Transcripts
Hello, welcome to the Close The Loop podcast.
Kevin Dieny:I'm here with two gentlemenly guests, and we are going to be talking about
Kevin Dieny:the infinite value of feedback loops.
Kevin Dieny:This is a really exciting topic for us, especially for me.
Kevin Dieny:I'm in attribution all day, all the time, trying to optimize and improve campaigns.
Kevin Dieny:So, the first guest I have today is Matt Widmyer.
Kevin Dieny:He is the sales development manager at CallSource.
Kevin Dieny:He oversees the ever-growing sales development division here while working
Kevin Dieny:as a liaison between the marketing and sales departments, whether there is an
Kevin Dieny:individual or a team operational gap, he'll roll up his sleeves and get to work.
Kevin Dieny:He is a problem solver.
Kevin Dieny:He is a mentor and he is a coach all rolled into one.
Kevin Dieny:Matt has a wife and daughter and loves all things outdoors.
Matt:Thanks for having me.
Kevin Dieny:All right.
Kevin Dieny:Our second host we have going with us today is Ronn Burner again.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn Burner is an independent marketing strategy consultant.
Kevin Dieny:He applies his marketing MBA with his marketing automation expert experience
Kevin Dieny:to help organizations design, execute and measure their marketing strategies.
Kevin Dieny:When he is not designing programs, Ronn's time is spent as an avid
Kevin Dieny:sports and fitness fanatic and can be spotted with his 11 year old son
Kevin Dieny:at Disneyland on any given weekend...
Kevin Dieny:literally!
Kevin Dieny:Welcome, Ronn.
Ronn:Hey, good to see you guys again.
Ronn:Happy to be here.
Matt:Likewise.
Kevin Dieny:All right.
Kevin Dieny:So today's topic on the infinite value of feedback loops.
Kevin Dieny:I wanted to set the stage again and properly define what we're talking
Kevin Dieny:about when you say feedback loops.
Kevin Dieny:I think that would be a good place to get started.
Kevin Dieny:So I figure I would put it in form of like a metaphor.
Kevin Dieny:So a feedback loop is a lot like to me anyway, the speedometer in your car.
Kevin Dieny:So when you press the gas or acceleration, you see the speed increase
Kevin Dieny:when you let off or you press the brake, you see the speed decrease.
Kevin Dieny:I think the really important part about a feedback loop is actually
Kevin Dieny:how long it takes before the, the cause and effect occur, because that
Kevin Dieny:way you can learn from it, right?
Kevin Dieny:So a car pressing the gas is almost an immediate...
Kevin Dieny:boom acceleration and braking is the same.
Kevin Dieny:You press that and you're almost immediately feeling the impact.
Kevin Dieny:So the best feedback loops you know in business, they're going to be the ones
Kevin Dieny:that you apply a change or a correction or something and it has almost an immediate
Kevin Dieny:impact because you can say, okay, I did something - here's the effect on that.
Kevin Dieny:I changed this setting on this thing and my clicks or my
Kevin Dieny:leads or whatever went down.
Kevin Dieny:I changed my subject headline in my email and my open rates went up.
Kevin Dieny:Those are direct, almost immediate things that can happen.
Kevin Dieny:Now, there's also things that take a long time.
Kevin Dieny:Those are worse.
Kevin Dieny:Those are the hardest feedback loops to manage.
Kevin Dieny:I think of like a sunburn being a really hard feedback loop because you
Kevin Dieny:can play all day at the beach and not really feel that your skin is cooking.
Kevin Dieny:And then later that night have a horrible time sleeping cause
Kevin Dieny:you have blisters and stuff.
Kevin Dieny:It takes so long before the impact of that affects you.
Kevin Dieny:So the feedback loop is harder to learn from.
Kevin Dieny:You might be like, well, is it the fact that I played outside or that
Kevin Dieny:I was barbecuing or whatever it is.
Kevin Dieny:How could that give me these blisters?
Kevin Dieny:So it's a little hard to make the connections.
Kevin Dieny:So when it comes to a business and thinking about their feedback loops,
Kevin Dieny:where the value comes from, I want to just start us off with, why do you think
Kevin Dieny:a business ignores a feedback loop, or ignores measurement, ignores tracking?
Kevin Dieny:So I'll throw this one to Ronn first.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn, why do you think a business may ignore the feedback loop?
Ronn:I think a lot of it has to do with moving too fast.
Ronn:A feedback loop requires, you know, the focus, being on acquiring information
Ronn:to make your process or product better.
Ronn:So oftentimes there's an idea at the inception, and then you just move
Ronn:forward with that idea and you don't really actually consider the unintended
Ronn:consequences until they're so glaring, you have no choice, but to focus on them.
Ronn:In my experience, it's usually just, yeah, people get moving so fast
Ronn:and companies and organizations get moving so fast because ideas are
Ronn:great and you just want to execute on them and you want to do them.
Ronn:But you really need to spend as part of the strategy, you really do need to
Ronn:focus on, okay, we need to reassess this.
Ronn:We need to address it.
Ronn:We need to take in information, just to make it better.
Ronn:How do we make it better?
Kevin Dieny:Nobody gets every business decision, right...
Kevin Dieny:every single time.
Kevin Dieny:So you think it might be a little bit of the paralysis of,
Kevin Dieny:well, what if we make a mistake?
Kevin Dieny:What if we do it wrong?
Kevin Dieny:Do you think that's a part of it?
Ronn:I do think it's a part of it because one of the traps I often see,
Ronn:and I'm probably guilty of, doing is when you get going, if things
Ronn:are working it's acceptable, it's easy to say, even though if it's not
Ronn:ideal, you're like it is functioning.
Ronn:This is working so we can get by with this.
Ronn:If we just keep stacking, it's kind of like reading material, we just
Ronn:keep stacking it up, but we're never actually reading it stacking faster
Ronn:than we're able to consume it.
Ronn:And, with identifying little issues that aren't perfect from the get-go,
Ronn:but you can get by and nobody really none the wiser, so to speak.
Ronn:I do think that that tends to play a role and often times you don't want
Ronn:to really dive into it if it's working as it is because you might discover,
Ronn:oh, this is bad and of course that's more reason why you should be doing it.
Kevin Dieny:Right.
Kevin Dieny:Okay.
Kevin Dieny:Matt, was there anything you wanted to add about why a business in
Kevin Dieny:your experience might want, or might be ignoring feedback loops?
Matt:Yeah, I think the main reason why something like that would happen
Matt:is because, whoever is in charge of the campaign was not all on the same page
Matt:at the beginning in terms of how it's, how we're measuring success or failure.
Matt:Right.
Matt:So if we have, the predefined metrics, okay, we're going to look at this,
Matt:this is what I hope to happen, this is what I expect to happen.
Matt:If we can marry somewhere in the middle, we can continue this
Matt:on for a couple more months.
Matt:If not, we pull the plug.
Matt:Those conversations usually don't happen to the extent they
Matt:should is from my experience.
Matt:Answer #2 is because, um, somebody stubborn and doesn't want to, doesn't
Matt:want to look at what's happening.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:I mean, we have dealt with campaigns that we will launch maybe in tandem
Kevin Dieny:with other departments or maybe just with like specific individuals.
Kevin Dieny:And when the question comes, okay, well, what's, what's success for
Kevin Dieny:this look like, how are we going to know that this is working or not?
Kevin Dieny:And if that part of it is ignored, like to me, I think, well then if measurement
Kevin Dieny:tracking is ignored, then why do it?
Kevin Dieny:Obviously we want to increase whatever the goal is.
Kevin Dieny:Leads generally, sales, increase retention, something like that.
Kevin Dieny:But when we're not measuring it, we could be doing something else and it could
Kevin Dieny:be, if we're not measuring it, then it could have a greater or less impact.
Kevin Dieny:So there's no way to know whether one thing is better than another.
Kevin Dieny:Obviously something is better than nothing usually, but rarely is a
Kevin Dieny:business, like, "Okay, I'm willing to just throw resources at this and I don't
Kevin Dieny:care what happens if it's successful or not, I'm just assuming it will be."
Kevin Dieny:So that's a problem, I usually see as there's so much effort paid into what
Kevin Dieny:something looks like, how something has to work, how it will perform
Kevin Dieny:in, you know, the last metric at the bottom, like sales or something.
Kevin Dieny:But how are we going to see them smaller, incremental things
Kevin Dieny:that show us that it's working?
Kevin Dieny:We've sent emails and no one opened.
Kevin Dieny:So maybe those email addresses we had are the problem, not the email itself.
Kevin Dieny:It's possible the subject line was so horrible or something ended it up in
Kevin Dieny:spam, but there's a couple of things I'd want to evaluate there other than just
Kevin Dieny:saying like, oh, the email entirely is trash or is it a terrible channel for us?
Kevin Dieny:Is there anything else you wanted to add on that anybody?
Matt:I think you, uh, I think he covered it.
Matt:I think the important thing is just for everyone to get on the same page before
Matt:something is given the green light.
Ronn:Yeah I think its just, at its core, the essence of
Ronn:feedback loop is efficiency.
Ronn:It's like, how can we remove the middleman?
Ronn:How can we make this process simpler?
Ronn:You need to be open to accepting information and asking the questions
Ronn:and then if it's your staff, or the internal sources, they need to
Ronn:be willing to provide the details, whatever it helps, whatever processes
Ronn:can be put in place to make it more efficient and easier on everybody.
Ronn:That's kind of at the core of what you want to do.
Ronn:And we live in a feedback loop all day, every day.
Ronn:We're going through it, like Kevin said with the driving.
Ronn:You do something and you get a result.
Ronn:And your figuring out quickly, that was stupid.
Ronn:There's a better way to do this.
Kevin Dieny:All right.
Kevin Dieny:I got another question for you.
Kevin Dieny:So how are you guys using feedback loops in email marketing, sales
Kevin Dieny:development, prospecting in any kind of marketing, sales, or anything you're
Kevin Dieny:doing, interacting with businesses?
Kevin Dieny:What are maybe some examples or something where you'd like to share how you're
Kevin Dieny:using a feedback loop to improve...
Kevin Dieny:right, with the information you're getting whatever it is you are doing.
Kevin Dieny:So that could be a campaign, an initiative, something like that.
Kevin Dieny:So, start with Matt.
Matt:We have, as the SDR manager, again, a team of a half dozen, we have new
Matt:initiatives pop up all the time, right?
Matt:And usually primarily pretty heavy call campaigns with some other things,
Matt:supporting it, obviously marketing and chats and emails and everything.
Matt:Before we take on initiatives, we need to decide what is success for this?
Matt:If we're getting appointments from a new list that we have, great - let's
Matt:see if we can keep getting them.
Matt:I don't want people wasting their time on something.
Matt:So I think there's a good amount of activity into something as
Matt:a couple of hundred activities.
Matt:So if literally nothing's happened, maybe we adjust the approach a little bit.
Matt:If it still seems like it's promising, but the thing that's annoying for me the most
Matt:as a manager is for somebody to come to me and tell me a lists sucks and they've only
Matt:made for three or four phone calls on it.
Matt:So there is a threshold where I would like to be able to confidently be able
Matt:to adjust and tweak and calibrate if you will the direction we take on something.
Matt:Three isn't enough, a thousand is probably too many, depending on the total audience.
Matt:And if we can figure out a way to maybe there's a segment of that audience, that
Matt:makes a little bit more sense, right?
Matt:So it's not necessarily a day to day, but it's a couple days to a week,
Matt:its just little check-ins revaluate.
Matt:We have Salesforce dashboards set up for every metric I care about.
Matt:Then obviously the anecdotal stuff, the stuff that you don't have in fields,
Matt:like, Hey, this is what I'm running into a lot, or this is the general
Matt:vibe I'm getting from this, or just the conversational stuff when you check in.
Matt:It's multi-level but yet it's data supported with anecdotal stuff, basically.
Kevin Dieny:That's great.
Kevin Dieny:So here's a question for you again, Matt.
Kevin Dieny:Who is responsible for the success of, let's say some of the metrics, is it?
Kevin Dieny:And what I'm getting to here is, is it ever more than one person?
Matt:I feel like this is a loaded question.
Kevin Dieny:It totally is.
Matt:No, it is.
Matt:How did the thing originate?
Matt:You know, it's obviously the person doing it, but it is on me too to make
Matt:sure that my team is equipped to be able to reach out to an audience.
Matt:It's a group effort.
Matt:It's not just one person.
Matt:Right.
Matt:And it takes buy-in from everybody.
Matt:So if there's something they need that, I can't readily see
Matt:then it's on them to let me know.
Matt:If it's something they're doing that's wrong I'm not going to let a couple
Matt:of weeks go by to tell them I'm going to address it as soon as I find out.
Matt:If I see they've made 200 phone calls and not even connected with one person they
Matt:should be talking to we need to figure out a way to either get past gatekeepers or
Matt:maybe we need to find a different phone number for these folks or something.
Matt:Or if they're connecting with a bunch of people and not getting any
Matt:appointments, then it's absolutely whatever they're telling these people.
Matt:Or maybe that's not even an attractive offer to this audience,
Matt:it could be a number of things, but you only find these things out...
Matt:you can almost kind of narrow it down by looking at the data.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:That makes a lot of sense.
Kevin Dieny:And that's basically a little bit of the art part of feedback loop management
Kevin Dieny:is how long do, how long do I give it?
Kevin Dieny:Are the inputs going in, correct?
Kevin Dieny:Is there something I need to change that maybe unrelated to necessarily
Kevin Dieny:what's going on that may impact this?
Kevin Dieny:There's a lot of questions that a feedback loop opens up when you're not,
Kevin Dieny:let's say getting your performance, even if you are getting the goal or
Kevin Dieny:even above the goal you want, there could be a lot of stuff going wrong
Kevin Dieny:and it's still important to look into.
Kevin Dieny:Okay, Ronn, for you, is there any feedback loops you're utilizing or you tend to
Kevin Dieny:utilize that are really important to you that you wanted to talk to or share?
Ronn:My approach to feedback loop, I think of it differently from the whole
Ronn:standpoint of marketing attractiveness.
Ronn:There's the internal and external components of things, so to me,
Ronn:a feedback loop composes, the internal: which is your team.
Ronn:So how processes are in place within your organization?
Ronn:What is not efficient and what is not working is people stepping on each
Ronn:other's toes and things of that nature, which nobody does intentionally, but
Ronn:it just shows a flaw in the process.
Ronn:That is definitely a feedback loop and the way I approach that with my team, I am a
Ronn:firm firm believer in trusting my team.
Ronn:I want the ball in somebody's court at all times, because when it's in
Ronn:multiple hands, it tends to fall through the cracks because you
Ronn:can point the finger on accident.
Ronn:And to me that approach, it gives empowerment.
Ronn:You're empowering your team or each specific member.
Ronn:And now they feel like they have responsibility and they
Ronn:feel like they have purpose.
Ronn:And, they feel like they matter to a point where nobody wants to drop the ball.
Ronn:So if the ball is in their plate, they're almost certainly going to put
Ronn:their best foot forward to do it rather than it being in a group setting.
Ronn:So that sort of feedback approach.
Ronn:And I like that as a marketing manager, I have the weekly meetings and I know
Ronn:as a team, we also had this sort of a thing, but I like to talk about
Ronn:successes now in the successes of what was successful for the week.
Ronn:But I also like to find out: what can we do better?
Ronn:Did anybody notice anything that we can streamline our work on?
Ronn:That component of a feedback loop and that kind of open communication without feeling
Ronn:like there's some sort of hierarchy or you're talking up for talking down to
Ronn:each other because we're a collective team and all components - everybody's
Ronn:area of expertise is very important.
Ronn:I don't tell the social media team how to do things.
Ronn:I ask them, this is what our strategy is, what we want to do.
Ronn:So what do you guys think?
Ronn:And then they can let me know.
Ronn:So we are all on the same page and that feedback loop is very important.
Ronn:Then the external component of it is.
Ronn:The area of expertise of outbound emails and things of that nature.
Ronn:And you alluded to it with subject lines, which is obviously if you're
Ronn:not getting email opens, the first thing you go to is databases.
Ronn:What's the database hygiene?
Ronn:And of course, that feedback loops is to figure out if, if it's pristine or
Ronn:not, or make it pristine, hopefully you already know that answer.
Ronn:So then when you're not receiving any opens or any email analytics, it's due to,
Ronn:either the cadence, either the messaging, the subject line, things of that nature.
Ronn:The external component, what I mean by that feedback loop is that's coming from,
Ronn:the customer or coming from the client.
Ronn:So what is their feedback?
Ronn:And there's such a thing as action by inaction.
Ronn:So to your point, Kevin, if they're not opening emails, if they're not clicking,
Ronn:if they're not doing any of the CTA.
Ronn:They're profiling themselves in a way that we know you're
Ronn:there, but you're not interested.
Ronn:So we're not offering you value probably, or we're not
Ronn:speaking to the right persona.
Ronn:So then all of these things like Matt said is you collect all this data.
Ronn:And as long as you have a plan to know what to do with that data,
Ronn:you can really start to hone in on messaging and trying to, up the
Ronn:stakes, up to ante, up to analytics.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, so you bring up two really interesting things there.
Kevin Dieny:The first one is there's two types of, let's say data that
Kevin Dieny:comes from a feedback loop.
Kevin Dieny:The first one.
Kevin Dieny:Let's say call it the traditional data that you'd say 1, 2, 3,
Kevin Dieny:1000 thousand clicks opens.
Kevin Dieny:I'm talking about an integer numbers, like quantifiable data that is telling
Kevin Dieny:us something and based on what we expect or what we know, maybe a
Kevin Dieny:baseline it's either better or worse or at average than what we expect.
Kevin Dieny:And that's a feedback loop, it's numerical.
Kevin Dieny:There's also the qualitative...
Kevin Dieny:emotional...
Kevin Dieny:anecdotal, someone saying these leads are crap.
Kevin Dieny:Like how Matt was mentioning this list is garbage, but then he
Kevin Dieny:immediately goes to, okay, let me see what the quant side is saying.
Kevin Dieny:Let me see what the numbers say.
Kevin Dieny:And that can be an unemotional feedback loop.
Kevin Dieny:It's not to discount the emotional side.
Kevin Dieny:The emotional side is incredibly important, especially when managing, but
Kevin Dieny:if you scope down like a magnifying glass, really down to the individual metric of
Kevin Dieny:a specific email not being opened or not.
Kevin Dieny:It could have a lot of emotional components to it.
Kevin Dieny:When you look at it from high level and you see big numbers, like I got only a
Kevin Dieny:5% open or whatever it is, and you expect a 15, then okay, something's wrong.
Kevin Dieny:But exactly what is wrong is really difficult is really...
Kevin Dieny:complex.
Kevin Dieny:It can be a hard thing to untangle.
Kevin Dieny:The other part of it that stood out to me was what if something's not
Kevin Dieny:going well, I make a change, and then immediately afterward it gets worse.
Kevin Dieny:It gets worse then bad that it already was.
Kevin Dieny:Lets just put it in the format of a little story.
Kevin Dieny:We sent an email out when you get only 5% opens and we're expecting 15.
Kevin Dieny:And so we said, fixing the database is a big, hard problem for our small business.
Kevin Dieny:Let's just change the subject line and we changed it.
Kevin Dieny:And now we're seeing 2% opens.
Kevin Dieny:We're only looking at that one metric.
Kevin Dieny:That seems like it made things worse.
Kevin Dieny:So what do you do Ronn, when you're managing the feedback loops and the
Kevin Dieny:corrections and still something goes wrong or worse like that side of it.
Ronn:Yeah.
Ronn:I consider that to be, it's still a learning, the result is negative,
Ronn:but it was still a learning thing.
Ronn:So you know what not to do next time.
Ronn:When it comes to the database, I'm an automation by trade.
Ronn:I'm an automation guy.
Ronn:So I have so many programs built in and I call it proof of life.
Ronn:If I want to know that there's somebody on the other end, so
Ronn:right there, I'm cutting the fat.
Ronn:I'm trimming the fat for those non engaged people.
Ronn:And they're handled in a different way where it's more of a slow
Ronn:drip over a cadence over time.
Ronn:Just trying to get a, to find a pulse.
Ronn:So something down the road, they eventually click.
Ronn:So the true automation elements of things that are being centered,
Ronn:they're only to the, I don't want to say highly engaged, but those that
Ronn:have shown me that there's a, somebody on the other end of that email.
Ronn:When I make a decision or I try something because of, again, as an automation
Ronn:guy, AB testing is a really big part of life, you know, you really want, and
Ronn:it's everything from CTA button colors.
Ronn:It's almost fun stuff.
Ronn:When you make a decision that doesn't work, it's usually, nothing's drastic.
Ronn:Nothing's crazy.
Ronn:So I'm going to change something and I'm not going to throw the
Ronn:baby out with the bath water.
Ronn:If I see something's not quite working, right.
Ronn:I'm going to say, okay, how about this?
Ronn:And it's just a subtle tweak because another main thing in
Ronn:stilled, in my mind is you want the messaging to always remain the same.
Ronn:So I don't want them to all of a sudden assuming they know who we are.
Ronn:You don't want them to see an email that looks completely different than
Ronn:the organization that you are, and that the messages that you've been
Ronn:sending across all of your channels.
Ronn:I can't think of a decision I've ever made incorrectly.
Ronn:I'm joking.
Ronn:Of course.
Ronn:I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would have been too drastic.
Ronn:Something that comes to mind is long email form versus short email form.
Ronn:And again, that goes back to the persona.
Ronn:What audience are you talking to?
Ronn:Because there are certain audiences that the long email form it's more
Ronn:storytelling and they need to be coerced and they need to trust you.
Ronn:So they want to read that.
Ronn:Then I know I've worked in the past with, auto dealerships and I
Ronn:know that their audience is, they want to get straight to the point.
Ronn:They want to go straight to the button.
Ronn:They want to go straight to the call to action.
Ronn:All the storytelling that you could incorporate in there, they would
Ronn:scroll right past that and go to the button if they were interested or not.
Ronn:The takeaway would be, I would make subtle changes rather than, big,
Ronn:wholesale changes that are pretty much drastically changing everything
Ronn:that you've done up until that point.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, that's a really good point to make, smaller
Kevin Dieny:manageable changes can oftentimes swing numbers in a huge way.
Kevin Dieny:We have called it here, making testing experimental changes
Kevin Dieny:and then the, which are small.
Kevin Dieny:And then we call it cannon balling where we think the whole idea needs to change.
Kevin Dieny:And we need to pivot in a big way.
Kevin Dieny:And we generally do that when we're forced to unfortunately, or when we've tested a
Kevin Dieny:bunch and we're come to the conclusion.
Kevin Dieny:This just doesn't seem to be working.
Kevin Dieny:How Matt mentioned, we've got to give up on this move to something else.
Kevin Dieny:Let's change the pace entirely.
Kevin Dieny:So question for you, Matt.
Kevin Dieny:What is the long-term consequence of ignoring a feedback loop?
Kevin Dieny:What are some consequences of ignoring the process of setting
Kevin Dieny:up feedback loops entirely?
Matt:Well, yeah, I think the worst possible consequences I lose
Matt:my job for, for doing something way too long that's not working.
Matt:There are other consequences as well.
Matt:We could potentially damage the relationship we have with an
Matt:audience by going too far into something thats not working, we
Matt:could start to irritate some people.
Matt:I do think that there's always something to be learned.
Matt:Even from your sunscreen example at the beginning or your sunburn example, you
Matt:can learn, there's no total loss, right.
Matt:Because you can learn, okay, next time you go out and sunscreen, then you, you put on
Matt:some SPF 20 and then you get burned again.
Matt:And it's like, okay, maybe I need SPF 40 next time.
Matt:And then you get burnt again, and then it's like, okay, maybe I can stay out
Matt:of the sun or I just use an umbrella where everywhere I go or, and bring
Matt:Aloe Vera with me everywhere I go.
Matt:There's something to be learned in any case.
Matt:It's never realistic to be making like little micro changes and stuff like
Matt:that, but you should have an idea of the checkpoints and stuff like that.
Matt:You don't want it to go on for too long because there's a lot at risk: the quality
Matt:of the list and you're getting people to say no before they even know what you do.
Matt:But I do agree with Ronn, in terms of not changing too many things
Matt:at once because by making little tweaks, you're able to isolate what
Matt:is actually wrong with the approach.
Matt:A lot of times it's just a matter of tweaking the talk track a little bit.
Matt:We usually go in somewhat prepared, we know that audience typically works for us.
Matt:You go in with your best foot forward and an educated guests of what you think is
Matt:going to work based on historical stuff.
Matt:And then if it's not working, it's usually I'm not opening up this call the
Matt:right way, or this is a hot button for them and make sure you mentioned this or
Matt:it's usually one or two little things.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, that's great, Matt.
Kevin Dieny:You mentioned some really good things that I want to summarize around and
Kevin Dieny:then I'll give it back to you guys just to add any last things you want to this.
Kevin Dieny:So in summary, the feedback loop is being able to measure the performance
Kevin Dieny:of something as it goes, but also to give you the information you need
Kevin Dieny:to know what you should tweak either next time or in real time on the fly.
Kevin Dieny:And that is the process of improving performance; adding value to the
Kevin Dieny:business that does equal more leads, more interactions, more
Kevin Dieny:engagements, more sales, greater revenue, increased retention.
Kevin Dieny:The reason that there's infinite value there is that you can
Kevin Dieny:always change something.
Kevin Dieny:Now the last component of that right is, well, what do I change first?
Kevin Dieny:There's a priorities.
Kevin Dieny:Not all feedback is going to be equal.
Kevin Dieny:Some things are going to be very valuable and some things are going
Kevin Dieny:to just be like, okay, it didn't work, but this is a Christmas email.
Kevin Dieny:We sent it once a year.
Kevin Dieny:It doesn't need to drive leads, right?
Kevin Dieny:What is its purpose?
Kevin Dieny:And then the other thing is looking at a campaign and initiative.
Kevin Dieny:Anything.
Kevin Dieny:Is it trackable?
Kevin Dieny:Are we measuring it?
Kevin Dieny:Do we care?
Kevin Dieny:If it's an awareness thing.
Kevin Dieny:If it's just to get some good rapport with an audience, it may not
Kevin Dieny:necessarily need to be fully trackable.
Kevin Dieny:And sometimes the difference between the untrackable and a trackable
Kevin Dieny:thing is a lot of money and expense.
Kevin Dieny:So maybe we just don't have the budget for that.
Kevin Dieny:We can't track this per se.
Kevin Dieny:Data feedback is best I would say, but I wouldn't ignore the emotional
Kevin Dieny:anecdotal feedback, especially in different situations in managing people.
Kevin Dieny:There's a lot of bias out there.
Kevin Dieny:So that's why data is I say, as our preference, my preference, it
Kevin Dieny:removes some of the bias, but you can easily skew and bias anything.
Kevin Dieny:The feedback loops that tell us that we are doing something wrong
Kevin Dieny:or that we suck at something.
Kevin Dieny:Honestly it's hard to take, right?
Kevin Dieny:This thing you put a lot of time and effort in didn't work.
Kevin Dieny:Okay.
Kevin Dieny:Does that mean you are a bad marketer business owner, leader salesperson?
Kevin Dieny:No, it just means, there's something there that can be improved.
Kevin Dieny:You can get better.
Kevin Dieny:You can, move this in the right direction.
Kevin Dieny:It's just got to be worth it.
Kevin Dieny:So I wouldn't get all worked up about something that you can just, move on or
Kevin Dieny:change or can improve starting small.
Kevin Dieny:Like Matt said is probably the right way.
Kevin Dieny:If you change, or like Ron alluded to you change too many things,
Kevin Dieny:you get into multi-variate work.
Kevin Dieny:And then in that case, you're like, well, I changed five things, but I
Kevin Dieny:don't know which one actually worked.
Kevin Dieny:That's a problem.
Kevin Dieny:I mean it's better...
Kevin Dieny:but if someone was to say, well, what exactly was the thing that
Kevin Dieny:worked or if it starts to not work.
Kevin Dieny:And you're kind of like, wait, I don't know exactly which one to fix.
Kevin Dieny:And that's tough.
Kevin Dieny:So focus on what can be greatly improved by doing the smallest amount
Kevin Dieny:of effort is probably just a smart management decision or smart way to work.
Kevin Dieny:Pouring a whole bunch of effort into a tiny little corner of a graphic that's
Kevin Dieny:barely, anyone's going to see on the last page, doesn't need as much attention.
Kevin Dieny:When someone lands on a page, they're going to see the top.
Kevin Dieny:Are they gonna scroll down to the bottom?
Kevin Dieny:Probably not.
Kevin Dieny:So does that need the most attention?
Kevin Dieny:Probably not.
Kevin Dieny:Some people just don't scroll.
Kevin Dieny:They want it immediately.
Kevin Dieny:So that's where the attention should be paid.
Kevin Dieny:That's a lot of experience talking but that's come from feedback loops.
Kevin Dieny:I am on the side of Ronn, and I think Matt probably would agree to where
Kevin Dieny:you want the responsibility of things to be in one person's hand, as he
Kevin Dieny:mentioned, like the ball in one person's court, and that's by scoping in.
Kevin Dieny:In macro and a large view, like Matt mentioned, everyone has a piece,
Kevin Dieny:everyone's a cog in this machine, but when you zoom in scope in, you really want that
Kevin Dieny:small decisions being made, that people can be responsible for the performance
Kevin Dieny:on that people can feel awesome, I want to learn from this and improve.
Kevin Dieny:That's where I think it works best.
Kevin Dieny:That's the summary, and you take all that in and you say, well,
Kevin Dieny:what do I do with all this?
Kevin Dieny:I think you look at some of the most important things going on in your
Kevin Dieny:business and you ask yourself, okay, well, what does success look like?
Kevin Dieny:How am I measuring that?
Kevin Dieny:Who's responsible for that?
Kevin Dieny:If it's more than one person, then maybe it's nobody.
Kevin Dieny:That's usually where I go to.
Kevin Dieny:What are we doing about it, and is there anything we can do about it?
Kevin Dieny:Those are basic business decision topics that we're alluding
Kevin Dieny:to here with feedback loops.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn, is there anything else you'd like to add or point out about the feedback loops?
Ronn:Something that was asked earlier is the negative component.
Ronn:What are the negative effects of a poor feedback loop?
Ronn:And the simple answer is just cost.
Ronn:It's expensive because you're inefficient.
Ronn:So things are not working on your team or in your organization on that side
Ronn:and the outward facing stuff you're not getting the return on the investment.
Ronn:That is also expensive.
Ronn:Finding leads is expensive.
Ronn:If the process is really bad, turnover is also very expensive.
Ronn:So KPIs and these sorts of things, becoming an expensive
Ronn:problem for an organization.
Ronn:And as a leader, your KPIs are somehow tied to that and you want
Ronn:to be as efficient and show as much return on investment as you can.
Ronn:The other thing is what's the perfect, what's the ideal situation, what is
Ronn:the dream scenario, the dream path that you want something to work in
Ronn:and what the ideal state looks like.
Ronn:And then you try to create that.
Ronn:And when you find those obstacles, now you try to solve for those obstacles.
Ronn:So really what you're doing for the ideal streamlined feedback
Ronn:loop is removing obstacles.
Ronn:I think of it a little bit like, when we were talking about multi-variant,
Ronn:apply best practices and then apply like the whole medical profession to it.
Ronn:How do they solve problems?
Ronn:They remove what they know is not the problem.
Ronn:We know this is not the problem.
Ronn:So now let's move on to this.
Ronn:And then you keep what is good and you try to filter down and what is not as good.
Ronn:Really efficiency and process and trying to get high performing as you
Ronn:can, both internally and externally.
Kevin Dieny:That's some great points Ronn.
Kevin Dieny:I really liked the idea of separating out what it's not first, because
Kevin Dieny:you could spend a lot of time pointing out problems when we're
Kevin Dieny:trying to work towards solutions.
Kevin Dieny:Matt, was there anything else that you wanted to add about the feedback loops?
Matt:Yeah.
Matt:I mean, I just wanted you guys to know that we are all in fact drinking
Matt:out of the same Punchbowl here.
Matt:Strategy wise, there's could be multiple people involved from a tactical level.
Matt:Yes, one owner.
Matt:One person either gets the credit or the blame when it comes
Matt:to actually doing the thing.
Matt:I say that half joking, but no, it is, just from bartending in the
Matt:past, it's a lot easier to make a drink if one person's doing it.
Matt:I don't need somebody to get the cup for me.
Matt:And then someone else fills it up with ice and then the other person goes and gets
Matt:some Xs and the liquor, I just wanna make the drink and then give it to the table.
Matt:Its going to be the most quickest, efficient thing.
Matt:If I am making it wrong along the way.
Matt:Cool, I'll pour it out and make the other one.
Matt:It's still going to be quicker than having five people cause then you
Matt:have people along the way say, oh, you put too much ice in or whatever.
Matt:Just let me do, let me make the drink.
Matt:The goal of all these feedback loops, we're all trying to
Matt:hit some sort of goal, right?
Matt:So these, whatever the activity we're doing that requires these feedback loops,
Matt:the feedback loop is for the sake of, should we continue to do it or not?
Matt:Thats really the question that we're trying to answer here.
Matt:And if so, then what do we need to change or do we need to change anything?
Matt:One funny example that we had, Kevin, working together, Ronn, you
Matt:might even have been here for this.
Matt:We did an ad campaign that then our phones are ringing off the hook for
Matt:people that want to buy trampolines.
Matt:We don't sell trampolines, not even close, probably the furthest
Matt:away from what we actually do here.
Matt:That's something I wouldn't wait a week to go back to Kevin and say,
Matt:Hey, by the way, our phones have been ringing for an entire every day, every
Matt:second of every day for an entire week.
Matt:Part of me wanted to get in the trampoline business but the other part of me
Matt:is like, "Hey, shut this off because it's annoying and we don't do that."
Matt:You'd want to address it a lot sooner than later, some of this stuff where
Matt:we're still unsure, we're on the fence.
Matt:Okay.
Matt:Let's plug away a little bit longer and see what happens.
Matt:But at some point the decision needs to be made, whether you
Matt:continue to do something or not.
Matt:Because as Ronn alluded to, your job at stake is a very extreme example, but
Matt:for every second you're sitting there on the fence, you're not sure what to do.
Matt:You are using company resources, whether it's time, energy, some of these effort
Matt:and you're actually not only doing that, you're actually subtracting from
Matt:something else somebody could be doing.
Matt:So it's actually twice if you're doing the wrong thing, but as
Matt:long as you're learning something, and it's not taking too long.
Matt:It's not failing little small failing and tripping along the way is not a bad thing.
Matt:It's actually a really good thing.
Kevin Dieny:That's excellent.
Kevin Dieny:Some really good examples there and I love the, I remember the trampolines there.
Kevin Dieny:It's not, that's not the only one that ended up like that.
Kevin Dieny:We've also had some crazy, bus fairs and stuff like that, people asking about them.
Kevin Dieny:The takeaway is here that, nobody's going to get every business decision right.
Kevin Dieny:Feedback loops, are to help you get them right eventually.
Kevin Dieny:That's what they're for.
Kevin Dieny:Like Matt said, they're either to continue to do something or stop something.
Kevin Dieny:So business decisions are made all the time.
Kevin Dieny:They're not going to be right all the time.
Kevin Dieny:Sometimes they're more weighty and more costly to make than others.
Kevin Dieny:And that's just the way it is.
Kevin Dieny:And constantly evaluating feedback loops and small manageable decisions, will help.
Kevin Dieny:Like Ronn said, a good example is A/B testing.
Kevin Dieny:If you can incorporate that in, that's a great way to get going.
Kevin Dieny:So gentlemen, how can people find and connect with you, Ronn?
Ronn:Ronn Burner is my name on LinkedIn and it's my name everywhere else.
Kevin Dieny:Awesome.
Kevin Dieny:Thanks, Ronn.
Kevin Dieny:How about you, Matt?
Matt:Same thing, Matt Widmyer uh, LinkedIn it's w I D M Y E R.
Kevin Dieny:I'm also on LinkedIn and everyone...
Kevin Dieny:thank you for listening.
Kevin Dieny:If you want to check out the show notes, you want to check out
Kevin Dieny:anything to do with this episode, we will post it on that page.
Kevin Dieny:We're really grateful for you listening.
Kevin Dieny:Thank you again.
Kevin Dieny:Thanks guys.
