EPISODE 73 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
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If you’ve ever caught yourself adding yet another idea to your list and calling it progress, this episode is for you.
So many small business owners are sitting on genuinely brilliant ideas that never make it out of the planning phase, and it’s not because the ideas are bad. But deciding what to act on, and actually committing to it, is one of the hardest parts of running an online business.
In this solo episode I’m digging into why the idea-to-execution gap exists, what keeps us stuck in the loop, and what it looks like to finally get out of it.
What we cover:
Why saving ideas feels productive but isn’t moving the needle
The decision-making loop that keeps brilliant ideas stuck on the list
Why trying to execute everything at once is one of the biggest traps
The difference between planning and progress (and how to tell which one you’re doing)
The questions to ask yourself to work out which idea is worth acting on right now
Why an outside perspective changes everything when you’re stuck inside your own business
A client story: how a membership owner went from months of overthinking to a full restructure that reduced member churn and reignited her motivation
Soundbites:
“There’s no such thing as failure. Even if your event doesn’t go to plan, if your offer doesn’t sell, if your first launch is a flop, it is teaching you valuable lessons to then decide whether a different version of this idea is the goal or whether this idea simply needs to be retired and replaced with something else. There are lessons to be learned in everything.”
“We look at what your audience is telling us, which means we come at the problem from an audience-driven perspective. We’re asking is this going to resonate with your audience? Is this what your audience actually needs? And is it aligned with your business goals right now? And having that outsider’s perspective means you are acting faster, you have more room and more space in your business to execute on those genius ideas, and you are combining all those aspects to make sure that the idea you’re executing on is going to tick all the boxes.”
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Episode Transcript:
Nadine (00:00)
Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. This week we are diving into a listener question that might just feel a little too close to home for a lot of my listeners and potentially you. I can definitely say I’ve been guilty of it in the past, but I am definitely improving and getting better.
So today’s question goes like this. Why do I have so many ideas, but I can simply not bring them to live? So in this instance, I get the feeling the person is very similar to me. Lots of ideas. They find inspiration in everything they see around them, whether it’s on Instagram, in their daily lives, like I, for example, go shopping at a supermarket.
I find a lot of inspiration in e-com brands and see how I can bring them to live in my online business, but I digress. so lots of ideas, but for whatever reason, they are stuck in a decision-making loop, right? And that loop goes a little like this. They see something, it resonates with them, it sparks something. They can potentially see how it could work in their business.
So they add it to their ideas list. They potentially tweak it slightly. They come up with a variation of what it could look like in their business. They move into the consideration phase where the idea has legs of some sort. But for whatever reason, that inner voice and the lack of an objective perspective puts that idea to bed before it ever.
comes to live. So far too familiar problem. And a few months ago when I first announced my retention games concept, the same happened to me. I was sitting on the idea for a major virtual event for probably two years. And the lack of objective perspective, my imposter syndrome,
You know, lot of things were standing between me and actually bringing that idea to live. So I took far too long to actually act on
you have so many things you could implement today, and they could potentially move the needle in your business and be exactly what your audience would love.
for some reason, you know, saving ideas and inspiration and adding things to your ideas list, you know, feels productive.
And it feels like we’re making progress. We’re planning things, you know, for the coming months. We’re planning how we’re going to show up online, we’re planning how we’re going to make money. and that planning gives the illusion of making progress.
and while ideas give you options, they don’t lead to results without that missing piece, the execution. the problem I often see with my one-on-one clients and people joining Retention Lab is that, for whatever reason, they don’t know
How to prioritize those ideas, how to look at that long list of inspiration and work out how to apply it to their business and also how to pick the lowest hanging fruit with the highest return on investment when it comes to their time, their effort, their energy, their funds, even. They’re trying to apply everything at once because it just seems like you’re achieving more when you’re working on several things.
They are definitely putting off making decisions because they feel like they need to have everything mapped out a hundred percent before they move into execution, which is definitely not the case. Like in my instance, the retention games, I was still evolving things and shaping things after I put the call out for speaker applications. So at some point, you need to actually just move into
the execution phase. And a lot of my clients slash members are holding on to ideas for longer than it’s useful.
people are afraid to choose the wrong thing. We’re all afraid of failure. And in business, I totally believe there’s no such thing as failure. Even if your event doesn’t go to plan, if your offer doesn’t sell, if your first launch is a flop, it is teaching you valuable lessons to then decide whether a different version of this idea.
is the goal or whether this idea simply needs to be retired and replaced with something else. There are lessons to be learned in everything. The problem also is that as business owners, while we know our sales goals and what we’re working towards, it is really hard to identify your lowest hanging fruit with the biggest return on investment. I was talking to Rachel on last week’s podcast chat.
about the same thing. You know, with email marketing, it’s the same thing. If we’re looking at the bigger picture, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed with all the things we want to implement. Make a list of lowest hanging fruit, highest return on investment ideas that you then work through. And that is a great starting point to actually make progress and yeah, work out which ideas to focus focus on first.
And the other big problem is that a lot of people don’t have an external perspective to challenge their thinking and to help them with that process. Because when you are inside your own business, everything seems equally important, right? you need to grow your list, you need to sell your courses, you need to map out your next launch. Everything seems equally as important. While from an outside perspective, someone could actually come in and say, that’s all good, you still need to grow your list. But
Your summit is happening in two months. We need to shift our focus away from even more visibility opportunities for the next two months to make sure this is coming together beautifully. Just as one example here. So if you are nodding along here, you are someone who has far too many ideas, brilliant ideas potentially, but you simply can’t work out how to prioritize them.
You can’t work out how to evolve those ideas. So they’re totally on brand and definitely resonate with your audience. I would start by asking yourself a few hard hitting questions,
how many ideas are you sitting on right now? And how many past ideas, have you actually implemented properly and acted on? where do you tend to overthink? So is it the concept, is it the execution, is it the tech?
what usually trips you up and what keeps you stuck in the tweaking and tinkering phase instead of moving into that execution phase and committing to the idea. And are you possibly avoiding making those decisions because in action feels easier.
and more comfortable than acting on a big bold thing in your business.
I totally believe that there’s a big difference between having ideas. Like we all have ideas, human beings are creative by nature, but having someone to help you decide what matters, what doesn’t matter, and what is worth acting on in your business right now is totally priceless. And
inside the incubator tier of retention lab and in my one-on-one offers, I help you to challenge that thought process before you go too far down a rabbit hole or before you waste an absolutely brilliant idea by not acting on it.
And that way everything has run through an objective perspective. And it is actually based on what your audience is telling us. And it’s setting you up for success. So how I work is very audience driven. We look at what your audience is telling us, which means any idea and any decision behind these ideas comes
At the problem from an audience-driven perspective. We’re looking at is this going to resonate with your audience? Is this what your audience actually needs? And is it aligned with your business goals right now? And having that outsider’s perspective means you are acting faster. That means you have more room and more space in your business to execute on those genius ideas.
It gives you better decisions because you are connecting the many dots rather than coming at it from one angle. You are coming at it from an audience perspective, from a business perspective, and you are combining all those aspects to make sure that the idea you’re executing on is going to tick all the boxes. if you can’t picture what that looks like, I’m going to share a
Recent one-on-one client project with you. so this membership site owner had been overthinking her membership for months and months and months. She knew there were issues because the churn was picking up. Also, some of the features she had introduced, assuming people wanted them, but then there was radio silence, people weren’t actually showing up, and she didn’t enjoy delivering them. So she knew.
messaging around the membership had to shift, but also the actual structure, the deliverables, the way she showed up live for her audience needed to evolve because it just wasn’t working. So we surveyed existing members, past members, people who had been in her world for quite some time but had never been part of the membership at all.
and the findings were mind-blowing because it confirmed, for example, that this brand new live feature she had introduced because she felt her audience needed a live opportunity, actually was one of the least favorite features for most of the members. So that assured her she could easily drop it. She never enjoyed delivering it and people wouldn’t miss it.
And at the same time, the survey responses uncovered a different format that was more aligned with how her members wanted to consume her content and wanted to engage with it and how she enjoyed delivering the content as well. So it was a win-win for both. It also meant we identified some really interesting messaging gaps
where one audience demographic felt underserved in her community. even though there was an equal split of resources for, the two audience types that she was speaking to. So it genuinely helped her make a move on the
Overdue changes to her membership, which meant she could then serve her members better. She felt more aligned with the structure of her membership. She could also reposition the membership correctly so the right people joined and ultimately reduce churn inside her community.
And it has led to a newfound motivation for her to redo her whole website because she was so crystal clear on the person she was serving.
So having someone there to talk her through the gaps that she wasn’t able to see herself meant she was moving from that indecision phase to taking action and making the changes that were so needed to
create a brand new membership experience that lit her up and also meant her members were ready to sign up for the right reasons and then stay in the membership.
So before we wrap up, I have one little challenge for you. For the next seven days, I challenge you to not add any new ideas to your long list of existing potentially amazing things, but actually look at the long list of ideas you have that you’ve been sitting on for far too long and ask yourself which
Decision have I been avoiding here? which is that one idea worth pulling off based on what my audience is telling me they need, based on the lowest hanging fruit with the biggest return on investment. Have a look at it and move from that indecision phase to taking action. And then send me a DM and let me know how you went.
If you’ve been enjoying this episode and you know someone who is sitting on far too many ideas, please share it with them. And if you’re not subscribed to the podcast yet, please hit that button. and yeah, make sure you tune in next week Have a good one and I’ll see you in your AirPods next week.
