LinkedIn Post: The Pyramid Is Lying

Source: /opt/gcv-portfolio/captions/9Ruftpr452A.en.vtt — GCV funnel-graph / retention-loop talk with Kennedy, ~00:00:01–00:01:34 (funnel graph + "slightly inaccurate" / ouroboros loop) + ~02:31–02:48 (feedback powers your org)

I've got a graph I show in almost everything we make. I love showing it. It's everything you have to systematically do to get people to be part of what you're doing: find them, approach them, talk to them, organize them. A pyramid that ends the moment they say yes.

Every time I show it I have to add the same correction, because the pyramid's lying to you.

Retention isn't a pyramid. It's a loop. An ouroboros, a circle feeding back into itself. You don't want somebody in a pipeline that ends. You want them to stay, year after year, even when the relationship changes. Maybe they can't give you as much money anymore, maybe they want to give you way more and expect more for it. Either way you don't want them to leave.

Even if all they're doing is staying in the loop as a friendly face that says nice things about you, you don't want them to leave that loop. The person who's already inside, who already knows the system and has experience with you, that's who powers the whole thing. Their feedback becomes your message. You stop doing all the finding and approaching and talking by yourself, because now the people in the loop are doing it for you.

I was showing this graph to Kennedy the other day and we kept landing on the same thing. The most powerful thing anyone can do for you is stay in the loop and tell people what you do. Most of us spend everything climbing back up a pyramid we've already climbed once, chasing strangers, when the people who'd sell us hardest are already standing next to us.

If there's someone who's been saying nice things about you for years and you've never once gone back to them, that's the person to call first.

draft from corpus — based on Brandyn's GCV funnel-graph / retention-loop talk with Kennedy (9Ruftpr452A.en.vtt)