Is it ever ok to move a deadline?

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0:37Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show, where we have amazing conversations about business, life, and everything on the in-between. And we're going to be talking today a little bit about time, which yes, does affect our personal and professional life. So, Let's start off with a question. What happens when you set an unrealistic timeline? Like, okay, so I'm going to be clear. You don't think this timeline is unreasonable when you set it. And then you might even think you've put a lot of thought into that timeline. But then there comes a point when you realize that you're pushing up against the deadline and then you're forced to make a series of decisions.

1:16Okay. I've been here. I've done that. And so I can be the first to tell you that these decisions are never easy. But I've noticed the best business owners weigh their deadlines versus their objectives. And it took me a really long time to learn this. In fact, I did it the opposite way. I was really weighing my deadline more than anything else. I wasn't even weighing the deadline against anything. But I saw really amazing business owners weigh their deadlines versus their objectives. So let's start a story back in 2020. So we had a big promotion plant. I mean, it was going to be massive. And I was so excited.

1:54I knew it was going to be amazing. And I knew that we were going to serve people really well. But the closer we got to the deadline, it became very apparent that I was putting a lot of pressure on the team to hit this deadline. I didn't feel like the messaging was as strong as it could be. And I was rushing our tech department to meet these deadlines. And I felt anxiety on the inside. And then like late one night, you know, I was talking to JD, my husband, my business partner, and I was expressing these thoughts. And I was like, is the messaging right? Am I putting too much pressure? He looked at me and said, well, why can't you move the deadline?

2:29And I have to tell you, it was such a simple question, but it frustrated me because at the moment I felt really misunderstood. Like, didn't he know how important this promotion was? Didn't he know like the goals and all these expectations and how we were going to do it in quarter two and what this meant for LTV and the lifetime value for that particular year. Didn't he know that we had planned and budgeted our ads and then the ads had a campaign and then we had to hit a certain timeframe and everything was all judged. And I was like basically the salt bay of launching, adding a little secret sauce.

3:00And so when he asked if we can move the deadline, dang, I felt like he was disregarding the fact that we had a deadline to begin with. And I was like, what's the point of a deadline if you move it? You know what I'm saying? And so when I look back, I realized that he asked the most powerful question. He didn't say move the deadline. He essentially asked if I thought it would be best to move the deadline. And I think it's important because a lot of times we create deadlines and And then we make the deadlines mean something. Like we apply a meaning to the deadline. Or maybe I shouldn't say we. Maybe you don't do this.

3:40I'm just going to make this like my general sentiment. If I have a deadline, come hell or high water, I stick my heels in the ground. I'm like, we're going to hit that deadline. It means something to me. I apply a meaning. So we sometimes apply a meaning about what it says about our team, our ambitions. It's, I was applying a meaning about what it meant about our capabilities. Like we sit big goals, we hit big goals and we hit them in time. And it became this like identity. It became this like badge that I was wearing, but the deadline was something like we made up, like we made up the deadline and nobody with the exception of the team knew about the deadline.

4:25And here's the real talk. nobody knows this invisible badge of a deadline we wear like there are badges that only a team can see and to be quite honest if i'm being very real not all the team cares about your badge like we don't need those thinking badges you know what i'm saying and yet i made it mean something the timeline was something we made up and then we applied a deadline on top of it right so i don't know about you but it's like here's this proposed timeline and at the timeline we also add a deadline. Like there's these two things that I'm like live and die by. Now, could we not have the courage to change the timeline without it meaning something about our business?

5:04And like, let's be real, maybe even more so. Could we not change the timeline and have it not mean something about ourselves? Now, we delayed the launch back in 2020. And at first I was like, no. And then I stuck my heels in the mud and it was like a hell no. Like we are going to do this. And then I started asking myself, why? What did it even mean? You don't get the awards or least amount of changes in a business. Like you don't. You get what you want when you make good decisions. And delaying that launch, man, it was the best decision. It was one of the biggest promotions we had ever executed.

5:49And I believe it was because we gave ourselves a little more time to create a stellar experience. And this actually happened again recently. I say it a thousand times over, but I could not be more excited to work with a team filled with brilliant minds and hardworking top performers. These are like Olympic deadline, Olympic deadline. Oh my gosh. did you guys hear that Freudian slip? I said Olympic deadline. What I meant was these are Olympic level players. Wow. Jasmine, I need to come correct. Do I need to go to therapy for my passion about deadlines? I totally do. Now I'm going to go back to this team.

6:29This team is brilliant and they are hardworking Olympic level team players. Okay. So we had set a deadline for February 14th, 2023, and we were going to release a brand new updated platform for social curator. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar, I'm the CEO of Social Curator. It is a planning app for business owners to create and schedule their social media marketing posts. And we have resources and a community, and we are here to solve marketing problems. Like we are here to ensure that you show up with swagger and ease and results. Okay. Now we were so excited for this launch and I'm going to be, I'm going to be honest.

7:03I was particularly smitten with this idea of launching this new updated platform on February 14th. Okay. Do you guys see where I'm going here already. From a marketing perspective, I was looking at it and calling it internally like the we love you campaign. Get it? Dropping on February 14th. We love you. Okay. Anyway, I was like, hey, members and users of Social Curator, we love you. We're dropping a new amazing platform to show how much we appreciate you. And it was going to be super cute and it's going to be catchy. And it was like, it was branded. I was like, oh, smitten, ready to go. when February 10th rolled around, this is four days before our launch, I realized I was doing it again.

7:46I realized that I had waited too long to ask bigger questions about the timeline. And I waited too long to make a decision about that deadline. Now, a few days before February 10th, I reminded the team that the deadline, hey, deadlines are important. They are very important, but they're not so important that a timeline supersedes or trumps having a killer experience for an updated product launch. That was just it. It's not worth it. If we do it wrong, it wasn't worth it to head the deadline. On February 10th, I called a meeting with some of the key stakeholders and I expressed my concern, but I started the meeting by stating the goal of the meeting.

8:26So instead of me coming in and being like, this is my opinion, I said, this is the goal. I wanted to ensure that everybody felt empowered to state their case and give reasons why we should or should not delay the platform release. I didn't come in with a predisposed idea. I'm like, I need you to give me reasons why we should, why we shouldn't. Now it's important for me to do this as a leader because I don't want this organization run by a dictator. Like I have an idea or I have an opinion and therefore that should be the entire organization's opinion. No, I don't have the best opinions or the best ideas or the best systems.

9:03I believe that getting a room full of differing ideas and people help us come up with the best ideas and opinions. So it's really important to hear from your teammates because they have different insights and vantage points of the same situation. You know, our team in CST, they see it, our customer success team, they see it differently than our tech team. And our marketing team sees it differently. And our community team, they see it differently. So we have to open ourselves to see different perspectives that then empower us to make the best decision. So how do we make a decision or how do we make a decision to delay or postpone a project?

9:42So I'm not going to talk about the decision framework. I really want to focus here on the decision to delay framework. Now here's a four part framework with the questions that I asked to help us make our decision. And I'm sharing them with you because when you are faced with this idea of having to delay or postpone, sometimes you feel like, oh, I'm making an emotional decision or is this the right one? Instead of wondering, when you run it through a framework, it makes you feel a lot more confident about that decision. So four questions for this framework. Question number one, is the delay in the best interest of our customers?

10:17The answer has to be yes. We must always keep their best interest our main focus. Your customers should be your number one. Number two, will it be an A-plus experience if we delay? Like, will it make users excited to talk and share about their experience? That answer, if we delay, it must be yes. Number three, are all the team members fully prepared and empowered to support at 100 %? We want our team to be just as excited to debut the product as much as we want our users to be excited to use the product. If we delay, can we get every team member to 100 %? Now, the answer to this question must be yes.

11:06And then it gets into our last and final question, which is question number four. Will postponing have a devastating effect on the business? The answer should be no. If you delay and it has a devastating effect on the business, well, then you shouldn't do that. If you know, hey, we need this promotion at this time or else we run out of money or else X. Well, you know, then you have to move forward. But if it's not going to be devastating, then why rush it? If it won't have a devastating effect on the business, then hey, you know, we're afforded the luxury of waiting for further beta testing. By answering these questions, it allowed us to take an honest, objective look if we should delay.

11:48At the end of the team meeting, we voted and we decided that it was best to delay the launch for further testing and more user feedback. Now, I know there could be the temptation to feel disappointed or really let down, but I've come to believe that that would be just mismanage energy. A delay doesn't mean a failure. A delay doesn't mean a misstep. A delay is a powerful opportunity to get your promotion or your project or your new feature. like give it the chance to have the most successful possible outcome right at the outset. That's 100 % what we really wanted to happen. So I hope that you found this four part framework and assessing whether to delay a project or promotion.

12:31I really hope you found it helpful, but I'm going to take a second and give insights into what I was thinking and feeling as the CEO on February 10th. Oh, I wrote a lot of notes and I feel like it's a little bit hard to read them and then share them. But you know, like here we are, we are in May, 2023 at the time of this recording, like when we push publish and looking back at who I was in February, like I felt an undercurrent of concern that I was going to disappoint the team, you know, like requesting or suggesting, like calling the meeting, I felt like I was disappointing them because they were really excited for this debut.

13:11Like so many people had worked endless hours on the project. They were so truly proud of what we were putting out and I didn't want them to think that I did not trust their capabilities for success. I didn't want to override their excitement. It was important for me to put myself in their shoes and see things from their perspective. And then I had to speak in such a way that they knew I was empathetic. I wanted to show that I'm seeing it from your perspective. I see what you want. I see your excitement. But I was equally empathetic to the experience that our users would be having with the new platform.

13:45Our customers, I had to weigh the desires and excitement from our team against the desires and excitement from our customers. Now, I was told by a mentor that a good leader listens more than she speaks. So I needed to create a safe space for this team to be honest with me. and I wanted them to be honest with each other. My job was less about sharing my opinions and it was more about creating the space for the leaders in the organization to share their opinions. At the end of the call, I thanked this team. Ooh, I was like, I was moved by them. I thank them because they powerfully shared their truth and a lot of people, they had to humble themselves.

14:27Like they took a knee. They said, I don't know if we should delay, but by hearing other team members, they said, all right, I'm going to take a knee and I'm going to understand that we're not fighting against each other. We're fighting for our customers. We're on the same team. We all want the same outcome, but the way that we achieve that outcome must be balanced by every perspective. If we are to do big things for our users and our customers and our members, for people who are looking and wanting to grow their business, for people who are saying, I want to do the impossible, we have to say, we will help you.

15:00And the way that we will help you must put them first always, even if it comes at the cost of the excitement and the ambition and the vision from our team. Now we get to do it together. Now, when we get to push and challenge and encourage each other to look at the same situation from different vantage points, our clients are going to win. Our customers are going to win. Our users are going to win. Your members are going to win. Everybody who you serve, they're going to win. And that's important. And I think it's important as a leader to understand that the team wants to do well, and they want to hit projected timelines and deadlines.

15:32It's important that I acknowledge that. And it's equally as important that I acknowledge the freedom and the wisdom to take time to ensure that we put ourselves behind what is best for our customers. Now, if you have like insights or effective ways or advice from you postponing a project or a promotion, like I would love to hear from you. Like I am in my Instagram direct messages. When you all connect with me, It makes me feel very thankful that these podcasts are helping people look at their business through a different lens. And please don't waste any time trying to get an invisible badge of we always hit our deadlines.

16:10Like I have been there and like those patches fall off in the washer and dryer. Okay. If you have enjoyed this podcast, actually, I'm not going to go to the end of the podcast. I'm not going to end the podcast yet. You want to know why? Because we launched the new platform and we launched it differently than we had expected. did. On March 16th, 2023, we decided to launch the brand new platform, not to our users. We wanted to do more testing. We had did a beta test with 130 users of Social Curator. We did it for a few weeks. We watched what they did. We watched what they said. Our CTO had sent a list of questions and objectives for our users and say, please do this.

16:52Give us feedback. Please do this and give us feedback. And 130 people did everything. And they gave us the most incredible feedback. But then we thought, instead of rolling it out to the thousands of people on the inside of Social Curator, how can we make this even better? So I'm going to share a decision we made. We decided on March 16th to release it to people who joined Social Curator using a free trial. Now, I, as a CEO, had to make the decision of, can we use this as a sampling before we share it to the people who are paying us? So a free trial, somebody comes in and then they have the idea, objective opportunity to upgrade within 14 days.

17:34So you get a free trial for 14 days. But if they didn't upgrade, we actually didn't lose anything, right? And so what we used during this trial only beta testing. So we didn't tell people we're doing this. So when somebody signed up for a trial between like after March 16th, they were going through and all we were doing was watching on the backend. How are they using Dottie? Now, Dottie was a new thing to our platform that we added. Dottie is your social media manager. Dottie helps you write your content, helps you find hashtags. Dottie helps you get more followers, customers. Okay. So Dottie was this massive introduction.

18:06And so we wanted to make sure that Dottie was answering everything right. And if somebody decided not to upgrade, you know, join social carrier after the free trial, Okay. But we learned a lot. So I was like, great. And it was on the back of those trialers that we got feedback where people got stuck. How do we make it better? And Dottie became invincible. So that when we opened Dottie to all of our users, it was an impeccable experience. It was one of those things that I look back to February 10th, when we called that meeting, We were different people. We were a different business. We wanted to hit a deadline But we took a knee in light of our customers and i'm so proud that this team had the courage to do that.

18:52Why? Because the new social curator is gangster It's gangster I look at this and I think to myself my god It's taken us five years To create this It's so different It's so good and people have solutions that are driven entirely for them. Hot dang. Makes me really proud. So I'm sharing that with you because if you are dedicated to those deadlines, it's okay. Deadline isn't a failure and deadline isn't a snuffu. A deadline might just be the very thing that you need. So if you enjoy this podcast, if you have received any bit of help or inspiration, it would mean the world for me, you know, to me, for me.

19:39My grammar is not correct. If you subscribe to the show and here's why, when you subscribe, it helps us keeping this show completely ads free. I have never run an ad on this show. This show is solely focused on sharing what I know. So when you subscribe and when you leave a review, I mean a real human, y 'all, me, yo girl does a happy dance because you get to consume this ad free and you get to consume what has taken me years to learn. And all I want is to know that you're here and you're on the journey. And when people subscribe and when they leave a comment or they leave a review, it's proof that what we are putting out in the world is making an impact.

20:16And it's also proof that my dad isn't the only person who listens to this podcast. Shout out, papi. Hola, te amo mucho. Okay. And by the way, thank you for listening. It means the world to me.

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