#112: Taking High Percentage Shots
Across the board, most assessments, articles and descriptions of entrepreneurs include risk taking as a primary characteristic.
If you're an entrepreneur, you probably think big and take risks.
And you've been rewarded for that for most of your career.
While entrepreneurs certainly have a tendency and an appetite for risk in business, there might be times where we take risks, and at times, where we take what I would call high percentage shots.
Should you be taking big risks in the time of economic uncertainty? Are there different types of shots to take if you're winning or losing?
We'll talk a little bit more about that today on the Next Level Leap podcast.
Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:00
Across the board, most assessments, articles and descriptions of entrepreneurs include risk taking as a primary characteristic. If you're an entrepreneur, you're probably a big thinker, you're a risk taker. And you've been rewarded for that for most of your career. And while entrepreneurs certainly have a tendency and an appetite for risk in business, there might be times where we take risks, and at times, where we take what I would call high percentage shots. And so should you be taking big risks in the time of economic uncertainty? Are there different types of shots to take if you're winning or losing, we'll talk a little bit more about that today and the Next Level Lead podcast.
00:40
Welcome to Next Level Leap, a podcast where we dive into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company and creating a legacy brand. As a top growth strategist, multi passionate entrepreneur, membership site owner, trainer, speaker, author and mom to three, I love exploring the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's get started!
01:12
Go big or go home. It's one of those phrases that is popularized by the media. And it doesn't necessarily result in the longevity that most business owners are aspiring to create. And it may be the right approach in certain situations. But really, the magic is knowing when to be bold and when to shift to another strategic angle. Not every phase of business is the right time to go big or go home. And sometimes just knowing what kind of shots to take at different phases of your entrepreneurial journey is the difference between making your goals and building a business for the long term or just kind of falling short. As it's been getting warmer here in Pennsylvania, I've been playing more competitive tennis versus the clinics that I tend to play a lot in the winter and year round. And what I found recently, as even though I was up against players that weren't as strong as I am, or even on equal ranking or footing, I was losing consistently, it was really super frustrating. In the tennis circles, we often say that if you lose to somebody who is better than you, and just won more points, then it feels okay. But when you lose to somebody who is not as strong as you, or maybe they slow the pace down, and then you slow down your pace to match them, and you're no longer playing your game, like happened to me this morning on the tennis court. It's so frustrating.
02:42
So I went to the pro at my club. And he shared with me that at the level of play that I'm playing, which is kind of an intermediate level, it's more about who makes the first mistake. And if I want to win, I just have to take more what he would call high percentage shots. A high percentage shot is one that has the greatest chance of success. So for example, if I'm on the defensive, and I think I can hit a winner, it's probably a better idea to just get it back. And
because when you hit a winner and you miss, it's their point. And this is where I was getting really frustrated because I was playing a high level of play, but not as consistently as I would play if I was taking more high percentage shots. at the intermediate level, it's really not about who hits the best winner. It's more about who doesn't make the first mistake. And so that's why it's so important to take those high percentage shots. That's why it's so important that from a mathematical velocity type of geometric analysis, there's going to be certain shots that are way more likely to go in than out. And what you need to do is you just need to know which shots those are and take them more often. So for example, if you were on one side of the court, and for those of you who are not tennis players to imagine the court like a rectangle, if you're on one corner of the court, it's a lot more likely that your ball is going to go in if you go cross court, because corner to corner is a longer distance than going what would be called down the line from one side, let's say like the lower right hand side of a rectangle to the top right hand side of the rectangle. I hope I didn't lose you there. It got a little technical on the tennis side of things.
04:23
But what I am really wanting to share with you is that this is very applicable to business. High percentage shots are actually better to take when you're losing. So let's say you had a bad launch, let's say that something didn't convert as well as you want it to. Let's say that you just feel like you need to play a little bit more of a defensive game in business. It's really just better to take those bigger risks when you're winning. So the trick is obviously not to make a mistake because you're so tentative, but just to take consistent, solid high percentage shots. This is such an incredible metaphor for business if I didn't lose you in the visual diagram of a tennis court, because contrary to what's being talked about in most entrepreneurial circles, taking high percentage shots, actually, when appropriate, increases the stamina and longevity of your brand, and places the strategic direction of your business and a class above the average. So as I'm looking to move out of more of my intermediate play, and more into advanced play, you need to be thinking about taking more high percentage shots.
05:30
So when it comes to business, what are high percentage shots? And I just want to give you a couple ideas of where to start, if you're feeling like in your business right now, maybe it's plateauing. Maybe you've grown to a certain level, and then you're not exactly sure how to maintain that growth. And you really just want to get to a place where you are building foundational components of your business, you're not necessarily looking to like go all in on a on a revenue generating season. So these might be characteristics that you could be experiencing, or let's say that you want to work more on your operational function for a little while, or you want to work more on customer fulfillment. And you're not necessarily looking to take all of these risks on the marketing and sales side of things. But you still want to grow. So how do you take those high percentage shots? The first idea would be just a map out the experience and really think about what your customers are experiencing at every single stage.
And what would they want? Is what you're selling something that they really need? Or that they'll buy and regret? And how do you increase the amount of consumption that your customers are experiencing once they get to know you a little bit better know the program a little bit better, and product, so they don't walk away at the first feeling of discomfort? And really ask yourself, is this something that I would invest in that I feel like I could stand behind, because many, many times what happens is, is that we just move forward with sales and marketing at a very fast pace without actually thinking about what the customers are experiencing from their perspective.
07:06
And can we just do more with what's already in place. So putting focused energy into developing a no brainer offer, and then subsequent customer journey is really a great way to increase the success of your efforts, and minimize your risk. It's much riskier to go out and start trying to bring in all these new customers, when you see tons of opportunity on the fulfillment side, or the customer experience side or the retention side if you have a recurring revenue type of product. So just allowing yourself to be in a maintenance season, with certain aspects of your business can allow you to really focus again, on looking at what it is that my customers are experiencing from that place of empathy. And really consider what is it that I would want if I were in their shoes.
07:56
The second is to learn how to speak the language of what's happening right now. So for example, in the last week, we have experienced incredible tragedy in our country, we've lost members of the black community in Buffalo who were doing their regular everyday routine, many of whom were grandmothers and grandfathers retired helpers and heroes, and it was just horrific, to say the least. And then we also saw a another school shooting take place, almost about 10 years since the first really significant time in which we've experienced this as a country. And it's maddening and frustrating that so little has changed in those last 10 years, we heard the cries of parents, we saw beautiful photos of babies in third, fourth, fifth grade, who we mourn as a country, the loss of these lives and two incredibly dedicated teachers. And so any of us that paused on our communication during that week probably made a pretty wise decision. And anybody that was still pushing forward with their sales cycles, or even worse, trying to take advantage of this new, you know, attention that the media was giving most of Americans and try to redirect it towards them, which I saw a couple people doing, which I hope you did too. And I paused and said, Wait a second, is this really the right way to go about it? I think for many brands, what happens is that they don't acknowledge the pain, or the confusion or the frustration or the overwhelm, that so many of their consumers are experiencing and they just keep pushing forward with what was part of the plan. And they actually discredit themselves in the marketplace. And so I think really being aware of what's happening now in
our world and what you're consuming Murrs your business owners whether you're b2b or b2c are experiencing.
10:05
And according to Philip Stutz, who I heard recently on Amy Porterfield podcast, which if you if you didn't listen to this, I would highly recommend that you go back and listen to it. Philip is a market researcher who has specialized in campaign management and campaign marketing. And he conducts a tremendous amount of consumer research, and has found that since the pandemic, customers tend to fall in one of three buyer types, the overwhelmed consumer. So typically that age range is as to be expected. Typically, parents are this age range like 35 to 55. They are feeling pulled in so many different directions since the pandemic hit, whether it's being a caretaker to elderly, they've either lost their parents, many of them to COVID. And they are completely overwhelmed with having to take care of their family in a totally new way. And even as crowds have started to gather again, and masks have come off, these individuals are still incredibly overwhelmed because they are responsible for so much more than they were pre pandemic. And yet the world seems to be operating as if that's not the case.
11:18
So speaking specifically to the overwhelmed buyer, is an important characteristic to have as a business owner, in order to be able to speak to what's happening now. The second is the influence. So as we're seeing the emergence of Tik Tok being the most popular platform right now in social media, and we're seeing a lot of the younger audience members going over to other platforms that we might not be familiar with as marketers. What we're seeing is it so many of them are heavily influenced, influenced by influencers, micro micro influencers, brands, they are being swayed pretty easily by the amount of platforms that different influencers have influencers that you and I may never even have heard of, but are directing the actions subconsciously, of so many millennials that are consuming this content all the time. So just understanding the influenced buyers also really important. And the third is the advocate, buyer. And there's a lot happening in the world that many people feel very strongly about, whether it's war, whether it's reproductive rights, whether it is gun control, there are so many causes out there, that it is very easy to see how marketing has become somewhat of an advocacy type of endeavor.
12:45
And we're many, many of the types of content that's being put out is sometimes unintentionally polarizing, or intentionally polarizing, simply to be able to create a movement and be able to increase market share. So understanding how those three buyer types behave, what they're looking for, the language that appeals to them, not so that you can take advantage, but so that you can help them is very important in terms of understanding what's happening now. And then the third is really just to increase your tolerance for testing, being willing to make smaller,
less expensive tests in order to invest in larger launches and marketing campaigns over time. And the reason why this is a high percentage shot is because we are living in so much of an uncertain economic climate, we think that there's going to be, you know, a new currency that takes place, and then all of a sudden that currency starts tanking, which is obviously crypto. And we're seeing so much change and so much uncertainty, taking over the news waves of social media of all of the different types of content that our ideal buyer is consuming. And we have to be really open to the idea that we can test in small steps, segmented ways, so that we don't just all of a sudden announced a direction and then two months later, we're announcing a new direction because we are just reacting to the changes in the marketplace.
14:20
But then what happens is that type of big announcement and the next big announcement and the next big announcement of all the different things that we're doing confuses all of our buyers particularly the overwhelmed buyer, but also loses trust in the influenced buyer and loses attention of the advocate buyer. So being able to make those smaller steps less expensive tasks with smaller audiences, maybe existing audiences or segmented lists will help you know where to bring your next big campaign in the future. So really looking how to take those high percentage shots in your business is all about mapping meaning out what it is that people want and maybe slowing down on the revenue efforts and more focused on retention, or customer journey mapping so that you can optimize the efforts that you already have in place is a higher percentage shot, it's less expensive, you don't have to pay for new leads, it ends up being a really smart way to play a little bit more of a defensive game and an uncertain economy.
15:23
Speaking the language of what's happening now, and understanding the different buyer types and how to speak their language keeps us relevant, and makes us more aligned with our ideal buyer than if we were just, you know, shouting out generic messages without actually acknowledging what people are going through. And then finally, just increasing your tolerance for testing, that helps increase the percentage of your shots, because it allows you to deploy less resources in order to get more information so that you can adjust the way in which you are going to be conducting larger revenue generation events in the future. So getting to know that system and your business is an understanding where you are and the type of shot to take and when is really going to depend on you and your intuition of what is happening in your company.
16:17
I always say that I trust the entrepreneurial vision, I trust the entrepreneurial, you know, instinct, it's something that I think is really important to pay attention to. And one thing that my tennis pro taught me is to actually in your head, label it a red, yellow or green shot, and whether it is going to be kind of a slower ball that you feel like you could put away or it is a
defensive ball that you just need to get back and understanding what type of movement you're going to make given the current marketplace position. And once you get clear on what shot is appropriate, you'll then be able to make much more thoughtful and informed decisions on what makes sense for your business today and for its incredible future ahead.
17:05
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.