Did I ever tell you about the plus size fitness programme I launched for men a few years ago that was a complete and utter flop?
Or do you recall the time I started selling fabric pens on my website so that people could customise their running tops with inspirational messages?
Nope?
Why would you?
Those business ideas never took off, they never got any traction and in short, they were just shit business ideas….but it didn’t really matter because I didn’t really lose anything by launching them.
I have a lot of business ideas, and sometimes some of them are genius and sometimes they are just rubbish…the problem is sometimes it’s difficult to know which is which.
Which is why I pilot.
ALWAYS!!!
Even when I worked in a proper job, I would always pilot an idea before investing any time or resource into doing it properly, helping people to buy into the concept with little risk and then let the results speak for themselves.
This week 14 of my clients on my new Tribe Builder Programme (which YES I am currently piloting) launched new ventures.
Some of these were extensions of what they already do in business, and some were completely new business ideas. (You can read about them here in an email I sent round to my email list on Monday)
Launching stuff into the world is scary because it plays on those universal fears of being judged and ultimately big embarrassing, soul crushing failure.
But when something doesn’t get the traction I hoped for, when my new fantastic thing gets nothing but tumbleweed responses, and the deadline for signing up comes and goes…I am grateful (well at least I have learned to be) because it tells me this wasn’t quite right.
People vote with their wallets…and if people haven’t rushed to buy my thing it means one of 3 things
- The offer was wrong
- The timing was wrong
- Its not what I should be doing
I used to think it’s because I am shit at business, nobody likes me, and I am not worthy of success (recognise any of those?) but a whole heap of mindset work, and surrounding myself with the right people to talk things through means I don’t have those highs and lows so much anymore.
Piloting things somehow takes the pressure off.
It says, “I don’t know yet”, it says “let’s see”, it enables me to be playful and to involve the end user in shaping it and making it something awesome for the next round.
People are interested in the process, they are interested in the journey, some people are curious about how things evolve…these are the folks that you want in your beta testing teams.
I am testing a few things at the moment, and they are all super exciting.
I had been pondering on a new business model for my Living a Bigger Life Mastermind for a while. I love the work that I do with my clients on that programme but something felt off…in some ways it felt unaligned to my values…especially the one about fairness.
That programme was saying, I care about women living bigger, but only the ones that can afford to pay handsomely for it…and that didn’t feel good, even though it was a VIP type of offer.
So my thinking was, how can I make the same amount of money but make it more accessible, more vibrant, more impactful, and in some ways less work for me?
And so I came up with an idea for piloting this new model.
I put a call out for 100 women to test a new mobile app version of this, a community approach to life coaching and personal development, and guess what?
6 days in and its kinda awesome.
So far I have 72 women all signed up and using this fab new bit of tech, feeding back what works and doesn’t, giving me ideas for features and content.
It is an absolute dream.
Now if I had spent 6 months developing this, looking into all the stuff, asking people if they were interested and all manor of other procrasti branding activities I might never have taken the plunge and just launched it.
Now I am not yet at the stage where I can say confidently this is a resounding success, and this community app is going to revolutionise my life…but it bringing in income, its bringing joy to my working day, and its already having a positive impact on the lives of the women involved.
And I am learning a heap of stuff about apps, and the like
Fear stops us from trying new things
Fear stops us from making mistakes
Fear stops us from learning
Fear stops us from growth
You know that thing you have been wanting to do for like FOREVER? I bet you that you could get something up and out there as a pilot in like 10 days. Especially if you let go of any idea of it being perfect and let go of any need for it to be successful in its first round…and then who knows where it might lead to.
Remember the Wright Brothers? What would have happened if they chose not to keep at it trying new things and learning each time. It’s an overused phrase but there really is no such thing as a failure….so get out there are fail a bit more often…who knows where it might take you.
PS. I won’t be saying that if I completely mess up next weekends London Marathon attempt ha ha
If you are a female who is done with playing small, and would like to get involved in my current Living a Bigger Life pilot, sign up here for $12.99 per month…the price will be going up after the pilot phases…and you get to see me figuring all this stuff out before all the shiny more polished stuff goes live on the 1st May.
If you are interested in joining the next round of my Tribe Builder Programme for speakers, experts and entrepreneurs…which includes a quick and dirty pilot launch then get your name on my wait list…find out more here