Lessons from the Lift Off Retreat: Feedback

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What I like about writing for you

Your feedback is clear, immediate, and actionable. I know right away when I’ve published an article that works for you. You tweet about it or bookmark it or leave a comment, subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for emails, follow me on Twitter, sign up to be First In Line, write about it on your blog, or come back next week to see what’s new.

But if I publish something that’s not interesting or useful enough, you won’t do any of those things. Your silence speaks very, very loudly to me.

Either way, I get an idea of what to do (or not do) next. Either way, it’s good feedback.

What can be un-fun about writing for other people

Compare that to some technical writing I did for a client…

They wanted a comprehensive user’s manual for their fancy schmancy data-driven decision-making software.

And since it was going to be used by executives from really really big companies that were paying a fortune for the service, the document had to look professional. This is the song they sang when they wanted me to believe the project was important.

Yet when I asked my contact whether the manual should be horizontal for onscreen reading or vertical for binding in a notebook, the response was, “It doesn’t matter how you turn it, no one is going to read it anyway.”

Really?

Now that was feedback. Soul-sucking and sad, but it was feedback. And it set the tone for the entire contract.

Because after the final draft was handed over for review, it never came back. Never heard another word about it.

Same thing happened with the handy-dandy single page quick reference guide. And a simple software demo for a different app. I got remarks on some submissions, but half of my deliverables were never returned with comments or corrections. Never.

And yet I must have been doing something right? Invoices kept getting approved and the checks kept coming. They kept giving me stuff to do. And then they wanted to extend my contract.

It was surreal. My work was valuable enough to pay for, but not good enough for feedback. Sur.Real

And lemme tell ya, that was a bad environment for me to work in. Really bad. I didn’t realize it until months later, but their silence undercut my confidence worse than negative feedback would have done.

To me, when we share created work and get only silence in return, we’ve fucked up somewhere.

Silence is boredom. Silence is disinterest. Silence is failure.

What I loved about the Lift Off Retreat

There wasn’t a silent moment for three days.

Whether we gathered in little groups or pairs, whether we were presenting ideas or having ideas presented to us, there was always feedback. Some of us wrote it down, some captured it with voice recorders, but all of us put it to work as soon as we got home.

And boy, howdy. The success stories are already rolling in. New clients, new offerings, new direction, better office spaces, and bigger plans with a better focus.

From that, I’ve decided there’s no such thing as good feedback or bad feedback. There’s feedback (good and bad) and then there’s silence.

The energy was always positive, even when the answer wasn’t “Yes”. I was challenged to rethink, re-evaluate, and re-imagine what I’m doing here. And I came home with a poster-sized page of What Abouts—

• The Shopping Cart Guide is great, but what about compiling the articles into a premium ebook like Leo and Darren did?
• What about product research as a service? Like: a client tells me what product, service provider, or information they’re looking for, and then I seek it out and write it up…just for them.
• What about audio recordings? What about teleseminars?
• What about putting a price tag on these things to sustain all this other research and writing?

And it’s already coming together: I’ve gone through my archives and listed nifty compilations. I got a gig doing weekly research for an info-seeking client. I’m set up to make audio recordings tomorrow. I’m figuring out the pricing.

And this was just my first week after Lift Off. What’s next week going to look like? Or next month?

So.

It’s vital for the survival and thrive-al of our business to be among clients, customers and colleagues who let us know when we’re on or off track. We’re too close to our work to see it clearly. You can’t see the mountain when you’re standing on top of it, ya know?

And silence is a type of feedback, but it’s the worst kind. It gives us nothing, but takes away quite a bit. We shouldn’t silently accept silence for our work. We should expect a response. Push for a response. Maybe even demand one. Anything we hear will serve us better than hearing nothing at all.

Photo credit: on1stsite

P.S. Where and who do you go to for feedback? Lemme know down below…