There is a famous phrase that says: 'A retreat in time is a victory.' It is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, famous military strategist and French emperor of plenty known (for good and bad)

The phrase itself refers to the fact that if things are well difficult on the battlefield, it is better to retreat, save as many people as possible and thus have, at least, the possibility of rethinking a new strategy in the future .

And that is one of the realities that we have had to live recently.

As much as we weigh, we have seen ourselves in the position of having to 'cancel' two of the experiences we had in progress for the second half of the year: remote peoples Fuencaliente and remote towns old 2023 .

Because? Well, I don't think there is a single answer for that question and we have very much to analyze in the coming months to answer as completely as possible.

Of course, within this post post, if I would like to transparently share some of the keys that have been able to foster it, as well as some learnings that we want to share from pueblos remotos about it.

Bet on replicas in 2023

At the beginning of this year (2023) we launched with great margin the experiences of remote peoples Fuencaliente and remote villages 2023 , both were replicas of the first editions lived in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

The reasons for advancing so much were several:

• Having enough margin to promote experiences calmly (it was the first time we promoted two experiences at the same time)

• Put into practice the feedback received in previous experiences, where many users told us that the margin to join the experiences was very short (we used to start the uptake a month and a half or two months before the experiences)

• Being able to have a clear alignment between the promotion of experiences and the rest of the initiatives that we were going to implement throughout the year.

All this aligned very well on paper and also, to this it was added that being replicas, we already had the analysis process rural entrepreneurs well and knew the capacities of the accommodations .

With all this, betting on replicating our experiences in 2023 seemed the most valid option, and in fact, I still consider that it was the best option of all those we had at the beginning of the year. But, if you work within the world of strategy, planning or you are simply a person who breathes, you will know that what you plan and what ends up happening finally, is not always fulfilled.

In addition, doing so was also a commitment (which is now stronger if possible) with rural entrepreneurs, with their projects and with the territory in which they work in their day to day.

But, even at the times when you feel 'best prepared' there may be failures, external factors or decisions that lead you not to succeed in your performance.

What happens when experiences don't come out?

I imagine this is the million -sized question? And I suppose (here with so much imagining and so supposing you are seeing my 'skin of economist') that it is also one of those 'taboo themes' that sometimes is not spoken with enough transparency.

Nobody wants to put ... The falls and moments of failure are rarely on the table, especially when they have to do with businesses. I understand that there is, or it is intended that there will Call at your door and you will give you a slap throughout the face (or a bouquet of flowers, if the result has been good)

In my view, if experiences do not come out, internally and externally, of course, this is a personal vision, since the first thing is something we assume per se (assume it internally), but the second (assume it from external form) is usually more complicated and the reason for this, as of many other things, is that it exposes us.

To enter more fully at this point, this year we had had some calls with friends projects that were in a 'similar' situation to what we found right now: experiences did not come out.

Perhaps the latter should have activated some alarm within us, perhaps it was a sign of analyzing more deeply, what will happen the day we don't sell them? And maybe it would have been good to stop a little more.

Of course, on the other occasions we also had moments of traffic jam, small 'crisis' because the tickets did not come out and even moments of inflection rather accentuated ... but in the end, the tickets were sold. Perhaps, this is another of the keys where you have to stop: 'Something works you sometimes, it does not mean that you will always work'

If the experiences have not come forward, it is partly due to the fact that we have not managed to implement one hundred percent our collection model, which is oriented, also one hundred percent, to people who work remotely (well, or people who have Business, strategies or 'things' that allow them to work from wherever they want) on the other hand, the cancellation of the experiences reaches two main reasons:

1. 'Last minute' falls of several reserves, sudden

2. A rather low conversion between people who have registered interested in experiences and those who have really closed calls with us (or have paid to reserve their place) 

🚨 [Note] The conversion process that we follow in remote villages has several different stages:

1) Impact> 2) Consideration> 3) Registration (they are recorded through our participation form in experiences)> 4) Interview (we have a personalized call with each person)> 5) Reserve of the Plaza> 6) Participation in The experience. 

As you can intuit without having to be Sherlock Holmes, the cancellations come by not converting enough people to carry out our experiences and that in our case (and for these two, specifically) is 8 people.  

It is here where the part of the strategy enters.

Do not sell, it's failing

I subscribe each and every one of the letters that make up the phrase of this subtitle.

Selling an experience is not simple and I am not going to lie to you here (especially being the 'Digital Strategy' responsible for the project), you can have the most beautiful project in the world, but if you do not 'sell', you have failed, and not Selling these experiences is a full -fledged failure.

This failure can be caused by multiple reasons, as I said in the first paragraphs, but it is a failure.

When you plan and create a strategy to sell, whatever, you always have to take control points such as:

• What happens if I have not sold 'X' Tickets?

• What kind of content are we going to implement?

• Where do we focus on advertising or ADS?

• What we varied to try to convert better?

• Where and how can we give more relevance to publications?

Probably, I underestimated the results of the previous experiences, I trusted that many things go to 'repeat' since the wonderful network of professional contacts we have around, would work again for their magic 'to make us reach the number of tickets necessary to put The experiences underway.

Far from that reality, the result has been a completely different one and there are many things that have failed us:

• The network of contacts that we have built a lot, but is not enough by itself.

• Getting conversions with this average ticket (€ 1250 from experience) is arduous and delicate work.

• Having solid conversions based on organic content (mostly) is like playing water polo with a hand tied to the back, you can, but ...

• Centering the strategy on some tools that had worked very well, such as LinkedIn, which has lowered their reach, have not helped improve those conversions.

• Starting the promotion of two very close experiences on dates, it has not been the most successful decision (September and October)

• The 'multi-perfil' of the world 'entrepreneur' is something that has not helped to maintain the focus (I speak to you just then)

These that you can read, are just some 'reflections aloud' of many others that I will have to get (together with Elsa) as a learning of the cancellation of these two experiences.

Two for everything and ... that, two for everything (hahaha)

At this point, that I want to comment briefly, I just want to show (and that it is recorded that it is neither a complaint, nor anything like that, is the reality, once again) the reality that many entrepreneurs/entrepreneurs live in Your day to day.

Everything you see, or everything you intuit: management, logistics, creativity, finance, communication, design (up to a point), analysis, proposals, training, consulting, facilitation and some other thing ... only has Elsa Rodríguez behind Already a server.

I do not know if it is something of the most common, but on the occasional occasion I have seen the 'face of surprise' of other organizations, professionals or media when they ask us 'who are behind the project'

And that is the reality with which we play 'our day to day and with which we have to manage, in addition to the experiences, other business lines that we are starting from pueblos remotos.

Luckily and in this sense, it is a learned lesson and during this second half of the year they will add more hands to the project, to lend a hand to build a better project. To those hands is also added the collaboration of many friends who are always advising, supporting or working side by side with us.

A clear example is Gonzalo Fernández , the prescriber with which any project dreams, Lara Hernández , who is doing a phenomenal facilitation of the 'The Break' project in Agaete (Gran Canaria) or the recent collaboration we are doing with We the Root (Bea and Andrea) to improve the management of our community.

A commitment to the community

I wanted to take a tour of all this, returning to the beginning. If we bet on making the fuencaliente and ancient replicas, it was for our community . Each and every one of the people who have been part of remote peoples are part of our community (although they do not participate again in an experience in the future) and therefore, making these two aftershocks was (and is) a commitment to the rural entrepreneurs and the accommodations that trusted us when we explained a 'auctionally crazy' idea and it is a commitment to the wonderful treatment we have received from each and every one of them.

Our commitment goes beyond simply selling experiences or putting texts talking about human connections on our website: we believe in those human connections in every way.

Therefore, when two of the people who had decided to come to one of our experiences (and they have not been able to do so due to cancellations) they asked us about alternative experiences, we recommend, delighted, other coliving spaces or 'similar' experiences that They will help them live those moments of retirement and connection.

As I said to one of them during a video call that we had to explain the 'why' we had canceled his experience: 'What a message of message I am transmitting if I do not have 15 minutes to talk to someone who has dedicated part of his time and Your money to decide to come to an experience with us What kind of 'human connection' would that?

What is coming

Well, despite the blow, it hurts. It is time to get up and continue walking and fighting, because on the path of #rurality we have many battles to fight and now, from learning, we know that we will have to retire from any of them if necessary, but we will do it with my head very high and with all the transparency with which we have always built all this.

In case it serves you, this was one of the songs he listened to while writing these reflections