Fight Your #FOFO

The C-suite is pressing you to prove -- and improve -- your value. In making that happen, the only thing you have to fear is Fear itself.

Proof is one year old today! Thanks to our customers and our critics, we have learned a ton, and our biggest lessons had nothing to do with our product. They were all about how to help people deal with FOFO.

FOFO is the Fear of Finding Out. If you've never heard of FOFO, it's a close cousin to Imposter Syndrome and all the other negative self-talk we all struggle with.

Unfortunately, the fear that many people feel is rooted in personal experience. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff offered an explosive critique two days ago from the main stage at the World Economic Forum. One of his main points was that many tech companies have prioritized hyper-growth and valuation to such an extent that they’ve lost the trust of customers, employees and investors. At Proof, we agree with Marc 1000%. Growth is good, but not if you have to lie to people to get it.

If you talk to as many customers as I have this past year, they’ll tell you story after story about companies who knowingly over-promised and under-delivered just to get the sale. If you talk to investors, you’ll hear stories of strong early growth followed by massive churn as customers figured out that the original sales pitch was less than honest. If you talk to founders, you’ll hear stories about investors who pushed so hard for the hockey stick that corners were cut and trust was destroyed across the board.

At Proof, we faced many of the same “Year 1” challenges in 2017 that any start-up has to grapple with. 2018 is likely to have a lot more of the same and some new ones besides. But our team decided a long time ago that we would build a principled software business that delivered what we promised, in the right way and for the right reasons, or we would all go home. While we have sought the best way forward, we have not sought to “hack” growth. We have not engineered our cap table with all kinds of preferences. Every claim we make about Proof, our technology and our value is a claim we can defend and deliver. We tell customers that Proof will deliver significant value if everyone does their part, or they get their money back. After the shock wears off, they start to smile.

We made these decisions because we realized very early in our company that everything was going to hinge on doing our best to meet people where they are -- in the midst of their needs, their concerns, their fears, their desires. I know it sounds like “no duh,” but remember that when you're birthing a startup, you've got your own needs, concerns, fears and desires. Being human ourselves, it can be really hard some days to set those needs aside and listen to the other people on the call or at the table. But as we learned to listen more and talk less, we saw that there were three really helpful questions we should ask, and then we should listen to the answers. In the end, these three questions help everyone see whether we should work together, and if the answer is yes, to set everyone up for maximum success.

Question #1: Do you want to know ______________?

Many people see analytics as a terrifying combination of judge, jury and executioner. This perception has done more to harm the cause of analytics adoption than any other I can think of. But the truth is that analytics is none of those things. Analytics is a coach, a helper, even a therapist of sorts. In the words of the U.S. Marine Corps, analytics wants you to "be all that you can be" and then some.

To make that point, let's imagine that you had a chance to sit with Venus Williams, Elton John or Sir Richard Branson and learn what they know? Would you do it, or would you see them as a threat to your own self-image? What if s/he told you that you were doing absolutely awesome there, there and there, but that you were really falling short here, here and here? Would you stand up and walk out, or would you suppress your natural defensive response and listen so that you could learn and be even better?

Question #2: Do you believe in what you do?

When it comes to buying and implementing an analytics solution, it's crucial to already have confidence in the value you're already creating and the desire to both prove it and improve it. Saying “Yes” means that you have the will to see it through, to get it done, to be better today than yesterday.

This is why “Do you believe…?” is such an important question, despite being very hard to ask without sounding rude. Fear of Finding Out is the biggest challenge facing any analytics purchase decision. Feelings of FOFO are so strong in some marketing and PR teams that it overpowers their highly developed FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

With respect to marketing, PR and other functions, the irony is that analytics often support the “conventional wisdom." Teams that use Proof are often surprised and elated to learn that many of their investments are already delivering strong incremental returns. But they had to step through their fear – their sense of risk – to get there.

Question #3: Are you willing to change what you're doing?

This is all about the willingness to learn and then move in a different direction if you need to. In software startups, this is called the Pivot, and pivots come in all shapes, sizes and levels of significance. No person, no team, no company ever succeeded without pivoting because pivoting is all about learning. That's true for everyone, no exceptions.

It's time to call BS on FOFO. The odds are high that you're already creating a lot of value for your company. It’s time for everyone to know it!

Mark Stouse is CEO of Proof Analytics, a powerful new business impact analytics platform that helps you and your organization prove and improve your business impact. For more information, visit www.proofanalytics.ai.