Welcome And Why Products Do Not Sell

Anna Bravington 0:00

But I mean, I always say the biggest competitor is do nothing, 'cause people are really happy with the status quo of things.

Joeri Billast 0:06

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Joeri Billast. I'm your podcast host. And today I'm so excited to be joined by Anna. Hey, Anna. How are you?

Anna Bravington 0:20

I'm good. Enjoying the, English summer weather at the moment. It's not often we get it

Joeri Billast 0:25

You know, I'm Belgian, but I live, since almost two years here in Portugal, so it's a different climate. if you're now wondering who is Anna, Anna Bravington, she's a co-founder and business advisor at Creating the Curve. co-author of The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever. Anna, we were both co-authors of that book, by the Rise community. now you have written a new book, just came out, Building Shit No One Wants. Really excited to talk, to you about that. as my listeners know, Anna, I always dive straight in. So Anna, across 25 years of working with businesses, I'm wondering what recurring founder pattern convinced you That people often have not built something bad, but have misunderstood why it is not selling.

Anna Bravington 1:21

it's one of those things where I kept having conversation after conversation and it came up. I started life in the sort of more tech field, and it kept coming up that people were developing these programs. they would develop one and then the other and then another and they're like, "Oh, they must be awful. No one wants to buy them." And I'm like, "They don't seem awful. I mean, they sound quite useful. I would use them." And so we started digging into why they weren't selling them, and it was so Well, what was your marketing budget? You know, how did you tell people about it? And generally the answer was, "I didn't." and the ones that did, sometimes they would They will have told people, but they told them 57 different technical features, but not the whys or the reasons that people would actually need them. And so we start, I started seeing these patterns of, oh, actually, this is something useful. I'm not gonna lie, occasionally there was something that was a bit shit. and I've come up with some ideas like that as well. But on the whole, I'd say 90% of the time, it was they thought, "Oh, it's not selling because it's awful," and actually they hadn't done the basics. They hadn't marketed it. They hadn't written about it properly, or some of them, they hadn't understood the market, and they were maybe selling slightly to the wrong person or the wrong messaging, and sometimes they just need a little bit of tweaks. And these patterns just kept coming up over and over again, and it was sad because all of this great technology or products or services were sitting there, could've been really useful to people, and they weren't using it

Joeri Billast 3:00

Yeah. And actually it's a problem I've seen a lot too when speaking with founders. They are so enthusiastic about something they are building, is-- if there is a demand for it or how to package it, so they haven't thought about that.

The Three Leaks Diagnostic

Joeri Billast 3:15

in your book, you diagnose three possible leaks: offer, visibility, and clarity. How can a founder identify the real leak before spending more money, changing tactics, or rebuilding everything?

Anna Bravington 3:33

for me it's about take a look, I'm very research led, so looking at the data, even if you haven't got much of it, and looking at where the problem might lie. If you are very active on social and people are commenting and getting to know you, everyone knows your name, you might not have a visibility problem, but if those people are not converting to a sale, it's gonna be somewhere further down. So it's probably gonna be either your clarity, because they don't understand why they should buy from you or what you're actually selling, or it could be your offer because they are, they're sort of getting there and sort of a bit interested, but then once again not buying. And then between those two, offer and, clarity, it often depends. If you're getting a few customers and they love your product and they're the right customers, then your offer is probably fine because you've matched with the customer. When they've found you and understood what you do, it's great. If you're not getting those customers or you're getting the wrong people, it might be your messaging. in the book, I sort of do this diagnostic bit at the beginning to work out, let's try and work out where these people are stopping. It's a bit like the marketing funnel. People sort of stop somewhere, sometimes I just go and phone people up that are potential customers and say, "Do you understand what this is?" Or if there's someone that's inquired and doesn't buy with me, I'm like, "Oh, why didn't you?" And actually those conversations can be really useful. You have to do a little bit of digging to try and find out where that block is, and I think what people are scared of is just reaching out and finding out where that block is. So they tend to try and second-guess or make up reasons themselves when actually they're not the real reasons. So it's that, a little bit of digging to just go under the hood and work out what's going on

Joeri Billast 5:26

Yeah. Yeah, the digging indeed to asking if someone wants

Anna Bravington 5:30

嗯

Joeri Billast 5:30

why they want it, or why they didn't want it. What is like, you

Anna Bravington 5:34

Yeah

Joeri Billast 5:35

that objection. Or sometimes also you can just learn by getting experience from your first customers.

Anna Bravington 5:42

Yeah

Joeri Billast 5:42

founders can be stubborn because they have an idea.

Persistence Versus Sunk Cost Stubbornness

Joeri Billast 5:47

when actually should a founder remain committed, to their original vision, and when does persistence become sunk cost stubbornness?

Anna Bravington 5:59

Do you know what? This is a really hard one because it's a sort of fine balance between the two. for me, it's when you've done that research, when you've dug into it, is it all lining up? Is it saying, "Actually, this does line up, it does fit with the market. I've spoken to customers, they are keen." So then I'm just need to fix something. And I think once you've done that, you can kind of work out. if you then persist, and then keep going because you don't want to, you know, it feels nonsensical at that point. And there is this thing, we have this passion, and this love for something, and it's our child, our baby, and it is really One of my chapters is called your baby's ugly because of this very It feels like our child. we have come up with this idea. my favorite show as a child was, Only Fools and Horses, which is an English sitcom. And Del Boy, the main character, is an entrepreneur. And every time he says to his brother, "This time next year, Rodney, we'll be millionaires." And I feel like that's that excitement in all of us that, "This is it. This is the thing. This is gonna make me the millionaire." And it's so hard to admit to ourselves that maybe we were wrong, and there's this huge problem around failure in entrepreneurship, around you can't fail, that you are a loser if you fail or something. I think it's quite toxic. A lot on social media, LinkedIn, all these people, win, win, win. And I'm really glad that you're now starting to see on social, particularly I've seen in my sort of network, these posts about failure as well. "This went really well for me, but this didn't." Because business is ve- it's like a rollercoaster, and things don't always work out, and your product isn't, it isn't sort of like the only thing you can do. And we have to kind of distance ourself a little bit from it. it's not part of us. It is a business and a separate thing that we need to treat a bit at arm's reach sometimes. I would say business owners that are not attached to their products, the ones that just start a business because they wanna run a business, they tend to be a little bit better at distancing themselves, 'cause all they wanna do is make money and run a business. The ones that I call hands-on, who have a love for what they do, whether it's building some technology, or accountancy, or whatever it is they're doing, they tend to be more attached because it's the thing they love, which it's harder to separate then

Joeri Billast 8:23

Yeah. But sometimes also, you know, able to pivot, you can be rejected, but don't feel yourself rejected, but you need to feel redirected, I would say. I'm looking at

Anna Bravington 8:33

Yeah

Joeri Billast 8:34

at my own retreat. I've been doing here in Sintra. In the beginning, my vision was, okay, let's do a retreat around Web3, you know, more direction of blockchain. Now it is completely different. It's more a marketing retreat than I was looking at the AI angle. And now by listening to the people at the retreat, they said, "Oh, it was more like, you know, being together with other marketers, you know, in a setting, being able to share challenges." So by doing it, it evolved. So it's still my passion doing that, but it's actually more evolving. So I-- you should not give up because, you know, at first it doesn't work. but see how, you know,

Anna Bravington 9:12

Yep.

Joeri Billast 9:13

redirect.

Anna Bravington 9:14

Absolutely

Competing With Workarounds And Doing Nothing

Joeri Billast 9:15

I think in the book you also argue, Anna, that the customer's alternatives include, competitors in perfect workarounds and simply doing nothing. How should that broader view change the way that entrepreneurs position their offer?

Anna Bravington 9:34

I think it's, it's very easy when we're doing market research to... We, we look at those alternatives, and we look for very direct competitors. in the book I give an example of a podcast player for children, and they say in there, they said, "Oh, we've got no direct competitors," because there was no podcast players for children. But the problem is, I mean, my son has a Toniebox, which was... It's screen-free entertainment for children. It fulfills the need, because we need to stop thinking about the product, and we need to think about the need. And a podcast player without a screen is screen-free entertainment for children. So what other alternatives are there? there is this Toniebox, which is a little music box that you put little characters on. There was the Yoto player, which you put little cards in. There are other things like, just, reading a book. That is a screen-free entertainment for children. Playing with toys, building Lego or, just not buying anything to sort of cover that. Some people just like screens. So I think it's really easy to look at the direct competitors, but actually very hard to work out, and this is where it comes back to making sure you're fulfilling the problem and the solution to what the customer is having. Why are they buying your thing? It's not because they're looking for a podcast player. It's because they're fed up with their kids being on screens, and so they want something that is gonna be screen-free that feels a bit more healthy to them. And then working out, right, well, if I had a child- What would I do? Ask parents what would they do, what are the places that they go. Research the alternatives. Put in screen-free entertainment for children, see what comes up. And then you'll see that lots come up. But I mean, I always say the biggest competitor is do nothing, 'cause people are really happy with the status quo of things. I was speaking to someone the other day, and they were working with a business that had a process in place for 20 years, and it was a really old-fashioned, ingrained process that they'd been happy with for 20 years. They didn't know they were in pain. That's how they'd always done it. That's the way it was. And so every day they'd do this process. And with AI, automation, there was so many alternatives. And one... youngster came into the business and was like, "Oh, you could automate this. you could do this." And he was trying to do this process, and he found it really painful. But they didn't know they were in pain, and a lot of people don't, so they'll just carry on regardless and keep plodding on. So it's, sometimes it's an education piece to actually tell people they're in pain, that there is an alternative to this, this sort of daily grind that took you six hours and you can do it in half an hour with au- automated technology. So that, it is really hard, that part of the do-nothings. And you know, sometimes I'm looking for a cleaner at the moment, but my house isn't quite dirty enough that I'm desperate yet. I mean, at one point, it might get to that point, but I'm not in enough pain, so I'm just waiting and I'll look on social or, Facebook or, Google at some point, and I'll find someone. But I'm not in so much pain. But if someone like a cleaner came and knocked on my door and said, "Oh, we can clean your house. You want us to quote here and then?" I'd be like, "Oh, actually, that would be quite nice." You know, I'm not in enough pain, but if it lands on my doorstep, I'm ready

Joeri Billast 12:47

Yes, I love that example. If they are not problem aware, then you make sure that they realize they have the problem, but also

Anna Bravington 12:53

Yeah

Joeri Billast 12:53

urgent enough why now, and then you need to help them. Now that's really interesting, based on that and based on the research that you do But I'm also curious, if you have indeed people that were considering buying but then, you know, they walked away, what uncomfortable answers should, we be prepared for as founders to

Hearing The Truth From Lost Deals

Joeri Billast 13:14

hear? Because I guess we need to ask them why they walked

Anna Bravington 13:17

And it is really hard. It's particularly hard if you're just like a solopreneur or a couple of you, because when I've worked with slightly bigger businesses, often they have a sales team who because they're not an owner, they can deal with those uncomfortable questions I actually do a sales team questionnaire that founders ask to their sales team to ask out why people didn't buy, Because the middle person often hears these sort of uncomfortable truths. But when you're a founder, people aren't always honest with you. And I love things like customer interviews, but once again, if you're a founder, you have to be really objective when you're answering these questions, otherwise people will lie to you. They will tell you what they think you want to hear. "Oh, you were lovely, but we just went out to an alternative" not, "Oh, your pitch process was awful. We didn't like it, you just didn't tell us anything. You won't do." People won't tell them. And I used to do customer interviews for people because sometimes having a third party do it for you, people will be much more honest. And I remember having, one customer, they were A couple of guys, founders, and they were lovely, but they had little bit of egos. And we did the customer research, and we had to deliver it very carefully back to them, because we knew that it would hurt their egos a little bit because they were very much into, this perception that they were all action and everything was like, you know, results, results, results. And we got the feedback that they were a little bit fluffy, and they absolutely swore that they weren't. And so it was really hard telling them that they were a bit fluffy and people didn't actually know what the outcomes were. it made it very difficult, but you know, we were paid to, deliver that feedback. But they took it very hardly. And they took it personally, and this isn't personal. This is what I was saying about having your business at arm's length. You see the Google reviews. You've seen them on social media where someone puts a bit of a negative review and the owner, "Oh, you, you're just lying that it's awful," because they couldn't hear that feedback, when actually that feedback is invaluable. If you're getting the same feedback over and over again... I was looking for a garage the other day because I needed some repairs to my car, and I came across a local garage and it had on Google reviews about three and a half. So I'm thinking, "Well, that doesn't look good." And when you look through their comments, it was the same problems over and over again, and every reply from the garage was defensive. It was the customer that was at fault. And I'm like, You can see a pattern. Come on, guys, you know, there is a pattern." It was poor customer service. if there was a problem with the car after they'd fixed it, it was the customer's fault, basically. So you could see this pattern, and they weren't listening. Back to listening, we have to listen and be prepared scared to hear the bad negative stuff because that's how we learn, that's how we make ourselves better, and we have to put our feelings and egos aside. It is hard. I have ADHD and I have, RSD, sort of rejection sensitive dysphoria, so I really struggle with rejection, so I understand. But you have to, after that initial, "Oh my God, it's the end of the world," I've got to then go, "Okay, no, this is really good feedback, I can do something about this." And I'm not saying, like, every bit of negative feedback or, stuff that you hear, don't believe all of it, look for patterns. Because you'll have some negative Nellies that just moan. I've been to wonderful hotels and I see this, oh, the breakfast was slightly cold," and it's like the best breakfast I've ever had in my life.

Joeri Billast 16:51

Yeah

Anna Bravington 16:53

if there's a pattern forming, this is what we're always looking at business owners, patterns, data, what's going on in our business in the world that we can adapt to. So yeah, I think a bit of resilience is needed sometimes

Joeri Billast 17:06

yeah. I will look at for my own book, for instance, "The Future CMO," I publish it on Amazon. You will always get people that are excited and people that, for one or another reason, they like, to give a bad review. So I had I was happy that I got so many five stars in the beginning, when I launched, and then suddenly there is this one-star review all of a sudden. I said, "What? Why does that come from?"

Anna Bravington 17:26

Yeah

Joeri Billast 17:27

this was actually at the moment, at some point with Black Friday, I said, "Okay, everyone can, get it for free on just on this day for the book to get more, readers."

Anna Bravington 17:35

Mm

Joeri Billast 17:36

one person, did that, and I think maybe they didn't like it, but it was just one person. So you need to be open and thinking about why was that and, and, but there was no

Anna Bravington 17:45

Yeah

AI Voice Of Customer Without Bias

Joeri Billast 17:47

Now, in the book, you explore AI-powered voice of customer research and synthetic customers. you refer to Matt Wilkinson. Matt was also at the retreat. He was actually on my show, too, speaking about his book, about synthetic customers. I know you will be doing some stuff with Matt, too, I think even later today. when the podcast come out, people will probably find the replay somewhere on LinkedIn. but Anna, where can AI uncover insights that, humans might miss, and where can it become a convincing echo chamber for the founder's assumptions?

Anna Bravington 19:30

See, that is the problem with AI, isn't it? It's, it can be hit and miss. when I was talking with Matt, 'cause Matt, we talked about this topic on my podcast as well, and it's really interesting that there's a couple of really good sides to AI. AI, I wanna say it's unbiased. It's not unbiased because I did a whole talk on, the bias of AI, but it's not It doesn't take things personally. And so when you go and ask it to do, some research on customers, and it tends to go and dig in places that you might not normally look. there's a brilliant book called, Rebel Ideas by Matthew Syed, and he talks about our own frame of reference on the world, and that we see everything from our own frame of reference. So it includes how we were brought up, our, you know, our religion, our politics, our, you know, how rich or poor we are. And so everything that we look at is through our own, our own personal frame of reference. So when I do research, you know, I try to be unbiased, but I will probably have some confirmation bias in there of, "Oh, oh yeah, that's agreeing with what I'm thinking, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen to that more." Whereas if you can prompt AI well, without trying to bias it, it can come and find information that you may find difficult to hear. It was really interesting because, I mention it in the book, but Frank Prendergast, who is also in our Rise community, he had a voice of customer, GPT that I used initially. and it's kind of where the book title started because I, I was doing a lot of work with these hands-on founders, and I knew that they disliked marketing and sales. And I, I sort of put all my stuff in this voice of customer, and it went out to Reddit, and online, other forums, and it went out and found customers, and they were really visceral about how much they hated marketing, and it actually shocked me. they were swearing, capital letters of the word hate, "I hate marketing." It was quite shocking how much they hated marketing. As a, ex-marketer, I was like, "Oh, that's really sad that they hate marketing so much." It gave me a different perspective on what the customer was feeling about how much they dislike this side of the business, and I probably wouldn't have found that without AI because it went and looked for different things that I would've looked for. Picked up this sort of tone. Because it was looking at a mass amount of data, it picked up a tone that I probably wouldn't have seen myself. It kept saying, "Oh, there's a pattern here." So that's why I've actually got a swear word in my book title, because I wanted to reflect that language of that hate, and this sort of, "Oh, it au- it's awful." 'cause people really hate running a business as well. And so it managed to pick up stuff that I wouldn't have normally done. But then at the same time, it can be your own worst enemy, because I put a few prompts for SWOT analysis and PESTLE in my book for doing those sort of looking at your business and looking at it in the wider context of the world. And if you're not careful, you can bias those by putting your own points of view in there, and then it starts going, "Oh, yes," you know, "No, you've got no competition in the world," because you've started to bias it because you don't think you've got any competition. So, you know, if it asks you questions about your competition, you're going, "No, no, no, I don't think there's any competition." So it might not look for the competition, or it might not guess what the competition is, because sometimes it tries to please you, and sort of confirm what you're thinking. So you do have to be careful. It's a bit like when you're doing a survey, asking those unbiased questions so that you don't influence the results

Joeri Billast 23:08

Yeah. But on this side too, you can, listen deeply to the market. You can ask AI, but you need to be careful too that you are not becoming too customer-led so that you don't lose, your originality, your conviction, or

Anna Bravington 23:23

Mm.

Joeri Billast 23:24

to create something new. any thoughts

Anna Bravington 23:26

Yeah, I agree with that. The customer is not always right. I always hate that saying, "The customer's always right," 'cause actually it's from a longer quote, which I think

Customers Problems Versus Their Solutions

Anna Bravington 23:34

is, "The customer is always right, when it comes to taste in fashion," or something along those lines. So it actually was only about one part of the customer being right, which was their own taste in fashion or something along those lines. So actually, the customer isn't always right, and the customer doesn't always know what they need. Back to those people stuck in processes, that don't know there's another way. They don't know what they need. They don't know it exists. They don't know what will help. And I've seen, Apple was talking about this. They said, "Well, we don't really ask customers what they want because they don't know. They come up with silly solutions and try and, tell us what they want. But actually, what we have to do is," back to this listening, "what are the problems they're having? What is the difficulties they're having?" You know, things back to the iPod, you know, taking a CD Walkman with you, that you've got to take loads of CDs or a cassette player that always tangled up when you were on your best track What are the problems that people are having that you need to invent something that fills those problems? You don't want the customer to come up with solutions. You need to just listen to the frustrations, and they will sometimes be really subtle, and there will sometimes you'll have to work out, okay, there's this problem coming up, and I need to try and find something that will just solve that. Because if you go to a customer, "Oh, I'm, I'm thinking about creating a new technology. What would you like?" "I'd like space shoes or..." So yeah, people don't know what they, what they like. So a lot of our time is very outwardly listening. And actually, it's, it's really interesting 'cause I've been having a look at this recently about how difficult people find it to listen in conversations, in general life. That there's this actual skill set around listening, and that when most people talk to other people, all they're doing is waiting for their time to talk back, and they're not really taking in the information. Apparently, it's quite a big pattern, and a lot of people have to learn to listen and absorb what's coming their way. So the... I think we need this much more looking and listening, understanding the patterns, asking about problems rather than what actual people want. But at the same time, you know, sometimes we're clever. people are clever. They do spot patterns just day to day, gaps in the market. You see wonderful things. "Oh, I just saw this gap." I'm in a group called Mums in Marketing, and she was, like, very alone. Claire F- Ferreira, that runs it, was very alone. she was like, "I'm a mom in marketing." Marketing is quite, as you know, a very big career. It's very time c- intensive, Being a parent in marketing, you've got two intensive things, a child and marketing. And she was like, "I wonder if there's other mums that feel like me." And she's like, "I feel like there's a gap." So she started a group called Mums in Marketing, and she's like, "I feel like there is this thing this pattern forming." And it's a hugely successful community now because of this sort of pattern that she saw and then people went, "Oh yeah, I feel that too. I'm in it. I pay for membership of it." And so you can spot things as you go along if you're just open, curious. I know Mark Schaefer uses that quite regularly, you know, curious about what's going on. I think it's when you're closed off that you struggle. So listening back to pain points. I'm gonna keep drumming that. Listen, listen, listen. What's going on?

Joeri Billast 27:03

There is really a lot to unpack about your book, and we cannot cover everything in this podcast, so people, be sure to check the show notes

Why Founders Hide From Visibility

Joeri Billast 27:10

afterwards. But one thing, we both talk about, and it's also an important aspect for founders, is visibility. and so I would like to ask your opinion, why do so many talented founders, remain their industry's best-kept secret even when they know that visibility is essential for their survival?

Anna Bravington 27:32

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because I've met with a few founders recently. They would rather their business failed They won't admit this, but they must rather that their business failed than to actually become visible. It is so uncomfortable to them that they're getting nearer and nearer to collapse, and it's so uncomfortable they cannot bear to do the sort of visibility piece to put themselves out there for various reasons, that their business will just close. I find this really quite interesting. I can't quite understand that you would rather your business close than to be more uncomfortable. And I think that that is a huge problem with founders, and I do find it more in the more introverted technical industries but it is a general thing across the board that people do not like to do uncomfortable things. And particularly when they're starting to get stressed and their business is in trouble, they tend to retreat even further back into the things that they like. I will code another problem. I'll spend time tweaking my website. I will do the things that are comfortable to me. And I have done it. I'm not gonna lie that I haven't. Love tweaking my website. Could spend hours doing it. Oh, just move this image by a few pixels. I love it, and I do understand that. And the more stressed and the more people struggle in business, I found that they do more of that busy work, you know, just faffing around with invoices, And I think it's that sort of stepping over that not being able to bear to do something that we find so uncomfortable. Some of it is that it's maybe not in our nature, but some of it is not, we've not been trained to do it. If you're trained as a scientist or an accountant, who trained you in business? marketing, as you know, is a full-time career. Finance and accounts is a full-time career. We're asking people to do 12 different business tasks, like different careers, in one job. if you're a business owner, and particularly if you're really small and you're having to do it all yourself, and only one of those you've been trained in. I wouldn't go and start making devices for nuclear fusion or something, because I'm not trained in it. So why do we expect people to do marketing and sales and accounts, cashflow forecast, when no one's actually told them what to do and there's no, there's no sort of, sort of... when you do these courses, there's no business in a lot of them. I've seen some courses have them now, a little bit of business to give people a bit of a heads-up, but it's very little. And I think the problem is when there's so much you don't know, it becomes overwhelming because you know what you know you know,

Joeri Billast 30:08

Mm-hmm

Anna Bravington 30:09

and what else do I look for? What do I need to run a business? I don't know, so what do I look for? So you tend up in a bit stuck in a rut and- I think that you need a definite mindset and personality type. I really... I saw this thing the other day, and it was about, I think it was five traits for, to be an entrepreneur. I can't remember what they were, but it was something around resilience, curiosity. It was these things that make a business successful, and not a single one was a degree in physics or a degree in accounting. It was all these areas of, being open to explore and try new things. So I think that there needs to be a little bit more around that in, particularly when we're doing formal qualifications, to start getting people curious about things, that critical thinking, so that if you are running your own business, that you at least have the spark of how you might go about doing these things. But I mean, I do have absolute sympathy for people because in my business, I like to write books, I like to train, I like to write courses, and actually even though I'm an ex-marketer, I hate doing my own marketing. So I absolutely understand why people struggle with it because, you know, it is difficult to do all these things at once without any sleep.

Joeri Billast 31:22

Yeah

Anna Bravington 31:22

you do need to... If you're not prepared to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and I can tell from the first meeting with someone if their business is gonna win or fail because of that mindset. if I've given them some advice about going out and getting customers and they've not done anything, or they seem really hesitant about it, I know that they're not gonna do well, and it's heartbreaking when I get to that stage

Joeri Billast 31:45

We are coming towards the end of the podcast episode, but for those people you want to give one short advice, you know, that feel uncomfortable

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Joeri Billast 31:52

to being visible, what would that be, Anna?

Anna Bravington 31:56

be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It really, it is really that. It's around pushing yourself out of your boundaries, And I would say the first step is the hardest. You know, whether it's that first video you have to do on social media, or it's that first phone call you've got to do. You've gotta, you've gotta make yourself, do it. I found having someone to help you be accountable is really good. So it doesn't have to be someone you pay. It could be a fellow colleague or someone who's got a similar business. Keep each other accountable because if you can't do hard things on your own like that And actually, I learnt recently that those hard things, there's actually a part of your brain that you can build the muscle, of it. That actually the more hard things you do, the better you become at it. If you can't do that step on your own, don't do it on your own. I always say it takes a community to raise a business, like it takes a village to raise a child. If you can't do it on your own, find someone and literally have a meeting every week. Say, "I need to do these three things," and they'll say, "I need to do these three things." And next week you meet up and tell them that you've done them. Because the embarrassment of failing in front of someone you know is actually sometimes worse than an uncomfortable feeling. So find a feeling that's worse.

Joeri Billast 33:06

Yeah. and thank you for mentioning that then, because it makes a lot of sense, if you can just mention my retreat, Sintra Synergies. Roxana said her main lesson was, "I'm not alone." And people that were there were just pushing each other, and I did some following up roundtable talks where people could say, "Okay, did you do what you said you were going to do?" And this was one-- reason that Matt said that his book got published because, we were there talking about it. Anna, yeah, it was, really a pleasure to have you on the show. If people, yeah, they want to buy your book or they want to know more about you, where would you like me to send them?

Where To Find Anna And Closing CTAs

Anna Bravington 33:44

Well, I'm on Amazon for the book. so Building Shit No One Wants is on Amazon, and I'm on creatingthecurve.co.uk as well, or love LinkedIn. Always on LinkedIn, so you know, connect and drop me a message on there because, yeah, I love chatting to people. So if anyone just wants to natter, I'm there to have a chat, or if you've just got a brain dump on a problem, I love solving problems

Joeri Billast 34:05

Thank you, Anna. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show

Anna Bravington 34:08

Thank you for having me on. It's been brilliant

Joeri Billast 34:11

Guys, what an amazing episode. Don't you love Anna's energy? So I would advise you go check out the show notes because, the link, to the book page, Anna's book will be found in there as always. So, and if you think that this episode is useful for people around you, other entrepreneurs, marketers, maybe your neighbor, be sure to share this podcast episode with them. If you're not yet following the show, well, this is a good moment then to hit the subscribe button. If you haven't given me a review yet, I was speaking about those Google reviews, there are also podcast reviews. It really helps a lot if you could give me these five stars if you like the show. And of course, we would love to see you back next time. Take care PS, I also want to encourage you to have a look or have a listen to the latest podcast episodes. We have the one about the Metricool Favicon Report, which is about LinkedIn in 2026, talks about personal pages versus company pages on LinkedIn with some really interesting stats. and also the episode before that one is the one with, Butch from the Ryo Project. Ryo is a sponsor of my podcast, and, if you want to know why regulation can be an advantage in Web3, check out that podcast