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Psychology Today says that some sources believe the average person makes 35,000 decisions per day. If you’re sleeping for seven hours each day, that means you’re making over 2,000 decisions per hour.
Certainly many of those decisions are being made without much thought, or even so little thought that we don’t realize we’re making them at all. But today’s story does not center around a thoughtless decision. This was a decision I knew was important. It consumed me. I spent weeks thinking about it. I consulted friends, colleagues, and professionals. I knew the stakes and I didn’t want to mess it up.
Finally, after carefully weighing the situation, I made my decision. And it didn’t take long to realize that despite all my best efforts, I’d made the wrong choice.
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. This is episode 698, “The Silent Exit.” I’m Darrell Darnell. We’ve had over 40 podcasts on the Golden Spiral Media network, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
We launched Golden Spiral Media in the spring of 2011 because we realized we wanted to podcast about more than just Fringe. By that time, we’d been podcasting for about three years and had built a real reputation for high quality, well produced content.
As 2013 rolled around, I was preparing to leave my corporate job behind and leverage my podcast production skills by offering podcast editing to other podcasters. There weren’t many other companies offering those services in those days, and the opportunity seemed perfect.
So the hard decision wasn’t whether to leave my corporate job. That part I was sure about. The hard choice was whether I should create a totally new brand name for my podcast production business, or leverage the Golden Spiral Media brand. That brand was well-known for quality, but it was the name of our podcast network featuring our own content. Up to that point, we’d never used it to promote any kind of service.
So I asked everyone I could think of who might give me an insightful and educated answer. I even spoke to a marketing executive at a major media company. And the more people I spoke with, the more uncertain I became. The opinions were split nearly 50/50.
Half of those I spoke with thought I should leverage the existing brand and build on the reputation for quality and professionalism we’d already established. The other half pointed out that our existing brand had nothing to do with offering services to others, and that it would be better to start fresh with something new.
In the end, I opted to leverage our existing brand. I created a new page on our website and added a link to it on our home page. I networked with people in the podcasting space to help generate leads. But the business was not growing as quickly as I’d hoped. I did pick up a few clients, but they almost exclusively came through referrals, not through the website.
Then one day, one of those referrals shared something with me that changed everything.
During an email exchange, I invited her to have a discovery call so I could learn more about her podcast needs and she could learn more about the services I provided. She politely turned me down. She had visited my website and saw a bunch of sci-fi podcasts. She did notice the single page I’d created about podcast production services, but as she put it, that gave her the impression that podcast production was just something we did on the side. And she was only interested in working with someone who was doing podcast production full time.
I quickly emailed her back and let her know that I was indeed doing this full time, and explained why the website looked the way it did. Fortunately, she agreed to meet with me and eventually became a client. In fact, we worked together for the next six years until she retired her podcast in late 2020.
But that insight she gave me was critical.
I’d already been 50/50 about whether I should have created a standalone brand, and when the website wasn’t converting into clients the way I’d hoped, the doubt had been quietly building. So when Linda told me she was walking away from my brand because it was telling her I was more into sci-fi than serving clients, it was a voice I couldn’t ignore.
I immediately began planning a new brand that would clearly communicate my message. No more mixed messages. No more crossed wires. That decision was everything. Almost immediately after I launched it, things began to change. Leads converted at a much higher rate and we started seeing consistent growth. A few months later, I put up a booth at a conference where I showcased the new brand. Business exploded.
Here’s what I learned.
Confusion is silent. That’s the thing about a mixed message that makes it so dangerous. When people are confused by what they see, they don’t usually stop to ask for clarification. They don’t send you a helpful email breaking down exactly what threw them off. They just leave. They click away, they move on, and you never hear from them. You never even know they were there.
That’s why Linda’s feedback hit me so hard. She almost left too. She would have, if I hadn’t pushed back with that follow-up email. And it’s important to remember that when one person takes the time to actually tell you what confused them or what pushed them away, they are almost never the only one. They’re just the one who said something. For every Linda who speaks up, there are probably ten, twenty, maybe fifty other people who felt the exact same way and quietly disappeared without a word.
Think about that for a second. One voice. One email. But it wasn’t just her voice. It was the voice of everyone else who had landed on that website, felt uncertain about what I actually did, and bounced. She was just the one brave enough, or kind enough, to tell me.
So when a customer or a client gives you feedback, even if it stings a little, even if your first instinct is to explain yourself or defend your choices, stop. Listen. Really listen. Because that one voice is almost always carrying a message on behalf of a much larger, much quieter crowd.
Now, that doesn’t mean every piece of feedback deserves the same weight. It doesn’t. There’s a real difference between signal and noise, and learning to tell them apart is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a business owner or a leader or really anyone who is trying to grow.
Here’s how I think about it. Good feedback is specific. Linda didn’t just say, “Your website felt off.” She told me exactly what she saw, exactly what she concluded from it, and exactly why it almost cost me her business. That kind of specificity is gold. It points directly at a real problem you can actually fix. Vague feedback, the kind that’s just general frustration or a complaint without a clear root cause, is harder to act on. It might still be worth paying attention to, but it shouldn’t be the thing that drives a major decision.
Good feedback also tends to rhyme with things you’ve already been sensing. I’d had this nagging feeling for months that something wasn’t working. The referrals were coming in fine, but the website wasn’t pulling its weight. Linda’s feedback didn’t blindside me. It confirmed what I’d quietly suspected but hadn’t been willing to fully admit yet. When feedback clicks into place like that, when it names the thing you already felt in your gut, that’s usually a sign it’s worth acting on.
And good feedback comes from the person you’re actually trying to reach. Linda was exactly my target client. She was a podcaster looking for professional, full-time production support. Her confusion wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a message. She was telling me that my brand was failing the exact people I was trying to serve. That matters enormously. Not every opinion deserves equal weight, but the opinion of the person you’re specifically trying to reach? That one goes to the top of the pile every time.
The broader lesson in all of this is really about clarity. Clear, simple, focused communication is not just a nice thing to have. It is the foundation. Whether it’s your website, your elevator pitch, your social media presence, or the way you describe what you do at a networking event, your message needs to do one job and do it well: it needs to answer the question “what do you do and why should I care?” without making someone work for the answer.
If someone has to read between the lines, they won’t. If they have to figure out which part of your website actually applies to them, most of them won’t bother. If they walk away uncertain about who you are or what you offer, they will find someone who makes it easier. Because there is always someone who makes it easier.
I had to learn that the hard way. I poured weeks into a decision and still got it wrong. I consulted smart, experienced people and still got it wrong. And honestly, that’s okay. The mistake wasn’t the end of the story. The mistake was part of the story. What mattered was that I stayed curious enough to keep asking questions, humble enough to receive hard feedback when it came, and willing enough to blow it all up and start over when the evidence was clear.
One more thing. There’s something that happens when you get your message right. When it’s clear and honest and pointed directly at the people you’re trying to serve, something almost magnetic kicks in. The right people find you. They trust you faster. They’re not confused about whether you’re the right fit. They already feel like you get them before they’ve even reached out. That’s not an accident. That’s the power of clear communication doing its job.
Don’t let a mixed message be the reason the right people walk away from you. Listen to your Lindas. Look for the feedback that confirms what you already suspect. Fix the thing. Start over if you have to.
The world doesn’t need you to be perfect. It just needs you to be clear.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag on June 29th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page.