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Know Your Market, Do Your Homework

So the next slide um you know in in um in the buddhist tradition we have these uh cards you may even have seen them they're called compassion cards pemon children has a box and their little slogans about how to be a more compassionate person and you take one out you put it up on the on the desk each day and you contemplated that day and um you know these air sort of maybe like that in terms that you could maybe we could make a lot of cards out of these and you have a little stand you put one of these up and just see everyday or you do you know your market did you do your homework and just leave that out to haunt you and torture you for the whole day? You know each one of these um you know are you refining your offering can you define your offering um so know your market do your homework you should know and this probably relates to our last persons question you should know your market if you're making an offering that intended to generate revenue have some idea of its size and know how ...

to communicate with people in that market so this is you know where we come into a very powerful dynamic between what we call product driven and market driven and every company has a dynamic balance we're going to talk about this more tomorrow between content and marketing and a bigger company I don't know who does the marketing here but I bet they have a totally different orange orientation than the content people right and there's a sometimes it's this right it's like wait a minute we can't put on a meditation workshop nobody's going toe but the content peoples they know this is really great content and you know so there should be a dynamic in a company between marketing and content uh in some areas you could say market driven this has dominated too much you know, maybe you're talking about you know, having a film made by a really talented director and the way they figure out the ending is this is a test marketed and they let the market decide how the movie ends you know, maybe that's in some cases going too far but we need some idea of who our market is and and the size of it you know right the size of it no matter what we're doing it for a camera person you know you people you have to get jobs right? So who you have to know who hires camera people in san francisco you have a list of all those people you should know someone should you should uh be in constant contact with those people and those are the people who are goingto are going to do well so what is your offering what's the market place for it do your homework get open internet my god it's so easy it information these days you can find out anything without even getting out of bed basically, um and do you know how to communicate with those people in your market if I put you in front sierra of somebody who needs their logo blown up and dust it up and their brand polished up and communicated better uh would you know howto sell your services that person okay, so then you're gonna do very well because there's plenty of people I can I can tell is more people have brands that know how to present them so it's a very viable skill you know but we need to know how to communicate with those people and, um for example that's an interesting and my sister does that you know and she's really good at it and she got into a scrape you know, with a with a client because they go well I wanted to be this this business and she's saying I know how to do I'm the one who knows how to do this let me do my thing and that's always a sort of tension between you and the client right? They might give too much direction to little direction so you have to learn howto take them through a process right step one step two step three like web design right south if if somebody's doing web design uh, you might have a great idea for what it should look like it could be great, but they're saying none and I want this this and this so the dance that you engage with your market do you know how to communicate with them? And the thing I said about knowing your market and doing your homework is some research it don't assume anything you could just tell right away when people haven't done the homework in terms of the market there doing they just don't know the details. Um it's it's work, right? So, um, maybe that's let's talk about that one a little bit. How are we doing with our market out there in the, uh, virtual land? How you doing with we talk about defining you're offering, but how you doing with understanding your market for your offering and knowing how to communicate with them? What issues are coming up? Does anybody want to take a shot at that? Kelly can shrink down and say, yeah, that's when we call on all right, um, I've recently kind of re branded or well, I'm in the process of one of my middle projects of rebranding and re shifting what I'm shooting, so I'm I'm still doing research, a lot of research on the market and trying to figure that out and approach people in the market, so I met that very beginning networking researching researching teo so I'm very intrigued by this but I don't know how to go about doing it I know it sounds silly how to do the research well, I'm pretty good at doing the research but then breaking those barriers like oh hi, we have a connection on linkedin or I mean it now we here's here's then we're going to talk about marketing and sales which is the best topic there is basically there's basically three powerful engines to accompany we're going to go into much more depth tomorrow but define the offering marketing is letting people know that it exists and what's interesting is like in the company that I worked for it like I was a director of sales was another guy's director of marketing he didn't care how many units we sold I made a bet with the president of the company that he would if I could sell two million dollars worth of units in los angeles after opening new officer in the first year that he would jump into the swimming pool of the sunset marquis hotel in his brooks brothers suit and he went in that's sales right that's a different kind of energy you know, I was a little embarrassed because I thought, you know, I mean I wanted it to happen but then when it actually came to what I went like, you know, I hope there's not too much and so I jumped in after sales people really there's craziest creative people in the wrong way so marketing is just like they'll go okay we covered this we bought these ads they they classically on ly in the long arc will attach to the results of their efforts so therefore in companies and even if you have a tiny little entrepreneurial company the sales energy is the most valuable energy in the company once you have your offering and you market it if you are a good sales person yourself you do that's there's nothing like the president of a company being great salesperson because they're going to be on the line to pitch it but they're like hired guns you can hire people to sell and you can hire people to market so marketing is letting people know what you have sales is getting them to buy it and we're going to talk about that in some depth tomorrow um so you sound like the marketing the sound like the two elements is the branding which you should hire sierra over there to help you get your image ing out or at least talk to her you know give her a chance to make a pitch to you and then if sierra's doing her sails right she'll talk you into it and close the deal before we leave here today so that's salespeople are always awake they're like the closest to like a gun slinger you know so if we're marketing are offering and we know how to market you know the existing market it maybe in issue of sales and that's gonna be tomorrow's topic and space some offerings will create their market. Others are designed for existing markets. It's interesting point um you know people come up with unbelievable stuff it sze these these days aps you could make millions of dollars let ap do you know that you will know that you may be in the wrong business? You should maybe be now there's also millions of people trying to design absence sell them so the same problems anything else? Um you know, um what was that app that just sold, like eighteen billion dollars whatsapp and what does that do? Eighteen billion dollars. It was just an idea five minutes ago. So um some will create their own market that's that's example cranial market others are designed for existing markets. Um lord knows if you have an idea for a better can opener you know that I remember when the electric can opener was invented you used at the o like that around the perimeter and then you just go you push the thing and goes and it comes back down open america's you know, the land of this kind of invention um what is coming out of you and is it designed to meet a specific market need like creating can oprah once the cans of it the market or do you have some wild crazy idea and we're gonna all get rich off of being involved with you. So does anybody have a crazy idea online like let's look att um an offering that would create its own marketplace just something you want to dio and create it and you think you could pay some traction with it so maybe we'll ask anybody there could anybody even imagine something like that? I love I sit around at home all the time I was the one who thought of the idea of writing a newspaper on toilet paper not bad you stuff there you might as well read the news. What do you got? Beautiful example I know marketing person who was involved in that actually and it started off as a coffee table book value proposition had something to do with rocks and a coffee table book and they thought they were going to sell the coffee table book and it turned out he decided to package it and put a rock in a box and that became the offering but I just think that that's a beautiful thing that rogue pet rock sold I just love that perfect example anybody else can you think of something? Come on, you have thousands of ideas, thomas. You can have one which is, um coaching individual ation mean you mentioned the word individual ation midlife crisis are that comes the soul so union things similar to what you said and there's counseling for that yeah there's no courting okay you kind of do this with us right now yeah yeah more on the business but not necessarily about the soul coming for the spirituals life coach I know that sounds so well okay uh something that has sometimes of a tangible results but it helps people like myself for your gun something and got very tired of it to find a new meaning and then actually implement and execute upon it do you think that's different in the kind of life coaching that's available there are people who do that it isn't knowing your market and actually one of my best friends does that amazingly well um and you think well why would I pay somebody you know two hundred dollars an hour whatever that they can change your whole life you know so um and it's interesting as I said you know a lot of times you know people are hounding me to teach them meditation I'm trained I'm capable of doing that but you start seeing how it's affecting their whole life so interestingly enough for example my son whose name is even nick turn is a very well known meditation teacher and he has he just said I'm gonna do this for living that was radical nobody did that people thought it's service you know, it's sort of like even you go to yoga studios they said should be for free you know? Well we got a business we're running here so he took it one step further that meditation is viable important thing tto learn he's very studied in pakistan and he teaches you but it is his livelihood so that's an example of finding in other words he thought there's a market for that and put it together and a lot of people would say no no no you can't do that that way uh so online we got some people but maybe I can share one something I came up with last night I was like washing some rerun of the bachelor kind of watching these people try to figure these things out and stumble and I thought what what would what would it be like to have a wood we work at we're like you have it on your phone and maybe you have good chemistry but then there's some kind of a profile alignment where it's like you can kind of shake it and it's like you know well is that a dating app it's a dating app way would we work and maybe the tagline is connect up and played out yeah andi just played all that and put the whole thing in the virtual room exactly oh that's funny you're like you would go on the date and then it's always like exercises at the date at the bar to find out like just accelerate the process I mean like the fourth day the fifth date no, just the first day celebration but just do it virtually well, you got that in person chemistry is essential but you just don't know the backstory you don't really understand how intense there like they say or they like tennis but do they like tennis? You know what? While we're in the sandbox here that's a virtual dating dot com but actually you don't just find people you go through you step through the process and you go like okay, what would it be like if we went to a movie and you did this and I did that you know you know do kiss on the first you know, just really really you're on your first date with your avatar in there your two avatars go on the date basically me and the baby it kicked out a movie that like shows you what it would be like cars on then if you could stick to the end maybe you go on the second date you see there's an idea is an idea and there there is uh, it's um it's basically the avatar principle of letting letting things work you need this brian so uh broken now sorry um we are going to look at the homework in a minute so I want to just get our last point of this uh uh this topic here offering we're still with the offering too you know, I know we've been having a long day and I'm waterboarding you so I apologize for that you know what water boarding is right? Everybody um but I'm not sure there's any alternative because if we just stop and run around the room but the people online are going to be like very confused by us doing that um so the last one is don't spread yourself too thin oh goodness I see a lot of people doing that, um focus and uh if your time and energy are spread too thinly amongst the variety of possibly wonderful offerings some or all of them may falter now we've created a link here to, uh the notion of how khun meditation help us focus in a way our whole mind is spread too thin and that's why we do mindfulness practice our awareness is spread too thin, it's like we're going jump from topic to topic to topic and we're learning how to focus our mind so I thought we could do a little, uh guided meditation on on focus it's the same same technique that we were talking about but really working with bringing our attention back to the breath as that's all we're doing and I want to like encourage a little more strictness or precision you know when you remember bring your mind back to your breathing see if you could just do that one thing and do it fully um so what we're talking about is thie cultivating this capacity to be focused and attentive and then as where are often comes up we go no wait that's one thing too many you know let me just focus on this one thing sustained focus is actually burns new neural pathways they found out you know so it is something you can learn it's not just like I am distracted kind of person sustained focus is something you could actually program in and learn so let's start with the holding the belt indicated lamentation session again first thing is we pull the body focus together right you can feel your butt on the chair feet on the ground just rest your hands on your knees you can elongate your spine so you have a nice, clear long line of energy going from the bottom the spine to the top your eyes have a soft focus downward in front of you. Relax your visual field and now bring your attention to the breath really, really feel the shape and contour of your breath that one thing just do that one thing well, thoroughly when your mind wanders simply noticed that labelled thinking and bring your attention back to your prime focus, which is on the awareness of the breath when your mind wanders and you notice it labeled thinking, bring your attention back to awareness of the breath if thoughts arise, even if they're very dramatic and I want to pull you away, just notice that feel that label thinking bring your awareness back to the breath when your mind wanders. Notice living thinking, bring your attention back to the breath I wanted to feel your body a little bit at home everybody stretch a little bit if you want to stand up and stretch you can sometimes the twist is good, so we're coming up to the end avara day one and I got this brings back memories you have a homework assignment so those of you are here with us. You haven't printed out form and those of you at home can download it printed out the course page click the rcp button that's completely free. And when you do that, you have access to the tdf version of this which you can print that's available on course. Page charlie chan used to say words do not cook rice, so we've been talking quite a lot, but obviously the important thing is can we bring this into some kind of activity action? The homework is intended to just review what was going to talk about what we're going to be talking about and very briefly for those of you at home for you here just fill in each each of these topics as much as you want to say about it, but a paragraph is plenty at this point, so it'll take you ten or fifteen minutes tonight to do, but it'll help you sort of make this personal what we've been talking about so joining heaven on earth is the first one discuss your vision and how you plan to make it happen. Okay, that's the heaven on earth excuse me to mention taking your mind to the gym. What is your current relationship to meditation, if any, which could be like I hated I never want to do it again, I'm square might fall asleep. Oh, I've been practising for ten years and, you know, have a good, solid, steady practice, whatever it is, but what aspiration, if any, if any, do you have to develop your practice? Let's put that out there. If you want to develop your meditation practice, how do you want to do that? Spending time in the sandbox? So this is again the highlights of what we talked about so far describe your creative expression and your relationship to it as a hobby or business specify how you want to develop it so we really kind of gone through these all you have to do is write it down I want to do this this and this and here's how I'm going to go about it uh sometimes creating with an agenda, a timeline and a budget what do your issues which you all have been pretty honest forthcoming with with bringing your creative and business skills together? What about money what's your relationship to money? I don't have a lot of people say they don't have enough money who here feels they have enough money uh at home if you've really given up money raise your hand can you feel you have enough money? I will take some more uh bringing on take yo do you have enough money? Tongues okay, my pockets is heavy I can't raise my hand so that his wallet is giving him a cram their elbows are attached to your pocket define your offering so some of you did that here to a certain extent but just sum it up then this is what we're going to talk about tomorrow but I want to do the homework today so we can look forward overcoming poverty mentality um we haven't really talked about it, but it's explained here a little bit our business can only succeed to the level of success will allow in our life we experienced poverty mentality when we cannot excess our own internal sense of richness and worthiness internal dimension of our sense of poverty or richness discuss your understanding this concept and how it applies to you you have poverty mentality, sales and marketing discuss your relationship to marketing and sales and so far as it relates to your current business operation we've tickled some of these topics and we're going into them in greater depth tomorrow relationship with others interpersonal skills take a deep breath, be honest and evaluate your interpersonal skills where could they become stronger and then finally success on your own terms which is somewhere going to conclude with tomorrow? We're really not talking about this point anymore about being successful on somebody else's watch this is very individual stuff at this point success for you might be having a nice healthy family life um a reasonable livelihood good friends time to for leisure uh and um you know, a reasonably good state of mind success for somebody else means that wouldn't define what I just said wouldn't divine success for steve jobs it means conquering the universe with vision so who are you what's your notion of success and how do you currently envision your notion of being successful in your own terms so everybody home if you have it, take a shot and well maybe link some of you in tomorrow with an answer here there we could do we learn from each other, right? I've learned a lot from a love you today is very illuminating and these things they're just a food of kind of my experience, but they're really meant to be trigger points for a good conversation. Uh, I have a lot of confidence in people, one of things over the years I just developed a kind of love and confidence in human beings and even animals you could say to mean it sze people have certain fundamental goodness and it's always we cannot we can use our energy to help bring that out, or we can use our energy to squish it further. So I know that when when people are given space and ability to work with their natural intelligence, that the best stuff comes out. So just in the spirit of sharing that tomorrow, I'm gonna ask for one person to volunteer. I can't really figure out who this should be, so maybe someone could volunteer to come up to what we call the hot seat hot seat. We could put you over here, and I'll work through this worksheet with you, uh, right in front of everybody else, we'll go through it together and we'll see what what you've come up with.