Negative feedback is sometimes the best thing you could ever receive

Putting it out there again!

This blog is getting more and more personal, but through sharing real life experiences, entrepreneurs and business leaders are hopefully able to gain some insight into what makes an entrepreneur tick, mistakes that some of us make and some real life business goings-on that affect us in so many ways.

Last week, I sent my Information Memorandum out to a number of my friends. When I say friends, they are business leaders, and some of them are in the most successful 50 business people in Australia. The first lot of feedback was awesome. Immediately I was put on a high with positive comments and encouragement.

Yesterday, I received from 3 different parties some constructive feedback; Information Memorandum is too long, you need to have the financials in the IM, covering letter needs to say what the financial upside is and where's the Gantt Chart?

While the financial projections have been done for 5 years, I was told by a couple of parties that you only send this in the second contact after the person/company has read the IM. So, I have held off on this. I was also notified that I only need 3 years, but I am a bit confused because it is a 5 year plan. Not sure who to listen to here.

The Gantt Chart and manuals are all complete, but as with the financials, I was told not to send this through in the first instance.

There are so many differing opinions that it is hard to work out which direction to take. Perhaps a bit of everything is worthwhile taking into consideration afterall, these people do this everyday. Like most things, it is subjective to the person looking at the IM.

In any case, it was my first piece of constructive criticism which set me back momentarily and had me second guessing as to whether I should have sent it out without taking it to someone and going through it page by page.

Overall, I am happy with the result, but feedback should always be considered and if you put yourself out there, then you have to expect sometimes you won't like what you hear.