Analysis

Where The Real Analysis Needs To Take Place

Where The Real Analysis Needs To Take Place

Garth Beyer

All Signs Point To

After someone makes a transaction, makes their purchase, opens the book, follows through with your call to action, it’s all tweaking at that point for you.

If you see most people don’t read blog posts longer than 2,000 words, that’s easy to tweak. If few people opened up your press release, the title is easy to tweak. If no one is sharing your YouTube video, making the share button more visible is easy to tweak.

The place analysis is most important is in the conversations leading up to the transaction. How did they get to your blog in the first place? How is their email on your list to begin with? Why would people want to share the video anyway?

No transaction is as simple as “this for that” anymore. There are conversations going on before every transaction. Conversations customers have with themselves. Conversations they have with you. Conversations they have with their friends.

Maybe the focus needs to be less on tweaking and more on reaching the right people to begin with.

If you don’t analyze the conversations before a transaction, you’ll be at the mercy of always tweaking, always making adjustments.

 

Stay Positive & Hard To Move In The Right Direction When You’re Moving In All Directions

Photo credit to my awesome friend Krista Ledbetter
Consider The Wildest Ideas

Consider The Wildest Ideas

Garth Beyer

Wild Idea

Are you open to it? Thinking about it? Considering the wildest idea others may have?

I tested a new interface of EatStreet‘s website earlier today with Rob, VP of marketing there. His last question for me was what my wildest idea is that could make the experience better, more remarkable? No boundaries, no wrong answers, no restrictions. It could be anything.

Really, though, he didn’t need to ask. He could have ended the trial without ever asking. The feedback up to that point was safe, it was logical, it was feedback that would benefit the mass number of users. But he didn’t stop there. He asked.

It’s great to think of where the wild ideas are. They represent forward thinking, they represent risk and potential failure, but also potentially wild success too.

 

Stay Positive & So, What’s Your Wildest Idea? Can It Work?

Photo credit

My Friend Makes The 80/20 Rule Look Weak

Garth Beyer

Hard work, and a lot of it, is what it takes to reach any worthy goal.

Smart work is when you put the hard work into the 20 percent of actions that produce 80 percent of results.

The best work is when you can balance everything.

 

I have a friend that nearly invalidates all of these concepts. For the sake of explanation and relativity, I’m going to use weight lifting as an example, but you can exchange it with any line of work.

I’ve been lifting weights for over a year: building muscle, toning it, shaping my body the way I want it. I put in the hard work by lifting until I’m sore, I put in the smart work by following a program, and I put in the best work by making sure that my body is balanced. I was once skinny and scrawny and now I am more filled in and toned. Yet, I have a long way to go until I reach the muscle ratio I want. (Don’t worry, I’m not looking to become freakishly beefy, just extremely fit. To put it in perspective, I plan to do the Iron Man in a few years.)

Now, I have a friend. This friend was in the same situation as me, skinny and scrawny, if not even more skinny and scrawny than I started out being. About three weeks ago he began working out and is catching up to me – fast. No, he won’t be caught up to me in a week or even two, but I can guarantee it won’t take him over a year to get as far as I am now. (Remember, I’ve been going at it for over a year to get where I am!).

My friend, Brett, defies the 80/20 rule, he seems to – before taking any action – figure out how to do 5% of the work that creates 95% of the results. My friend makes the 80/20 rule look weak. He does the hardest work, the genius work, and doesn’t care about balance, he cares about progress. There’s nothing wrong with that right?

Brett has always been this way, not just with lifting weights but with everything else that sparks his interest. What he has taught me – and hopefully, through this post, can teach you – is that there are always ways that you can shorten your invested time and simultaneously strengthen the results. The 80/20 rule is a great place to start, but not the place to stay.

 

Stay Positive & Try The 5/95 Rule, Also Known As Hohler’s Law (as opposed to Pareto’s law of 80/20)

Garth E. Beyer