Business training for people who'd rather be doing the work
You've built something good, so why isn't anyone buying it?
You’re brilliant at the actual work, it’s the selling bit that keeps tripping you up. You weren’t trained to sell, so when you do put the effort in, it doesn’t get the return it should, and it’s hard to keep going at something that isn’t working.
So the sales and marketing tasks get pushed to next week while you get on with the jobs you’re good at, and the whole business feels like it’s stalling.
There are three places your effort drains away before it ever turns into a sale, and once you know which one you’ve got, you’ll know why the selling hasn’t been working and what to do to get things moving again.
Fafflement (noun)
Trifling and unnecessary work (it’s where the word faff comes from).
It’s an English dialect word, recorded around 1900, and we all do it: the safe, comfortable tasks that feel like progress – tweaking the website, tidying the inbox, having another go at the logo – while the uncomfortable jobs that would actually bring in customers keep sliding to next week.
Three leaks, and you've almost certainly got one.
When a business isn’t selling, the instinct is to assume you’re not doing enough, so you work longer, add features, redesign the website and post a bit more.
It feels like progress because you’re busy, but often nothing changes because the problem isn’t how hard you’re working. It’s that all that effort is draining away somewhere before it ever reaches a customer.
Three areas drain most of your effort. But they are also the ones that, if you get them right, will help you find customers and grow.
01
LEAK 1
The offer problem
You’ve built something you’re proud of, but is it something people want to buy? Are you aiming it at the right audience? Often, the thing you’ve made is fine, and it’s just aimed at the wrong people.
02
LEAK 2
The visibility problem
You might be the best-kept secret in your industry, which is lovely for your competitors and of no use at all to you. This one’s about turning up somewhere often enough that the right people know you exist.
03
LEAK 3
The clarity problem
You know your subject inside out, but you’re too close to your own business to see it the way a stranger does, which is exactly what makes it hard to explain simply. People arrive, they can’t work out what you do or whether it’s for them, and off they go again.
THE PLACE TO GET HELP
The Leak Lab.
The Leak Lab is where you find the leak and then do something about it.
Start with the free diagnostic, read the book, work through the exercises, take a workbook or a course for the bit you’re stuck on, and if you’d rather have someone in it with you, book a session.
The Book
Building Sh*t No One Wants
It’s the whole thing in one place, written for founders who are great at the work and stuck on the selling. It takes the three leaks in order, and every chapter has prompts and try-this exercises in it so you’re doing the work as you read rather than nodding along and forgetting the lot by the time you’ve made a cup of tea.
“… it’s a step-by-step masterclass in helping founders make sure they build stuff that people actually do want to buy – and helps them figure out how to sell it!”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazon Review
THE PODCAST
Rearranging Deckchairs
Honest conversations with founders and experts about why good businesses struggle to sell, and how to fix that. My guests are brilliant at owning up to the bits that went wrong and how they fixed them.
We cover all the important topics across marketing, sales, strategy, and accountability – to make sure we’re all keeping on track doing the tasks that matter most.
THE COMMUNITY
Faff to Focus Club
A new Facebook Group, a place to come and ask me things directly. It’s free to join, and everyone is welcome – just a lovely, safe and friendly space.
If you’ve got a question about your offer, your visibility or your clarity, that’s where I am most days, so pop along and ask it. I look forward to seeing you there.
Hello!
Who's behind all this.
I’m Anna Bravington, and I’ve spent over 25 years in and around business and marketing. I’ve been inside more than a hundred different companies, figuring out why some sell and some don’t. I’ve started five businesses of my own, so I know what it’s like from that side too.
I wrote Building Sh*t No One Wants because the same three problems kept turning up wherever I went. I was also named one of NatWest and the Telegraph’s 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch, and to a lot of the people I work with, I’m known as the biscuit lady, which I’ve done nothing to discourage – I particularly love a dark chocolate digestive.
Not sure where your business is leaking?
The quiz asks you six questions about how people find you and what happens when they do, and it takes a couple of minutes. You’ll get an answer at the end telling you which of the three leaks looks most likely, and what to do about it first. There’s no email needed to see it.