Why we are giving up (some) control to become more efficient
After banging our collective heads against the wall for six months, we recently decided to try another path
As you might expect, the Gathering team is a group of Type-A, over-achieving, problem solvers. We have specifically hired people who are happy to do whatever it takes to figure something out and won’t rest until the problem is solved. They’re jumping into the deep end of the pool with us time and time again, and doing so with a smile on their face. However, as we’ve discovered over the last few months, sometimes our initial instinct to just dive in and figure it out later doesn’t work very well. Sometimes it’s a lot more efficient to just ask for help.
Admitting that you need help from someone who knows their s#@t is the first step.
Here’s a great example: If there is one problem that we have struggled with from the very beginning here at Gathering, it is how to tell our story effectively.
We are incredibly passionate about our work, and we truly believe we are building a valuable platform that can empower our customers to live the life they imagine. Communicating that story and that passion is key to building a brand and getting Gathering in front of millions of customers. But while our team has phenomenal talent on the product side (technology, design, etc.), none of us is a great writer or storyteller, and every time we try to write our story down, that passion manifests itself as hokey.
Initially, we tried to deal with this issue like we do all the problems we face: we tried to figure it out on our own. But in the same way that you can’t become a world-class software engineer or designer in a couple months, you apparently can’t become a world-class marketer in a couple months either. It takes years, and we don’t have that kind of time!
So, after banging our collective heads against the wall for six months, we recently decided to try another path: we asked for help from some experts.
The power of expertise to make you go faster
In late July, we started working with a creative agency to help us build a foundational framework for the Gathering brand and our core messaging. It was eye-opening. I can honestly say that we have made more progress in the last two weeks that we had in the previous nine months! It’s been well worth the money.
We’ve learned a lot about swallowing our pride and asking for help this year. Here are a couple lessons that we are trying to take to heart:
1.
We’ve learned to always ask for help.
Someone has almost certainly solved the problem you are trying to solve, so why not learn from them? Every time we come across a new issue that isn’t squarely in the wheelhouse for someone on the team, we now look for a shortcut. Sometimes it’s as simple as doing a quick Google search before diving into a problem. Other times, it’s simply sending an email to a couple of people in our network asking for help on an issue. But we’ve found that the same time we were using to figure out the problem on our own before, can be used to find someone who’s an expert. Asking for help gets us the answer faster, we learn more, and we gain a contact or resource that may be helpful again in future.
2.
If it’s critical, and outside the domain expertise of anyone on the team, look for help and be willing to pay for it.
Critical means you can’t wait. You can’t wait until you have the time, and you can’t wait until you have the resources. You have to get it done now. For us, branding couldn’t wait until we could afford to bring on a full-time CMO, but we also weren’t getting it done on our own. Paying for expertise has hugely accelerated our progress, especially on the branding front.
3.
Using external support isn’t magic. It still takes time.
Outside expertise has been extremely helpful, but it hasn’t worked like magic. It has taken time to find the right people and resources to help us tackle some of our toughest challenges. We needed to spend time looking for great talent and to bring them into our culture, so we could speak the same language. Be sure to plan ahead for those situations where you need someone on the outside, particularly when you need to pay for the help. Doing so can make the difference between feeling like your money was well spent or feeling like you just flushed it down the drain.
What’s next?
As promised, we’ll release a new post every week and give you look inside Gathering. Next week, we’ll share how the rules in our industry affect our customers and what we’re doing about it. To get each post e-mailed to you as soon as it’s published, follow us here, or head to Gathering and sign up.
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About the author
Justin is the Co-Founder and CEO at Gathering.
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