Grow Your Agency By Getting Feedback From The Right People

What's good, everybody. In this episode, I want to talk about perspective and how getting different views on your perspective can actually help you move a whole lot faster and also serve as those bumper rails that you see in the bowling alley to keep you on track. ... Let's get it going.

For three years, my agency built funnels and automation systems for the biggest names in marketing today since then have transformed that agency into a hyper profitable training and consulting business. While everyone is out there and talking about scale like it's some sort of destination, we'll be asking the real question, how do you transform your business into a more scalable model using the knowledge, skills, and expertise that you already have? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share the strategies I'm using to build my multimillion-dollar business. My name is Greg Hickman and welcome to Scalable.

Welcome back guys, and as I said in this episode I want to talk a little bit about getting feedback right. When it comes to growing your agency, growing your business, you're probably seeking advice from, from others to help you overcome obstacles, solve unanswered problems that maybe you don't know the answer to so that you can move in the right direction and continue to grow your business. Well, if you're like me, you, I've probably come into a moment in your life or, uh, at some point, maybe it's right now where you've solicited too much feedback from too many different sources and it's led to inaction. You know, the classic case of paralysis, you know, by analysis, right? And this happened to me not too long ago and I have since kind of decided how I'm going to go about getting feedback and really the right feedback to grow my business and really propel me into action. Because what I've really come to notice in myself and in those that are, uh, you know, that I look to that are successful, that is where I want to be, I've noticed that they make decisions quickly.

And in order for me to grow my business and to get the appropriate feedback fast enough, I need to become someone who can make decisions quickly. And so I started to look at, well how I was, how I was actually making decisions up until that point. And usually, it came from asking a lot of questions. I've always been someone that has sought the answers from others, uh, that already maybe knew the answer or were few steps ahead of me, which is really common obviously in the entrepreneurial space. But like you can imagine and maybe you've become a, you know, victim to maybe is over-consuming information to like really set yourself up to make the best decision. But in doing so you kind of fall into consumption loop of getting feedback and getting feedback and getting feedback and then you go to take action and then you realize that someone else that you didn't ask for feedback is doing something different.

And so you want it before you take that action, you go check with that person to see if the action you were about to take was the right one. And then there's something that's slightly different. So then you go back into this loop of, you know, seeking feedback. And I don't know about you, but for me, there have been moments where I've gone into kind of this perpetual state of inaction and not making decisions and not taking action and only getting feedback. And the amount and volume of feedback that I was receiving actually made me more unclear, which kind of had the whole cycle going again. So what I want to share with you in this episode is how I go about now getting feedback from, from a specific group of people so that I can take action. Because like I said, I've found that the, the success that I've had and when I do get the results that I'm looking for and I speak to, you know, mentors and things like that, that I see getting results, they're all making fast decisions.

So we need to become people that are capable of making fast decisions decisions. But how do you go about that? Um, you want to get feedback, right? So by me making action, I go out into the marketplace and do something. And I will receive feedback, right? So by the action that I take the market, my prospects, my leads, my clients will give me feedback just inherently by the action that I take, right? And usually that is the most beneficial feedback because it's, they've spoken with their words, their time and their money. If I want to launch a new product and I go to my existing client base and my existing audience and nobody buys, that is feedback that maybe that product wasn't the right product, right? Um, if tons of people buy, that's also feedback, right? So how the market, my audience responds to the actions that I'm taking provides me with the feedback that helps me choose and determine am I even going in the right direction?

But before you take that action, sometimes you want to seek advice as well, right? To make sure that the actions you are taking are the right ones. And it's this, this point in the, I guess the decision making and the action taking process where I see a lot of people go get hung up, myself included. And we know that the real answer is by going to the market and taking action, but we're kind of gut checking ourselves on what we should be going to the market with. How should we package up our services? How should we price our offerings? Um, you know, what marketing message is going to resonate or will this marketing message and it's in that state of seeking that feedback from your mentors or maybe from books or what have you, that you kind of go into this perpetual loop of trying to get all your ducks in a row before you actually take the action that's going to give you the feedback if you're with me.

So you go out to mastermind partners or um, your coaches or your mentors to get advice and maybe you go out to a certain group of peers, your friends, and do you come back and now you're a conflicted and you don't really know where to go if that's your situation. I've been there and here's what I've been doing that's been really helpful. And I want to give a shout out to, um, the warrior on fire podcast by Garrett j white because, uh, he shared something that he does. That is really what I'm going to share with you is who you should go to to get feedback from when you need to make a decision. Right? Specifically up, we're talking about decisions around your business. You know, should I attack, attack this market, should I do this thing, should I launch this new product? Should I do this event?

Um, you know, what have you, and in my past I would go talk to my coaches. I talked to like 50 different people and I would just be inundated with ideas. So what I did is I made a list. I made a list of, here are the, the order that I'm going to, the order and the groups of people that I'm going to go to to seek the, the feedback that I need in order to take the immediate action, right? I want to have a little bit of insight and um, you know, kind of wherewithal if I can eliminate some mistakes, I got to go seek some feedback and some advice before I take action. But I don't want to seek, seek, seek, seek, seek. And then months later I still haven't taken the action that's going to yield the real result I'm looking for. So here's kind of how I look at it is I have a problem that needs to be solved, right?

And um, I'll go out to, you know, three different groups of people to get feedback and insight into, hey, what do you think about this decision? What would you do? Etc. And they're going to give me, uh, you know, what they believe is the right answer. And at that point is when I go and I take action, right? I have assessed what they've told me and then I act. Right? So the question is who do you go to to get the, I'd say minimum viable feedback before you take the action that is really going to give you the real results, which is from your market, right? Your market being leads, clients, prospects, right? Whether you're launching a new Webinar, a new product, right? We want to really get the feedback from the market. Do we get their eyeballs right? Do we get their dollars? Do we get their time right by them either engaging or spending with us or giving us their attention?

We are getting the feedback that will allow us to know, are we on the right track? So for me it was this, this list was super long. I would go to, you know, sad to say probably, you know, hundreds of people. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but a lot way too many of people to get that feedback. And then I kind of got stuck in this loop of, well, this other person is doing this other thing. Let me go back and check with that other group of people. And it kept going back around. So if this is you and you're looking to grow your agency and get get feedback from the right people, here's who I've found to give me the best feedback so that I can get to the real thing at hand, which is taking action, right? All of the answers are on the other side of action, and so here are the people and or groups of people that I go to to get feedback from.

The first group, the first group that I am looking to get feedback from, let me actually move this over here so you can see the first group of people that I'm looking to get feedback from are people that pay me, so people that pay me clients, right? The first source of feedback should be from the people that have given you money, both past clients and existing clients. If you're going to modify a service that you offer or create a new service offering, getting feedback from people that have already given you money is the first place you should go because they might give you more money depending upon what you're creating and or they might say that's a horrible idea and they already know, like, and trust you because they've already paid you. So some of their feedback is going to be the best feedback possible. So before, if I'm considering taking some sort of action or doing some specific thing, first I go to my clients or past clients and I get feedback from them because they've already paid me. The second group is people that I pay.

So this is your, your coaches, maybe your consultants. I'll put mentors in there. Maybe you have a board of advisors, your employees or your team, right? These are people that I pay. If I've paid, you know, $30,000 to be in a mastermind with other high level people just like me, and I'm deciding between taking a specific action, it would benefit me to go then say, Hey, look, I've invested money in you to make better decisions and to grow my agency and grow my business. What would you do? Here's what I'm considering, right? Hey team, you're the ones in the trenches with me each and every day. What do you think we should be doing as it, as it relates to this? Right? So yeah, first you do people that, that pay you, then people that you pay. And then again, all in this order, I then go to my family. Uh, I'll talk to my wife. So in this, if you know, flip it around, maybe it's your whatever, your spouse and my son's only two, so he's not giving me the best insight at the moment. Sometimes he is, I'll speak with him as he's getting older, right? Because a lot of my decisions that I make in my business will impact my family. So as a kind of a tertiary layer of feedback, I will run certain ideas by my family just to get their insight from that information.

I then take action so that I get feedback from the market. Right? That's the real feedback. Right? So launching this podcast, I thought a lot about it. Once I knew the topic, I went to clients that have paid us, um, do they like the concept? Uh, what topics would they like to know about? I went to people that I'm at the time I was in programs with and got feedback from them. And then I said, hey, this is what I'm gonna be doing. What do you think about this Sarah, my wife, and got feedback from her, right? That then is all I needed to go take action. Now here's a potential roadblock for you. Uh, and this is one that was for me at the time. So when it comes to people that, that you pay, right? Or that in this case that I pay, so we're looking at this second category of people, you know, this is where you have your coaches, your mentors, et cetera.

There have been times where I've been in too many coaching programs and masterminds at the same time. Thus you're exposed to a wide variety of people. I think there is a limit to, you know, a, if you're in or at least a caution if you're in a group or you have multiple coaches, beware that you're not going to seek feedback from like too many people, right? So if you say you have a a health and fitness coach and you have a business coach and you're looking to make a business decision, you might not go ask, you know, the health and fitness coach, that sounds logical, right? But sometimes you're multiple groups that are business related and it seems that because the topic is business, you go ask both groups that have hundreds of people in them or you know many people in them and you get all of this feedback that then becomes overwhelming and prevents you from taking action, right?

So just pay attention to, are you the type of person that will get inundated with all of these ideas and then not take the action? That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying you shouldn't be necessarily investing in multiple coaches or mentors at the same time, but if you are the person who is going to start taking feedback from way too many people and that is going to create an inaction for you, just be aware of it. Right. But to recap, who do you want to get feedback from? Who should you go to get feedback from when it comes to making a decision to start taking action in some sort of direction in your business? I would first look to the people that pay you second to the people that you pay or that yeah, that you pay coaches, mentors. Uh, and then lastly, family and close friends, right?

Sorry, family and children. I would say the next level down for me would probably be a couple of close friends. I have now kind of developed relationships with a few folks that if I'm really neat in one extra layer of insight, I would go to like one or two friends. Not all of my friends I have, thankfully a lot of great smart friends that have really successful businesses. But to go get feedback from all of them would be really challenging. So I kind of keep it close. One or two people, if I'm still kind of conflicted based on the decision from first the people that I pay or the people that I pay or pay me, then I pay and then my, my family and my kids. So if you're stuck in making some decisions that's preventing you from taking the action that you need to be taken in your business right now, go talk to her, go talk to your clients, past clients, go talk to any sort of coach or mentor, Advisor, um, people that your team members, things like that. And then check in with your spouse and your children with what you're about to do and just to see how they feel about those action steps that's going to give you the minimum viable amount of quality feedback before you go and take action on the thing you're going to do. Because the real answer is going to be the feedback that comes from the actual marketplace. That's all I got for you today.

If I gave you five to 10 new clients, would you or your agency break? If so, your current agency model is broken. I struggle with this too, until I found a better way. By adding online programs, training, and coaching to our agency, we've doubled profits without adding more hours. If you want to work directly with me and my team to transform your agency, visit my scalable business.com to learn more.