let's Execute something

Woah! What a surprise. I am going to talk about Distribution again.

I’m fresh off working on the chapter layout of my forthcoming book” Build Distribution” and understandably my insights this week are all from the book.

I found out that writing this book is a great reference to a key component of Building Distribution: creating an execution bias.

This chapter hasn’t even been detailed yet but here is the thought behind it and I’d love your feedback in our comments.

One of the biggest impediments of nearly all founders I’ve met with is fostering an execution bias. This may seem obvious, and every startup or entrepreneur resource definitely highlights the importance of execution, yet most founders continue to “research to delay starting”.

In my experience starting at ZERO is the perfect place to begin conversations. At this stage, we are in the best position to be “filled up” with input from our core audience, the partners that we hope to pursue long engagements with.

We may have a concept or model to present, but it’s definitely not formed enough to speak at length. In most cases, I am almost embarrassed to start sharing.

This allows us to turn the tables on our partners, giving them the opportunity to fill up the conversation with pain points, expected results, and most importantly how THEY see solutions forming.

Have you heard of letting your customers “talk themselves” intoa sale? I’ve successfully allowed many industries to “talk themselves” into a go-to-market plan for me and my clients!

So getting started is the best time to build direct conversations; but how do we drive continual execution AND keep our involvement based in the “learning and alignment” stage?

Execution

1. Create an environment where you have no option but to continually scale the offer AND the product/service. In our agency, we use listening tools from calls (and messaging) that a staffed person analyzes weekly for insights. Our overall goal is to productize every service, so we’re always looking at behavior and results for trends; and then implement.

2. Creating scale, a larger base of clients or users, to test across is important as well; so that we create a segment of users to implement and review, before rolling out in scale.

3. Find the dark places and live there. It’s easy to remain where the praise is positive, and the growth is easy. Staff and automate the sunny sides of your business and force the “talent” of your team (including you) to spend all their time where we don’t want to be, pioneering and discovering.

4. Allow anyone to innovate. Don’t just allow, push the team to change your business model. Test out saas tools and break down how to incorporate them; reject most. If one works, identify why and engineer it into your solution.
   
   What creative ways do you incorporate to push yourself, your team, and customers to innovate and execute within their offerings?
   

Curiousity

1. Always seek alignment. The simplest way to a yes is to understand how you can say it to them. This means presenting less, engaging, and learning more. Easily the most frequent question I ask is “How can I help?”

2. Create content that builds authority. The more content and examples that you can share into a conversation; the less you have to say. Quality, well-positioned content that is built from conversations allow you to spend your active time listening, replying and learning.

3. Engineer your conversations like a podcast. Prepare a few basic questions then give your partner the opportunity to fill the space and delight with response.

4. Go back and listen with fresh ears in conversations with strong active users. Don’t talk about your product, or service but listen for other challenges, related or not within their business.

5. Stay empty. Don’t over-prepare or script. This isn’t an opportunity to message or a process to close; it’s a learning environment. Everything you need to know is either within you or them, you’ve only got to draw it out.

In the book, I reference the book as an example of creating execution bias. (giving Kurt Vonnegut vibes) Certainly, when I started I had significant experience in building distribution (sales, marketing, and physical distribution) for tech and hard goods. However, I had no idea about format, structure, and writing. I also immediately realized that while I had the “topic”, I didn’t have the thesis.

Getting started immediately allowed me to realize how irrelevant those things were; starting mattered. I’ve added a writing partner whose process draws out the structure and formatting. This structure is forcing me to take concepts, sharpen the point, and provide the steps to turn it into a culture.

I’ve separated where the human identity, organizational system, and tech each align to create a self-directed model that any tech founder can use to create their own distribution model.

None of that was there when I started, and now I’m introducing it weekly to 10’s (and soon hundreds) of people via my social posts, my direct conversations (with Rising Tides clients), and even more in podcast form.

Why is this possible? Because I started, and then I forced myself to execute and iterate.
Honestly, it’s the only way to live, right?

So please, please, please (ok Sabrina Carpenter) comment any insight or thoughts you have. How do you build execution bias with yourself, in organizations. Do you agree with me? I’d love for our examples to help guide readers along in this book. Please share, I’m listening.

-Grady