privacy policies and you have to communicate accessibility, give you the smackdown right To make you pay penalties because, oh, you are leaving a group out or something like that. So and this happens especially like financial place institutions or real estate you have to make sure that everyone’s included. So there’s a lot of laws around that and you want to be super careful that, when you’re doing something like that, that you’re in compliance with the things you’re supposed to be in compliance about. So some of the things that people kind of brush off and bless them for doing it because they just run ahead and sometimes they get in trouble and sometimes they don’t. But you can get really caught and they can be pretty expensive fines if you get certain things wrong around some of these bigger giveaways, especially if you’re not getting those right.

Tina Smith: 10:37

The other is just like language is about what’s in the product. So we talk about Deshaies all the time and, yes, that’s a concern for you to really be on the lookout as a retailer. But I think even more important than that is the language that you’re using around. This product has probiotics when it hasn’t been tested for probiotics and there’s very strict language around what it means to be a probiotic. So some of those things are a little bit more concerning to me, especially as we start to talk about like health, chronic health conditions. So those are the things that I would be way more careful about, or something that might actually exclude a group of people, something that might actually exclude a group of people. Language around that is way more important than whether or not you used the right article in front of a word. You know what I’m saying.

Tina Smith: 11:35

Like there are bigger stakes that cost you way more money as a company than some of your grammatical errors that come out, and I think some people get really stuck around commas or capitalization, right right, those are not the things to be too careful about.

Amanda Ballard: 11:50

Yeah, but I think it’s interesting, you know, with this example of you know, should we do this giveaway Because you know we have to get all of these things right there? This does have to be perfect. Is it too much work to do the thing? And it’s so. It’s this balance of finding, finding the balance of how much work does it actually take to be perfect versus what the potential ROI could be if you do all the things right. And so I think then you kind of get stuck in this place of is it worth my time to do it right? Because I know I have to do it right, but then what could be the return on that time?

Tina Smith: 12:28

Yeah. So you know what, two things that just made me think about. First, having good advisors that you can call and be like hey, I’m about to do this. Have I thought about everything? That’s one, especially if they know the industry or they know legalities or compliance or whatever it is. I think it’s very good to have a good team of advisors supporting you. They can just do really quick questions. The other thing that you can do and again, not legal advice, but hopping into something like chat, gpt and being like what are all the things I’m not thinking about?

Tina Smith: 13:04

Here’s what I put together for this thing, what are all the things I’m not thinking about? Here’s what I put together for this thing, what are all the things I’m not thinking about and who can help me get this work done? And you can get a lot of things that you’re like oh my gosh, I never thought about that thing. So, like, when we’re talking about giveaways, I am not talking about a small giveaway in your store where you’re given a sample of something you’ve got, like a basket put together. You’re probably fine there Large scale giveaways that cross state lines especially if they end up all the giveaways together being over like $500 or $5,000, then you have to like get insurance bonds and there are things that need to happen. So that would be like for bigger manufacturers or larger retailers that have multiple locations that they should be thinking about things like that. But if you’re a smaller retailer, I chat GPT is a friend that you can call and be like all right, what am I missing? Help me understand.

Tina Smith: 13:59

And AI something that’s another thing.

Tina Smith: 14:01

I was listening to that Seth Godin marketing podcast today and he said if you’re not using AI every single day, then eventually you’re going to be afraid of something you don’t understand.

Tina Smith: 14:14

And I thought, oh, wow, that is really interesting, a good insight to pass on to people working with this technology Don’t be afraid of it just because you don’t understand it. You know, get into it and work with it and be afraid maybe once you really do understand it. But at least you’ll know what you’re afraid of. And I think, working with something like chat GPT on a regular basis and you can download it onto your phone and use it as an app these days but it can help you plan a whole series of things and you don’t. You know I caution people around using the actual language that comes out of it because of copyright and whatever, but it can help you brainstorm. It’s just one of the best brainstorming partners, even if it ends up saying you should consult legal counsel on this, and then you’ll be like, oh good, now I know what to ask whenever I go to them.

Amanda Ballard: 15:09

Yeah, so what are, what are some things that you found to be helpful when, when you’re trying to find a balance between good enough and perfection in a way that, like, propels your business forward but still maintains a solid image to the customer?

Tina Smith: 15:31

You know what this makes me think of just having a good partner on your team. That balances you out a little bit. I know we’ve talked about this with Mike Maddock, but you’re more of a detail person than I am and I have relied on in my whole career. I have relied on people like you to keep me from going too fast, too quickly, too much. Right, it’s like that, hey, but did you think about this? It’s someone that can point out that blind spot for you, who’s on your team, who’s sort of looking out and watching what’s happening. That has saved me from so much heartache.

Tina Smith: 16:11

And then the other thing is you just sort of do a calculus in your head around all right, what’s the risk? And after you’ve been in this retail business for a while, you know things that are risky and things that aren’t. So it’s a calculated. I mean, every day of our lives is a calculated risk, and I used to run HR for a big company and that’s one of the things that we talked about. They would always be like, am I allowed to do this? And I would be like, well, no, that’s not the question. That’s not the right question. The question is what are you trying to accomplish. And then what’s the best, least risky way of doing that? Because every single activity that we do is completely risky thing. How likely is it that someone’s going to do an audit and give us some sort of fine related to this, and how important is this particular goal to the company?

Tina Smith: 17:09

And then you do calculated risks and you move forward. So a lot of it’s and I think our brains are doing this so fast all the time where it’s like, well, it’s risky but we’re going to move forward with it. And honestly again, like when you’re announcing an event and people in your store have been asking for it, so it’s an email that you’re sending out to announce an event there’s not much risk associated with that, but you might have missed a comma or you might have a fragment of a sentence or it ends up appearing on someone’s mobile device different than what you looked at it. And sometimes you know business owners can feel like that is the end of the world and taking a step back sometimes and going, no, this will not take my business down, that this sentence shifted to a different line when it got on mobile. It’s going to be fine, yeah, and we’ll get it right the next time.

Amanda Ballard: 18:04

So I’m sure I’m not the only one that has been on the receiving end of an email reply from the grammar police that says exactly what you did wrong in your email does happen more than once, and I and even as someone who is very aware of grammatical rules it still happens, and so it’s like you just brush it off, let it roll off your back and move on to the next one.

Tina Smith: 18:32

I have to tell you, whenever I was working as the head of marketing for a bigger business in Atlanta, we had done all this work to put a huge event together and then the first announcement went out and they clicked on the button in the email and nothing happened. It didn’t go to a website and it’s because there were two T’s right next to each other in that URL and the person who had put the link in the email left out one of the T’s. And we all looked at it and we were like and the CEO’s hair was on fire, you know what I mean? He was like this doesn’t work and we were just like we can’t claw this back from people’s emails. What are we going to do?

Tina Smith: 19:13

We sat there and we looked at it and this guy who did SEO and web stuff for me, he goes, keep calm and redirect. And I was like what? He goes, I just bought the URL, we can just redirect that URL to the right URL. Everything’s going to be fine and it was fixed in five minutes. Sometimes you do workarounds after, honestly, after you’ve messed something up.

Amanda Ballard: 19:37

That’s great. I love that Because so many times that’s happened. I mean whether or not you can pivot that quickly. I mean that that takes a special team, but that that’s awesome.

Tina Smith: 19:48

We made. We made t shirts because you know that keep calm and whatever it was so popular Carry on yeah, yeah At the time. And so we we had keep calm and redirect t shirts that we. There’s nothing more marketing humor than that for sure. Yes, I love it.

Amanda Ballard: 20:08

Well, I feel like, after having talked about this idea of perfection being the enemy of progress, I feel like I’m more motivated now to just like, keep, keep going. Like I don’t know about you, but like we have so many things on our to do list and it’s just like and I do I do personally get a high from checking off all of the boxes, but I feel like now I want to do it even faster, as long as it’s, you know, still still good, um, but it’s like we have to keep the ball rolling because that’s the only way that you’re going to get that avalanche effect.

Tina Smith: 20:54

Yeah, and you know what this just brings to mind. Two quick examples of where this is coming really handy. Of where this is coming really handy. One is there was a retailer that we were working with that was not doing weekly emails because they were like I can’t get it right and I just don’t have the time to sit through and read it and read it and read it and make it happen. We implemented weekly emails within a couple of weeks. We could see the trajectory was like 14% increase in revenue, 15% increase in revenue during summer months, and so I heard back from that retailer like I’ve been waiting for this to be perfect. I wish I had done this sooner for this to be perfect. I wish I had done this sooner. Thank you for helping me have good over perfect and have money in my pocket now to do things that I need to do. They needed to make some capital investments in their building and they were able to do that because they hit send. We helped devise the marketing strategy and the message and they hit send. Even though it was nerve wracking or they didn’t have enough time to review or whatever the thing was. They hit send and it worked. So that’s thing one.

Tina Smith: 22:17

The example two for me is you and I were working on a different project and we got to a situation and I’m always pushing like it’s not perfect, but just turn it on, turn it on, turn it on and something happened. You asked me a question and I was like Ooh, this is a deal breaker because because the goal was increased online sales. And I was like they are going to tank that goal. They’re not only going to to tank that goal, they’re not only going to not hit that goal, they’re going to go reverse because of this thing. So that’s why, whenever we’re talking about measuring like it’s, does this help me reach the goal? Does it get me closer to the goal even if it’s not perfect, or does this keep me from getting my goal or detract from it?

Tina Smith: 23:02

And this was a moment where I was like the user experience is so bad on this that this will put them in reverse. And then we had to work it out. So we had to take a little bit more time to work some things out and get some things right. And I think that’s the calculus that people need to go through when they’re making this decision around perfection. It’s always what’s the end goal in mind and how much does this get me toward it or maybe detract from it? And again, a good advisor that can help you see when something’s going to be really bad versus it’s good enough, let’s. Let’s keep this going so helpful and a good team.

Amanda Ballard: 23:38

Yeah, for sure I love it. Well, hopefully you are all encouraged, and maybe our new t-shirt should say just send it. And I know I just said reiterate, which means that we’re doing it again.

Tina Smith: 24:09

I got it, grammar police, but I’m going to say it again Email is the number one way that I have seen in every retail store that you can increase your revenue. So just hit, send.

Amanda Ballard: 24:24

Thanks so much for listening to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast. We hope you found this episode to be super helpful. Make sure you check out the show notes for any of those valuable resources that we mentioned on today’s episode.

Tina Smith: 24:35

And, before you go, we would love for you to give us a review. Follow, like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you’re listening today, and make sure you join us for our next episode, where we give you more marketing tips so that you can reach more people and change more lives.