and curious about how things are going for them,” said engage and share what they are learning and thinking Part IV: Darin. “There has to be something beneath the surface, about. Creating this feedback loop is so important How to Talk With and you want to make sure you address the root issue.” because it helps everyone feel part of the journey. Your Team About 7. Create a feedback loop In addition, creating channels for your team to provide feedback helps you see which departments are already Category Design You’ll also want to consider how you can make on board and which may require some more attention. category design a process that your team feels a sense “I spend a lot of time thinking about areas of the (and Get Them of ownership of. It’s not about your task force simply business where I need to get more buy-in,” said Darin. Excited) handing down the direction from on high. For example, “If I can see that one department isn’t reading the book, think about the process you might use to develop your asking questions, or showing engagement, then I might category story. need to help them along. “It’s important not to just share your Point of View, but Figuring out when to keep things to your task force and inspire people to think of it as their Point of View too,” when to share with the company will take some time. says Anna Schena. “For us, we had several people tell ‘our But I’d recommend erring on the side of sharing too story’ in their own words, and why it meant so much to much. This is a big journey you’re going on together, If you’re going to create them, and it accelerated buy-in exponentially faster than and having your team feel like they are part of it can go a category that’s going if we had just myself or leadership evangelize it.” a long way to make this strategy a successful one. “ Furthermore, fostering a culture of category-design Consider how Sarah Elkins looks at this. “The internal to last years and years, throughout your company will help you improve your launch needed to also include a more detailed roll- you need a catalyzing thinking. If your team understands the process and out plan both internally and externally,” she told event that allows where you are trying to head, they’ll be more likely me. “We created separate plans for GTM teams and to come up with questions that need to be addressed internal teams (engineering, finance, etc.). The GTM everybody in your and ideas you hadn’t considered. If you constrain the teams needed much more details on personas we were company to understand category design process to a select few, you’ll only limit targeting, messaging, etc. Just communicating the POV yourself. That’s why our CEO has continued to stay would have left too many questions unanswered about what the story is. involved, even as we’ve stepped into the trenches of how to use it in real life.” ” building our category. Conor told me, “Staying involved Once your team is up to speed on where you are headed, — Kipp Bodnar in the execution of this has been awesome because you’ve already done a lot of work, but you’re just at the it puts me right in the midst of what our frontline beginning. Now the real work begins. “As leaders, once people are hearing and thinking about. For instance, we launch something, we have to keep reinforcing it, we recently went through a category design discussion keep telling our team why,” Darin told me. “If you don’t, with our customer success team, and I was able to hear you can lose commitment. People will have questions their feedback directly. That gave me a new perspective along the way, and you need to stay responsive to that on things.” and really try to lead by example. At BombBomb, once we shared our initial category If you’re interested in following our journey at design plans with the team, we also challenged them BombBomb, you can follow me on LinkedIn or to be a part of the process. Not only did we offer to buy subscribe to my category design newsletter. everyone a copy of Play Bigger, we also asked them to The Newcomer’s Guide to Category Design 34