"My education program is ready to launch, so why can't I tell people about it?"
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Latham, thank you so much for being here.
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I'm excited to dig in on today's episode.
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I think a great place to start is getting a little bit of an understanding,
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quick background context.
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What chapter do you feel like you're in in your life?
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Yeah, the chapter question is a really hard question.
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It's a high number, maybe is the way to say it.
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If you had to name it, what would you title the last chapter?
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And then what's this chapter titled?
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I think the last chapter was...
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I mean, maybe the way to title it is just like going deep or figuring it out.
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Like the last year and a half was really focused on family, especially my son.
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I started homeschooling him a year and a half ago.
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And so the last year was literally just like
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figuring out what does it mean to be in charge of the education of another human being?
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How do you do that?
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What's kind of fact from fiction?
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I always had this feeling that education as we did it as a society was suboptimal at best.
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I think that's been the last year,
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has been figuring that out and going deep and really understanding education as a
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product or as a service.
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And as a parent.
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And as a parent, yeah.
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And coming out of that is now...
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There's a desire to build a business,
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build a reputation,
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actually get out and take those ideas and put them into the world in a way that can
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support other parents that can,
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quite frankly,
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make some money.
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Because homeschooling is very underpaid, to say the least.
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Right, yeah.
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And then shifting out of like, okay, I'm an expert with my own kids.
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How do I take that experience from
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and build on it in a way that builds my reputation,
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builds the business that I want that can do good in the world.
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Totally.
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Yeah.
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Am I hearing that you want more learning?
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Like you did it in this one context and how do you expand that learning and monetize it as well?
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Yeah, I think so.
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I mean, I would consider myself a lifelong learner.
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It's something I want to model for my kids.
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So it is very important to me.
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I don't always feel like I'm contributing to the family financially as much.
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Sure, totally.
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A lot of stress on my wife and my family because of that.
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So I'd say an equal part as much as continuing to learn, continuing to grow personally.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, you've already done a lot of that deep dive learning and now it's the other side.
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It's like, okay, let's transition into the monetization of that learning.
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Something that comes to mind to me, and it's actually a David White quote.
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I don't know if you know that poet,
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but he has this idea of sort of start close in,
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meaning start with the step that's available next to you.
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Like, what is that?
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I think the first step is easier when it's close.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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And who do you know?
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What parents have you already talked to that might, if aware of what you did, be interested?
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You know, that's a curiosity of mine.
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Yeah.
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It's a great question.
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The longer term vision is broader than my local community.
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It's not a scale, right?
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Like I don't want to grow a, I don't want to put a million students through.
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I would love to work with
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100 students over the next 10 years, or 100 learners and families.
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But part of it is like,
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I live in Montana,
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and I love it here,
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but there's not probably 100 students and 100 parents that really want to take that
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leap.
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I can think of maybe one that I know locally.
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But the fact of where I live limits some of what is possible.
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Got you.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So part of the challenge is how do you find, I love this structure now, right?
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100 learners.
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That's a really clear structure to kind of look at and say, okay, I can handle that, right?
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And so the challenge, which is okay if there's a challenge, just to say it is,
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I want to work with 100 learners.
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And is my location going to be supportive of that?
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That's the push and pull to block a little bit there.
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And do you feel like that question has blocked starting the conversation with that
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one family or being in the practice of talking about it in a service business
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oriented way?
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Have you had those conversations?
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I have danced around the conversation.
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Yeah.
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It's taken me a long time to get to the point where I'm like,
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okay,
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I'm ready to have this conversation.
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Love it.
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A lot of like dancing around and kind of trying to approach it from a hundred
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different angles that aren't me just saying like,
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Hey,
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I want to do this.
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Is this something you'd be interested in?
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Yeah.
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What's wrong with saying that?
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That's such a great way to, that's such a great way to start that conversation.
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What's, what's wrong with that statement?
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What about that?
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I mean, now that I say like, now that I tell you the answer should be nothing.
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I think like,
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It feels very personal.
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It feels like in the moment, it's kind of the same reaction.
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I have this imagination of him saying no and being like,
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he's rejecting everything that I've done for the last year,
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which I know is completely irrational.
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But every time I like think about having that,
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I have that kind of sensorial reaction,
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if you will.
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Yeah.
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So, okay.
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So what if instead,
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what I'm hearing is that all this learning you've done,
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it can,
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and I totally get this feeling,
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it can feel like it'd be invalidated or something like that with this one decision.
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Yeah.
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And I think that can happen, sort of.
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I don't think that's really what would happen.
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But it could kind of happen if you've set it up so that that is what happens, right?
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That I'm going to make this really clear ask.
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It's going to be really clear yes or no.
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And it's going to A or B, you know, discredit everything or whatever the feeling is.
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And so I wonder about enrolling this person in learning about their reaction to it.
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And so you could be even more open and just say, I've been doing this practice and learning.
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I'm interested in exploring whether this is something valuable.
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Could I learn your perspective or could I get your feedback?
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Could you enroll them so that it's not A or B, yes or no?
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It's more, I'm trying to understand how this lands for you.
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I'm trying to see what you see as most valuable.
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that may progress the conversation to be a different frame.
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You can still say,
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I see this as a business and here's what I'm thinking about charging even,
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but there's no rejection opportunity in the same degree.
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That makes a lot of sense.
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I do think that would be,
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I don't want to say a lot easier because it's still an easy conversation,
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but it would feel a lot less personally invalidating,
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personally
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Threatening is not quite the right word, but that's the word that comes to mind.
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I think it makes sense that at this time, the two things feel intertwined, right?
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Like you and the learning and the product.
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And so that's what's on the chopping block, let's say, you know, for this conversation.
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I think what I've found in,
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and I've sold services for a long time now,
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is the more I put my attention on them,
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You know, the more I'm sort of looking at them, listening to them, what are they saying?
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How can I learn from what they're saying?
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The less I'm sort of thinking, what are they seeing about me?
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You know, are they validating my ideas?
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And so getting curious about them,
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asking them questions,
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asking them if you could get coffee to ask them questions and pose it that way
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versus pitching.
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I think pitching...
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itself maybe creates a bit more of that pressure dynamic of I need to say the right
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thing the right way to get the validation or to get the yes.
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So maybe interviewing, asking questions.
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Yeah,
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I'm curious in your experience,
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when you do that well,
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how much of an idea of the product or the service or the story do you already have?
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Or is it more like, I know I have these eight questions, for example, where on that line
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are you balancing between not selling,
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but also making sure you get the validation of the information you need?
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Yeah, yeah, I think this is a really great question.
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I would say that I'm trying to first,
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before I can offer something of value to somebody,
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I like to understand if what I'm selling to them might be needed.
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And so I wanna understand some questions about what challenges they might be
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facing,
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what context they're currently in,
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so that my pitch
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after the fact, matches what they need if they're the right fit for me, right?
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So let's just imagine that you're talking, and we can maybe play this out, right?
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You're talking with this person.
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Is it essentially homeschooling services that you want to sell?
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It's more like in-person learning experiences.
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Yeah, okay.
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It could be a full homeschool, but like,
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you know,
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these kind of six weeks long experiences with their kids and ideally with parents
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too,
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but I know that that's sometimes a harder lift.
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So this idea becomes a question, right?
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Have you ever paid for learning experiences with your kid?
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Have you ever invested in this type of product?
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Maybe something a little bit similar.
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What do you do when you find yourself with six weeks in the summer and there's no
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curriculum,
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but you still want your student to learn?
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You can take some of those ideas and turn them into questions where then they can
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tell you where they're coming from.
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What do you spend?
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Where do you spend the most money when it comes to your students' education?
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What have been the best experiences,
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you know,
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when your kid comes home and says they had the best experience ever?
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What was that like?
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And I think kind of where we're getting now as well is whether you're needing to
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educate people on a new type of product or whether this is a product that they're
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familiar with.
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So, but I want to pause.
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Does that kind of making sense is that...
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Yeah,
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just use questions that allow you to understand a bit more of how they would
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describe these things.
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That sounds so much easier than like,
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I designed this incredible thing and now I'm just going to sell it to you,
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which I've been more than guilty of.
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Something just came to mind to me, which I think is a really common challenge.
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When you're marketing online,
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or you're writing a book,
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you're creating something that is meant to be read by thousands of people who will
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never meet you.
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When you're selling an individual service to an individual in your community,
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you're having a conversation with somebody that you know or don't know,
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but you're in a conversation with them.
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A conversation can be more spontaneous, can be more connected, more relational.
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It's way less pressure.
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I think if you were writing, yeah, copy for like a marketing page,
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there is more refinement kind of needed there because it's,
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you don't know who's going to come across.
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It needs to nail every word and all the, you know, this is not, I think this is not like that.
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This is the benefit in some ways of the personal work that I think you want to do.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That resonates a lot.
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I love having conversations with people.
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I hate selling,
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but I love having conversations with people and I'm at my best one-on-one with
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another person.
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Yes.
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So one-on-one,
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you don't need all those materials necessarily because you are learning and
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connecting and maybe you hear something about what they're wanting.
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Oh, I think we only have a week, not six weeks.
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Like that's information for you.
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Okay.
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Maybe, maybe I think about that maybe, or maybe you don't, maybe you push forward.
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Right.
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But you can be a little bit more dynamic in the conversation.
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Yeah.
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That's cool.
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I appreciate that quite a bit.
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Yeah.
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Something else that might help is this category.
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Is this something that people are used to buying?
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I don't know how clear this feels to you, but that's a question that now pops up for me, right?
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How do they know what they're buying?
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The model I have of what they're buying or what we're kind of competing for time
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and attention and money with is
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after-school enrichment programs, at least to start.
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Long-term,
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I would love for this to be a full-time school or a community,
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but the easiest way to get the idea out there is comparing it to an after-school
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enrichment program where you can either take your kid,
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I don't know,
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like go horse riding,
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or you can come do this for the next six weeks and see what that's like.
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So now I'm curious because you said,
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I think there's only one person I can think of maybe who fits this.
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I was thinking this is like full-on homeschooling.
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Right.
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And you're saying it after school.
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Let's ask the question.
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Let's re-ask.
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Is there one person?
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Where is that coming from?
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Yeah, you got me.
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I'm not meaning to put you on the spot about it.
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I'm really just curious.
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I might want this actually.
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I think to your point,
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yeah,
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I could probably find 10 parents to do a first learning experience in our local
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community pretty easily.
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Yeah.
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That also takes the pressure off here a little bit now because now it's 10 conversation.
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There's learning in each,
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you know,
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or maybe it's more than 10 and some people join,
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some people don't.
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It also removes a little bit of that
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A or B, this exists or not.
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How will they find,
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in talking with them,
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like there's this extra benefit that could emerge for you,
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which is now you have 10 people who you can talk with about this.
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I don't know, maybe that's, and so it's 100 students, 10 parents who are super energized.
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You know, that's possible for sure.
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And so I think these conversations create the opportunity for that to potentially exist.
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So the question around selling too now is like,
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you know,
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how much do I need before I go into sell?
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You asked me that question.
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That's actually, you got the first experience.
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So that's dialed too.
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I think part of that is having the first experience and writing this all out gave
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me that feeling of like,
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oh,
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if I get rejected,
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they're rejecting mine.
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But I've also like, I've talked to at least five parents who said, this would be really cool.
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Like we'd love to enroll our kids.
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And somewhere between knowing that and feeling like there's one person who like,
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it's fully aligned on the overall vision.
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I, uh, I very much have gotten myself stuck.
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It's understandable.
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It's meaningful work when you,
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start to work on things that are more meaningful to you and you've invested a lot
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of personal time in this learning I understand how that can be something that the
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inclination is to kind of okay I don't know if I can really like show this off too
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much because you know and I I do I do feel that the flip side is also available
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which is
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here's this thing I'm finding kind of cool and interesting.
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And as I'm sharing it, there's actually more people, right?
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It actually can go the other way where it's like more interesting conversations
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with more people.
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more experiences you get to have expanded learning and,
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you know,
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to bring it back to,
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I think what's important to you is also a path to income.
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So in this,
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I think we need to keep that really present because the other parts that can feel
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good,
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that are a little less scary in some ways of,
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you know,
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having payment.
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And so what that means is somewhere in these dialogues,
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It's off track if there's not some aspect of it's a learning program after school.
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Here's the first one.
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I'm thinking it's X dollars,
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you know,
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or I'm taking registrations for early signups or any early signups or X dollars.
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That's that is part of the validation.
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Yep.
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And part of the conversation.
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I've I mean, when I wrote up this thing, it says in there, like, this is a
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premium experience for children and it's $300 for six weeks.
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I even have a link to Stripe to accept payments.
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Okay, great.
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Yeah.
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So I've gotten as far as I can without like actually having conversations.
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That's awesome.
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Great.
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So I think the path here is conversations, right?
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So I'm sort of, I'm expanding on this path that I want.
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If I'm having these types of conversations,
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the ones we're talking about,
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and sounds like there's maybe 10 people in that orbit already.
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I think so.
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To start with.
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Yeah.
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And each one's such a learning opportunity too, you know?
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Yeah, that feels right.
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I mean,
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it feels like viewing it as a learning opportunity and as a way to not get feedback
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on my idea as much as just see what people value and where it's aligned and where
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it's not aligned feels a lot easier.
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It definitely feels like the next step.
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Totally.
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And including,
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you know,
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I'll just say this again,
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including the payment part at some point that it structurally needs to be there for
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this progress to work for you.
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You sort of have to leap for other people to leap.
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And I don't know if when this will feel right, but having a schedule or
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When it begins,
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there's a moment where I think you might want to think about,
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it starts on this day.
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I'm having these conversations now.
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And that way you're telling them that it's coming up, it's starting.
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People will feel that commitment.
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If you're too exploratory, there's no boundaries.
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It might happen, it might not happen.
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It's not like grippy for people to actually decide yes or no, pay yes or no.
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A start date can also be a very powerful tool for your own commitment and for theirs.
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Okay.
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Would you recommend having conversations before a pick-to-start date?
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Yeah, I think a conversation or two could help you feel more comfortable.
(00:18:34):
You could circle back up with those people with a date.
(00:18:37):
What I'm really saying is that
(00:18:40):
There's this commitment.
(00:18:42):
There's this aspect of commitment that you are asking of them with payment.
(00:18:47):
It could be a quick conversation or two and maybe you get them to pre-order and
(00:18:50):
then you set the date.
(00:18:53):
But that will add structure that will help more people decide.
(00:18:56):
It'll be for your benefit as well.
(00:19:00):
Any reflections or anything else you want to share here or questions before we wrap up?
(00:19:07):
I mean, it sounds, as I hear us talking about it, I'm like, why couldn't I figure this out?
(00:19:12):
I was in the Navy and we always had a term.
(00:19:15):
If you can't figure out your own shit, somebody else is going to show it to you.
(00:19:18):
It's, uh,
(00:19:18):
It's super helpful.
(00:19:19):
So I really appreciate that.
(00:19:21):
Great.
(00:19:22):
Yeah.
(00:19:23):
I, yeah, it's, it's, it makes sense, right?
(00:19:26):
It's just this,
(00:19:26):
it is this little line in the sand you're kind of stepping over into and,
(00:19:31):
but I think once you do that,
(00:19:32):
then you'll,
(00:19:33):
you'll feel,
(00:19:33):
okay,
(00:19:34):
this is actually,
(00:19:34):
we're,
(00:19:35):
yeah,
(00:19:36):
moving forward.
(00:19:38):
Yeah.
(00:19:38):
I'm, I'm excited.
(00:19:40):
Awesome.
(00:19:41):
Well, thank you so much.
(00:19:42):
And yeah, I can't wait to hear about how, how things go.
(00:19:46):
Thank you.
(00:19:46):
Me too.
(00:19:47):
Awesome.
