Category: Blog

How do you get an honest review?

Some people aren’t inclined to review things, unless you kindly ask them to leave one, but they will do if they’re sold on the product.

If the product fulfill their needs, if it improves their lives substantially, then a review will be something natural.

If your product is “normal”, if it can easily replaced, if there are similar items with similar values, then don’t expect a review unless you find a workflow to ask for them.

But if the product is worth it, if it has a soul, chances are you’ll get one, sooner or later.

Hard selling is hard. Not because of wording but because when you try to force people to buy something they don’t like it. No one likes to be forced to do something.

That’s why real estate market is so disturbing in some facets.

Today I was talking with a customer and I realized that what I wanted was to share ideas with him, not to sell things to him. That’s a sane relationship, because when you’re in this position you can advice people.

If you always sell things people know that when you propose them to something it’s because you need to sell, not because you care about them.

On the other hand, when you propose less, it will be clear that you put some thought into it and it’s something that should be at least taken into consideration.

We often forget how beautiful is “the zone” that moment when you lighten up your inspiration and produce work.

With a newborn child it’s quite difficult to find a new zone, because that slotted time you had is now gone and you need to find it elsewhere.

But it’s still right there, ready to be taken.

This pandemic is helping us getting a real answer to the question: If you’d live alone or with a few people, would you be able to value the things you have in the right way?

Because once you’re alone on a island you’ll need to appreciate what you have, and you will have only what’s available at the moment.

The pandemic forced us to realize the same things, but in homes we bought, with partners we married, with children we’ve raised.

That is the question, is what we built, something we could live together indefinitely?

I am an optimist, I try my best to see the good side of everything.

When something’s wrong at work, I try to see the good things that come with it. When someone is behaving badly I try to imagine the reasoning to explain that kind of behavior.

But there’s an area where I don’t really tolerate optimism: Business decisions.
And by that I include all work related things, all the things that impact a company or a worker, spanning from the paycheck to the success of company projects to the success of the company itself.

Optimism in that topics sounds like “Oh, the world has 6 billion people, if we can get 1% of them to register we’ll be left with 60 Million people, if we get 1% of them to buy our product at 1 dollar we’ll still get 600.000$“

What’s missing here is the how. We’re only talking about dreaming, not about facts and we do need facts when we talk about money.
How do I get paid? Surely not with “hopes”, we need facts to get from point A to point B.
How do we get there?

Whenever you see too much optimism and not many facts in a business discussion, it’s time to raise a big red flag.