The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

by Josh Kaufman

Here are a few tips to maximize the value of the Feedback you receive: 1. Get Feedback from real potential customers instead of friends and family. Your inner circle typically wants you to succeed and wants to maintain a good relationship with you, so it’s likely that they’ll unintentionally sugarcoat their Feedback. For best results, be sure to get plenty of Feedback from people who aren’t personally invested in you or your project. 2. Ask open-ended questions. When collecting Feedback, you should be listening more than you talk. Have a few open-ended questions prepared to give the conversation a bit of structure, but otherwise encourage the other person to do most of the talking. Short who/what/when/where/why/how questions typically work best. Watch what they do, and compare their actions with what they say. 3. Steady yourself, and keep calm. Asking for genuine Feedback (the only useful kind) requires thick skin—no one likes hearing their baby is ugly. Try not to get offended or defensive if someone doesn’t like what you’ve created; they’re doing you a great service. 4. Take what you hear with a grain of salt. Even the most discouraging Feedback contains crucial pieces of information that can help you make your offering better. The worst response you can get when asking for Feedback isn’t emphatic dislike: it’s total apathy. If no one seems to care about what you’ve created, you don’t have a viable business idea. 5. Give potential customers the opportunity to preorder. O...

Tips for collecting feedback