In order to create long-lasting change you may need to change how you see the world a little. I’m going to ask you to put on your nerd glasses and start seeing the world through a different lens — the lens of a scientist. One of the first myths we need to overcome about our new years resolutions is the idea that if we make a mistake and have “fallen off the wagon,” it’s over.
Edison famously said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Behavior change is a little like creating the light bulb. You need to become an expert in the field of what works and what doesn’t for you! That takes experimentation. With this key assumption, lets don our nerd lenses and get into creating long-lasting change in 2018.
Following that feedback - and with several customers on the hook saying they would buy it as soon as it was ready - I returned to Scott with a very high level pitch of what the product would be. I had made some crude initial mockups, but this idea was beginning to take on a life of its own, and I needed someone that could take it to the next level! I shared what features customers felt were critical and which would be “nice to have’s.” Scott - as usual - made the idea significantly better.
The three vital behaviors these researchers identified are 1) know your stuff, 2) focus on the right stuff, and 3) build a reputation for being helpful (see “Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success”, pg. 138, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler). As I look back on my experiences with Carrie, and other admirable colleagues, I see the same consistent behaviors.
One of the first things we noticed was that consumers think in terms of moments. When they create a new savings account “Savings 1,” what they’re really doing is planning on buying a car or going on a great vacation. When these customers hit $1,000 in that account they were actually half-way to reaching their goal - they hit an important milestone. That’s cause for celebration!
A recent article from The Verge stated that Americans trust Amazon about as much as they trust their bank. Companies like #GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple) were born in the age of software and the internet. The people running these organizations were technology visionaries and experts. Initially, #GAFA didn’t seem to pose much of a threat to the traditional financial institutions. How could a company that builds cool music devices called iPods impact a bank? How could a company that helps people find things on the internet hurt the financial institutions storing consumers money?
I plan on sharing the story of how we built our product, started our business, gained traction, and our biggest successes and failures along the way. I hope you are able to learn from our mistakes, understand our successes, and enjoy dipping into my journal entries to see our business and idea morph over time through this blog.
