Launching a new product or service often feels like an uphill battle. Many experts find themselves trapped in a cycle of perfectionism, endlessly tweaking their offerings instead of taking the plunge and launching. Yet, this perfectionism is rarely about guaranteeing quality; instead, it often stems from uncertainty about the target audience.
**The Mindset Behind Perfectionism**
Perfectionism before launching isn't a quest for quality; it's a cry for clarity. When you lack a clear understanding of your audience, your work seems perpetually incomplete. This lack of clarity leads to an endless loop of tweaks and modifications, causing significant delays. It's crucial to address this mindset and focus on identifying your audience to break free from the perfection trap.
**Identifying the Real Issue: Who is Your Audience?**
Often, the real roadblock isn't the content itself but rather a misunderstanding of who it's intended for. Without knowing your audience, your message risks missing the mark, which only perpetuates hesitation and further delays. The solution is simple: identify and understand your target audience and the specific problem your product or service solves for them.
**Embrace Analytics and Feedback**
Many individuals fear launching because they dread exposure and potential negative feedback. But feedback—both positive and negative—provides valuable insights. Analytics can reveal how users interact with your website, what holds their attention, and what doesn’t. It allows you to refine and adapt your approach, fostering a stronger connection with your audience.
**The Power of Clarity**
Imagine walking in fog and suddenly seeing a distant light; clarity emerges as you move closer. This metaphor highlights how identifying your audience and purpose can illuminate your path forward. Once you achieve clarity, decisions become more straightforward, and confidence grows, propelling you toward action.
**Steps to Overcome Perfectionism**
1. **Mind Dump Exercise**: Write down reasons you believe you're not ready to launch. Examine each point critically, distinguishing between genuine concerns and irrational fears.
2. **Constructive Feedback**: Seek feedback from trusted colleagues or mentors who can provide honest insights without judgment.
3. **Real Connection in the Digital Age**: While online interactions can feel impersonal, they serve as a gateway to a broader audience. Ensure your digital content speaks to the problems and pain points your audience faces.
4. **Embrace Imperfection**: Realise that perfection is an illusion. Your audience seeks solutions, not perfection. Start small, gather feedback, and iterate.
**Final Thoughts**
Launching an offering requires courage to embrace imperfections and recognise the need for ongoing adaptation. By clearly defining your audience and seeking constructive feedback, you shed the fog of perfectionism. Take that first step and evolve from there.
Remember, taking action aligns with showing up for your audience, providing them with the guidance they need. If you find yourself struggling with this process, reach out to a coach or mentor who can offer personalised support to help you navigate these challenges.
Until next time, recognise when perfection isn't your ultimate goal—clarity and action are. Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to reach out if you encounter challenges along your journey to launching with confidence.
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Digital Rapport® Podcast, where you discover how to connect, influence and inspire in the digital age. Welcome to the Digital Rapport® Podcast and on today's episode we're going to be talking about the Perfection Trap and why experts keep tweaking instead of launching. So perfectionism before launch is really about quality. It's a symptom of not knowing who your target audience is.
[00:00:29] It's a symptom of not actually knowing who you're launching to. So in this one we're going to talk about mindset, but it's a structural diagnosis. When the audience isn't clear, the work feels permanently unfinished and having clarity of this audience is what helps you to launch. It's not necessarily confidence or a lack of. So often I've had situations where I've had clients approach me and they're stuck in this kind of tweaking loop, right? They're not launching, they keep changing stuff, they keep referring back and saying no it's not right, it's not ready and things like that.
[00:00:58] And it's a really interesting one because it's one of those things where you think you need to get going. What are you waiting for? And most of the time it's not that they're waiting or it's not like a case of, you know, you might call them perfectionists, but actually deep down they don't really know who they're talking to. They don't really know who the target audience is and how their message is going to come across to them. So they keep tweaking and keep modifying and procrastinating and it just takes longer and longer before they actually launch.
[00:01:23] And this can go on for ages. This could be a couple of weeks, it could be months. In some cases it could be years. And it's one of those things where you've got to look at what's really going on here. Why are you doing that? Why do you keep holding back? Is it the fear of being judged? Is it the lack of clarity on who you're actually reaching out to? And most of the time it's that you don't really know who they're targeting and how their message is supposed to land. So they keep tweaking it, wondering and having these internal conversations.
[00:01:49] When I'm actually seeing this happen, I got to ask that question to myself that what's actually going on here? And what I'm seeing is that they are just not confident and they haven't got clarity on the problem their products and services solve. They might be not sure about what they're selling. They might not totally be confident in what they have to sell. So they keep looking for things and holding back and just think that they're doing something, but they're actually not. It's one of those things where you've got to put it out there and start to track and measure what actually happens.
[00:02:15] If somebody's got a brand new website, the funny thing is that if you put the stats on it and you let the data tell you what's going on, people will start to worry and freak out and think, oh, once I've made something live, the whole world is going to have access to it. Oh my goodness, if there's any mistakes on there, what's going to go on? And the reality of the situation is that when you first launch, nobody knows your website exists. And one of the analogies I usually use is that imagine your website is like an island in the middle of the sea.
[00:02:38] If there are no boats going to that island, if there's no runways and aeroplanes flying out to that island, there's no roads connected to it or any way for someone to get to that island. Who's going to visit? And that's initially what happens when you launch your website. There's no link backs to it. There's nothing there. So even though you make it live, you might think, oh my goodness, it's live. The whole world is going to come down to me if I've made some mistake. But the stats will tell you otherwise. They'll tell you there's only two people that's had a look at your website and those could be anyone. It's just not enough data for you to make some sort of informed decision on it.
[00:03:07] That's why installing the analytics on a website so that you can get going and start to measure what's actually going on the website. You can look at this and then start to say, OK, they're hanging out here. They're hanging out on this page. We need to refine this further. Why are they going from this page quicker? What's not resonating with them? And it allows you to actually use the data to influence the way you start to structure the pages or your offers and things like that.
[00:03:33] Some people just visual, right? They just need to see it on a page before they determine that, OK, that looks good to me or it doesn't. It just depends on what modality they're coming from. But the perfectionist side of it is usually because the lack of clarity on what they're actually offering, who they're reaching out to. So one of the first times I noticed this was when I had this client who just wouldn't launch, right? Everything was ready. They kept on tweaking, coming up with different excuses. And I'm baffled what's going on here.
[00:04:03] So I just had to get on a call with them and have this hot twat and say, you know what? Be honest with me. What's going on? Why are you not actually launching? What's going on? And you could see from their body language, they sat back in the seats, their eyes dropped, their head dropped, and they went into some thinking mode. And they seemed to connect with themselves and come back to me and say, Jatinder Palaha, you know what it is? I don't want to be doing this coaching to this kind of clientele.
[00:04:34] I want to be aiming for the high end, elite or top leaders in businesses and things like that. And it made total sense to me. But because they weren't clear and they were thinking, how do I get there? And the uncertainty of how they would get there to get those customers, it meant that what they were putting out there, they just kept on looking back at thinking, tweaking because of the lack of clarity.
[00:05:01] Once they sat down and became honest with themselves about what they're actually trying to achieve, it was changed. Right. It was almost like they took it away, went back, sat down, looked at it and thought, OK, now I know what it is that I really want to be doing and not what I want to be doing. And usually sometimes there's this fear that if I don't do this, then I'm not going to be able to do X, Y, Z. There's a whole story that can go on in a person's mind about why they're doing something in a particular way.
[00:05:28] But the moment you get that clarity, the moment you can see that pathway within your own mind, in your mind's eye, then everything changes. Things around you will happen quicker. Imagine walking in a deep fog, right? And no matter which way you look, you're just in fog. It's brain fog, right? You just don't know which direction to go in. And then all of a sudden there's a light in the distance. Somebody's put on a lantern or something far away and you can make it out that there's some light there. So you start walking towards the light.
[00:05:58] And as you're walking towards the light, you know there's a clear path and you get closer and closer, it becomes more clear. And as soon as the clarity is and you can see your path, you can run. Yeah. So that's what basically ends up happening. What's also interesting is that the timeframe that somebody is doing this. Now, there's been situations where somebody just might not launch, right? And they just keep procrastinating, keep delaying, spending longer and longer.
[00:06:26] They're going in, they're making updates. And that part of them is, okay, I'm doing something. I'm working on this, but this ain't working for me. And it's an interesting one because it's like, of course it's not going to work because you haven't even given it a chance to work. You haven't even put it out there, right? You're holding back. And the longer you kind of keep that going, the longer you keep that delay, the more you start to think, or you could start to think that this ain't working.
[00:06:54] The website's not working, my marketing ain't working or this ain't happening. It's none of the above, right? It's just the lack of clarity. It's just because you haven't taken the action. You haven't put it out there. You've got no data, no feedback. So in the long run, it can actually end up costing you not only time and money, but can cost you your mindset. Because if you're not seeing the growth, if you're not moving forward bit by bit or little by little, one starts to wonder, why is this not working?
[00:07:22] And it could be that they've launched a website, but they haven't launched any of the other products and services, right? So there's a combination of things that can go on if you don't take the action. But the quicker you take action, the quicker you put it out there, the faster you'll end up getting the results or something that allows you to make a decision to see how can I move this forward.
[00:07:44] So one scenario that comes to mind where there's a particular website and the website just was getting a certain number of visits and we weren't seeing any conversions happening. But there was also this element in the coach's mind where they didn't want to do certain things, but they kept it. So subconsciously, they weren't moving forward as well.
[00:08:07] And when you have that kind of data, when you got this consistency and nothing's really happening, the reality of the situation is that if nothing's happening, you can drastically change what you're doing to see whether something happens or not. Right? So if somebody is being picky or it's got to look this way, it's got to be this and this message come across and so forth. It doesn't mean that those things are going to change your results.
[00:08:33] If the data is saying to you, it's actually you've had thousands of visitors your website. You've not had one conversion. Nobody's reached out to you, had a call. You can make any kind of change to that website without it getting any worse. Right? So sometimes when something isn't working, it's better to just scrap it or just simplify it or just get rid of a whole bunch of things that you think that you needed in order to just hack away the non-essentials.
[00:08:59] So you can focus in on one core thing that you start to see that is working. When you're trying to do something online, you don't necessarily know who your target audience is. Or you might not have done enough to know who your target audience is. And you might not have done enough research to find out what their pain points are and their problems. So when you create something and you're putting it out there, if you haven't researched that, it's not hitting home. It's not going to resonate with the right type of person.
[00:09:26] So because research hasn't been done on a particular use case or scenario, subconsciously you may know that. And because you know that internally, it becomes a point for you to just hold back and not do anything. And if that's going on, then it's a good question to ask yourself and to create clarity in one's own mind to say, actually, am I serving the right type of people?
[00:09:51] Is my message actually resonating with these people that need this problem solved? So the lack of clarity, the kind of subconscious beliefs around it is most of the time is what's holding people back from just pressing the button and going live. There's another interesting side to this in the mindset, a person maybe I'm almost ready.
[00:10:13] I'm almost ready. And in some cases, the coach or the consultant, the expert knows that's the case. And in some cases, they're totally oblivious to it. So they know that they're actually avoiding making the move to progress with what they're trying to actually achieve. And basically, it's trying to avoid the exposure, that real exposure being out there, that moment where somebody can actually look at something and give feedback. Maybe that judgment, maybe the fear of judgment, what people are going to think of me.
[00:10:43] And in some cases, it's totally invisible to them. They're just actually not too sure. It's like a intuitive feeling that something's all right. I'm not ready because they haven't explored that side of it. So somebody who's a good coach or a consultant who can help extract this will explore that whole idea a lot deeper in order to try to understand what's going on in the subconscious mind as to why they're not actually moving forward with what they're trying to achieve. At the end of the day, your audience doesn't need perfection. They just need you to show up.
[00:11:10] If somebody's got a problem or a challenge, and then somebody shows up to help them and guide them through that problem or challenge, that's going to resonate. It's better than you holding back thinking, I'm going to do it tomorrow. If you're not showing up, you're not there for them to even understand that they've got a problem or solving it. So just getting ready, just put it out there, just show up is the first step. And over time, consistency over time is what makes it happen.
[00:11:39] Right. And the consistency can only happen if you actually take the first step to make it happen. So nowadays, if I notice that this is happening with one of my customers, I might be on a call with them and I can see that they're doing this. I basically have a heart to heart with them. I just say, okay, you know what, just one second, one second, just relax for a moment. Do you really want to do this? But is there something on your mind that's stopping you from moving forward? And if it is, what is it? Is there a fear of something? Is there, are you just unsure?
[00:12:07] Just be real about it because at the end of the day, you don't want to waste anyone's time and you want to go out there and make maximum impact. But if you're not clear within as to what's going on, you're not going to be able to help other people. So it's really good to chat to somebody, whether it's a coach or a mentor or a guide that can sit you down and have a conversation and say, let it out, share, share what's going on. Because only through the sharing, they say sharing is caring, right?
[00:12:35] So only through the sharing can you get an understanding of what's going on. So it's got a mind dump to some degree. If you're holding everything inside, it's just gonna, it's gonna be foggy. But as soon as you start to share, I'm not too sure about this. So how do you go about this? Just releasing those questions, it allows the mind to get rid of the fog. So you can start to see that light and see that kind of direction that you can take something in.
[00:13:00] What's interesting is that when you're offline and you're having a conversation with someone through that conversation, you can ask a lot of questions. And you get to see body language, you get to hear tonality, you get to feel the words. There's lots of stuff that comes through in a one-to-one conversation. So when you're in an offline scenario, you're able to have that deeper connection and conversation with your target audience or share a message, which then you can see whether it resonates with the person or not.
[00:13:28] When you're online, it's like a cold market. You don't really know who you're talking to. You're just creating content for the sake of creating content to some degree, or you're creating content because you know that certain people are gonna gravitate towards it. So you put the message out there. Now, if you haven't really looked at the problem, the pain points, the issues and subconscious stuff that people or your target audience are feeling,
[00:13:55] if you haven't looked into it, if you've done research around that, then you can't really talk their language. So it's important to make sure that you do the research. What is the actual problem that these people are feeling? What are the spin-off problems related to this? And if you address this one particular problem, will it help resolve the other problems? So it's really important to make sure that you sit down and get into the problem set. What's the pain point here? What's the problem?
[00:14:21] How does my solution or service actually help change and create some sort of transformation in this person's life? And if you've done it yourself, then you have a methodology, you have a process that works. And it's just about how you can articulate that. You can put it in a structured way that actually helps the person in front of you. So understanding the pain points is a good way to craft your message. So if you speak into the pain, not necessarily your niche and this avatar or something, because that can work as well.
[00:14:50] But most of the time is the problem. You can have two different avatars, but they have the same problem. Right. And as human beings, it's the same across the board. So if you're able to identify that, obviously, it's going to be different for different types of people. For men and women, it's going to be different, for example. But it's very important to identify what those pain points are, what they could be. And then look at all the possible answers that you can have for that kind of situation or scenario. And then start to say, OK, this is what my offering is.
[00:15:20] This is my message. This is how I could craft it. Put it out there. Put feelers out there. You've got to put it out there. If you don't, you'll never know. It's only when you put it out there and you get the feedback. Sometimes people are just scared to get feedback. They're like, what's people going to think of me? That fear alone can hold you back. Right. The thing is, anybody gives you feedback, whether it's positive or even negative, the negative ones are great because if they give you some sort of negative feedback, you know what not to do. Right. And that's just as good as knowing what to do.
[00:15:48] So you can hack all the non-essentials by saying, OK, that's not useful. So I can reframe that, put it in a different way. So it's good to get feedback and just be open to constructive criticism. Be open to the feedback that the universe is giving you a signal that way. They're saying to you, here's a challenge. This is what somebody is saying. So maybe that's something you need to look at so you can actually address that in your overall offering. So how do you actually know when you're ready to put something out there? That's a very good question.
[00:16:18] And the reality of the situation is you don't really. You can only put feelers out. Some of the things we look for is micro data. What we mean by micro data, say you had some sort of e-book. The e-book's a bit old now, but let's just say you had an e-book that helps you with a solution. And you put up a simple web page for that. You send people to that web page. Right. How many people actually took action to sign up to that offer? If you sent 100 people there, nobody took the offer.
[00:16:48] That's a micro data. That's micro data, right? That's giving you an indicator that this first step isn't working. So you go back to your drawing board, look at it and say, it's not working on this page. Have I? It could be 100 wrong people that turned up. That's true. But you may have one person express interest. Now, then you could tweak that message and then try it again. And when you start to see something working, so now you sent it to 100 people and 10 people signed up. So you know there's something there now that's worked.
[00:17:18] Now, sometimes you might not even know. So just put a questionnaire together. Just put some sort of, I'm working on this. What are your thoughts on this? Or what are your challenges around this? And put a survey out just to get feedback. It's the micro data that helps you move forward. You don't always really know if your product's ready or not, or if you're ready, but you have to put it out there. You just got to have some sort of benchmark to work off. So when you've done most of the work and you're just thinking, oh, shall I launch? Shall I not launch? Or I haven't done this yet. That's the point you launch out.
[00:17:48] Just put it out. All right. And see what happens because that's better than doing nothing. So if any of this resonates with you, if you find yourself to be one of those people that are just not pushing the button, right? I invite you to just take a pause for a moment. Sit with him. And literally just do a mind dump. Yeah. Just put on a piece of paper. Why you think you're not ready? Why are you holding back? What are your questions? What are your concerns? What's going on in your mind?
[00:18:15] Even if something basic, oh, the color orange doesn't look good to me. Right. Just put it down. Just do a mind dump. Just try to get rid of that fog that's in your mind. Do a mind dump. Put it down on paper. Right. Look at it. Sit with it. Right. And then start to cross off the things that you think actually that's useless. That's nonsense. That's non-essential. Just get rid of the non-essentials. And you'll be left with some key things or key points that you can address.
[00:18:43] If you can get it down to about three, that would be great because then it's easy to work through. But that could be something you could do right away just to try to figure out or bring it to the surface. If you're not too sure what's going on, bring it to the surface. Because if you bring it to the surface, then now it's in your conscious mind. And when it's in your conscious mind, you could do something about it. If that doesn't work, feel free to reach out. Let's have a conversation and get you unlocked in that kind of situation and scenario.
[00:19:09] If you're finding yourself in that scenario where you're saying, I'm a perfectionist or somebody calls you a perfectionist or you're stuck around that kind of word or phrase. Reframe it. Switch it over and just say, am I in a foggy state? So instead of saying perfectionist or you're not moving forward because it's not perfect, just ask yourself, am I in a foggy state? When you replace that word and say, am I in a foggy state?
[00:19:35] That question will change your state of mind and it will get you to think differently in your mind as well because fog clears and you can navigate the fog with light. So if you find yourself doing that, just take that vocabulary, change it and say, am I in a foggy state? Versus I'm a perfectionist or this person being a perfectionist. Just say, is this a foggy situation?
[00:19:59] And if you feel that, yep, this is foggy, then now that's a good place to be because it means you can change the way you do things or you can approach the situation in a much different way. If you find yourself doing this as well, again, feel free to reach out. We're going to have a conversation about it. Otherwise, take the points from this conversation. Take the points from this podcast and do your mind dump. Write it down. And if you find that you are being a perfectionist, just ask yourself, is this a foggy situation?
[00:20:29] Am I in a foggy state? And if you're able to answer that question honestly, or if you feel foggy or heavy or something, then you know that you're asking the right question. So on that note, folks, hope you enjoyed that. Again, I said if any issues, challenges, feel free to reach out. Until next time, thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the Digital Rapport Podcast.
[00:20:52] Visit digital-rapport.com and discover how to connect, influence and inspire with ease and start making an impact today. Get tips and guidance on how to transform your expertise into a thriving online business through automation, digital products and services.