Everyone You Know is Hard of Hearing
In the early days of Whiplash, as we considered focusing on fulfillment, there was a VGKids customer that I thought would be great to do a trial with. It was perfect, I thought. They already trusted me through VGKids, and, because we made their products, we already had their inventory in our shop. All we had to do was not ship their orders to their warehouse in big boxes, and ship to their individual customers in little boxes instead. Even though we had no experience, it seemed winnable.
I spent an hour crafting a personal email to the client, explaining the idea. I hit Send, and basked in the glow of having birthed a potential Yes into the world. (“Hustling”, we call that in the biz.)
The client wrote back the next day, saying, in a nutshell, “Absolutely not, I couldn’t care less”. He was friendly about it and it didn’t dampen the VGKids relationship, but obviously it wasn’t the response I’d hope for. In the early days of an idea, those rejections sting.
Fast-forward three months, and Whiplash was doing all of the client’s fulfillment: we were shipping hundreds of orders for them a day. Just like I’d envisioned, the client loved the vertical integration, and their store was running smoother than it ever had before.
So what happened between the abject refusal and business-bliss?
About a month after my pitch had gone over so poorly, the client and I were on the phone discussing something unrelated. And then, he mentioned things weren’t going well with his fulfillment provider. There was an awkward pause where I didn’t know what to say; the pain of the rejection was still fresh in my mind. Was this an invitation to pitch him again? Why, when he was so clearly against it before?
As we talked and I hesitantly mentioned how Whiplash might help, it slowly became clear to me: he had absolutely no memory of our earlier conversation. Not only had he forgotten that I had pitched him about fulfillment, he didn’t even know I’d started a new company. That email rejection had become an immutable obstruction to me, but it wasn’t even registering as a blip in the client’s mind.
When we’re working on something new, its huge to us. If you’re like me, you can’t stop turning the idea over in your mind. I obsessively look at it from all angles, trying to understand how the pieces fit together. When I mention it to someone, I feel like I’m giving them early access to the Next Big Thing.
But does it have that same impact on the listener? Nope. They don’t know enough to care yet. When you present a new idea or make a request, everyone is silently asking the same question: Will this go away if I ignore it?
New ideas take root because they won’t go away.
New ideas take root because they won’t go away. Whether its a spouse, investor, or customer, they’ve got to know this isn’t just a whim. It takes energy to truly listen, and new ideas are inherently risky– for most people, its just not worth committing the resources yet.
When talking about a new idea, everyone you know is like an aging grandparent. They’re hard of hearing, and their memory is a little shaky. You’ve got to talk louder than normal, and speak in simple, clear words. And you’re going to have to repeat yourself. Alot.
