Power-Up #1: Ask The Ones Who Didn't Buy

Oh hello, I am back Reader!

Fab here, your marketing fairy godmother is calling.

I have been busy moving my website and my newsletter to a new home (you can have a lil peek at the bottom), but I am BACK baby - cue Austin Powers voice.

I needed something that worked better for me, and for how the personal side of my business is shifting.

...cheeky sneak peek...

I'm stepping back into client work and consulting, and I finally have the capacity for it.

It only took 16 months after my child was born, which, in the grand scheme of being a parent and a business owner, is completely normal.

If you're in that stretch right now, I see you. 🫶

As I was moving things around, I wanted to audit what you have been loving from the newsletter.

I've shared 90+ essays in the Founders' Classroom since I started it again, and I went back through them to see which ones got a response.

We all love the mindset pieces and the reflection pieces, and I love writing them.

But (and that is a big but 🍑) most of the direct replies landed on the same kind of issue:

That tells me something. Everything I do and everything I teach, school or no school, comes back to action. The smallest viable action we can take.

So that's what we're doing now. I'm calling them Power-Ups 🌟

Think of a Power-Up as the smallest viable action you can take. Small enough to do this week, useful enough to compound.

Here's the first one.

Power-Up #1: ask the ones who didn't buy

Here's where this one came from.

I ran a validation call with Debora, a marketing student in Brussels. Handed her the AMS landing page. Asked her to just tell me the truth.

She did 🙃

"Cancel whenever." Right there on the page. Generous, I thought. Reassuring, I thought.

Debora's actual response:

Fair. Genuinely, annoyingly fair.

We removed the line. There is a lot of power in asking for feedback, and there's even more power in building something known as a feedback loop for it.

After your next launch, pitch, or webinar, ask the people who didn't buy why.

• Pick the people who said no. Not everyone, just recently and relevantly.
• Ask one direct question, out loud on a call or in one short email.
• Let them answer before you jump in to explain or defend anything.
• Write down their actual words. Not your summary of them.

Silence feels like rejection, so most founders never ask.

Please don't be one of those founders 😉

The people who walked away are holding the exact sentence your next page is missing. Debora handed me mine in one phone call. You just have to actually ask.

How To Actually Do This

Two ways in, and it depends on who you're asking.

Small, bespoke group? Run a validation call.

Pick three to five people who said no recently. Get them on a call. Ask them to be brutally honest, then sit there and let them be. Slower, but it catches things you'd never think to ask about. The "cancel whenever" line wasn't even on my radar until Debora put it there.

Bigger list? Send one email.

Pull everyone who saw your last launch or pitch and didn't buy, minus anyone who's since unsubscribed from that specific list. One question: what stopped you saying yes? Multiple choice helps: timing, price, trust, not the right fit, something else, tell me.

Do either and then ideally, over time, do both (Fab, can you please stop being an overachiever?)

Step-By-Step Process

1. Map out the one journey that could do with a feedback action step from your end for people who didn't buy
2. Identify the easiest way you can ask them for their feedback based on the data that you have from them (for example, their emails)
3. Create the shortest and simplest invitation for them to give you their feedback
4. Schedule to send it within the next week or so
5. make sure you have a follow-up task or reminder to review what you have learned and how many people give you feedback.
6. After that, run a post mortem to identify how you can turn this into a process next time

What's the one thing you're guessing at instead of just asking? 🙃

Always cheering you on

Fab 🤘