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Avatars, Ecosystems and Watering Holes

All right pam back to rio think alright well welcome back to our wonderful studio audience and to everybody out there on the internet I poked in for one quick second on twitter and it was nice to see everybody sharing information I also want to say hi to many of my friends my own facebook friends who have been posting so jonathon and natalie and barbara I really appreciate everybody who's taken your time to tune in today so it's like a big old family re union right? So this morning we talked about the journey of entrepreneurship about all the different steps along the process to starting your own business we talked about understanding yourself and really digging in tow understand your special ingredients your skills, your strengths, your experience um and we looked at some of the profiles that you can help to do that which is the kolbe index which measures measures your co native style how you take action and also strengths finder what your inherent strengths and now we're going to go ...

into the land of your ideal clients and this is a wonderful, wonderful place I think of all the things that we often freak out about as onto print hearse uh which there can be a lot this could be a scary journey sometimes and what I find is is that the more that we focus on actually who our clients and whom are we trying to serve immediately it shifts us into a mode of trying to be helpful in trying to solve problems. I know this morning I woke up kind of early and I had those pre course jitters like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be spending three days and I you know, I hope I remember all my stuff and I do a good job and everything uh and then all of a sudden I thought, wait a minute, you know, it's actually not about me it's about serving the people who I want to serve, the people who are in my studio audience are taking three days out of your life right to spend with me people are taking days out of your life on the internet, and that actually is where I need to be concerned. And as soon as I shift into that mode of thinking, I totally relaxed because I'm a coach and coach's coach, right that's that's really, what it's about? So for each of you is you start to get in your own mode of your business. Thinking about your your customers is the place where all the beauty and magic happens. So the first place that we're going to start with that is to talk about ideal client avatars and avatar is the kind of terms that is used a lot within marketing circles where people will create a particular profile about the characteristics of people who would be ideal customers and in fact in many companies they'll actually animated so they'll create an avatar we have three examples here kind of a businesswoman or handy person or a construction worker avatar and you know sometimes you can create an avatar and give the person the name sometimes it's a real client sometimes that somebody that you've worked with before that you really have enjoyed working with them and you find that when you work with these people that have particular characteristics it brings out your best and so the more that you're able to really define and describe that the better that you can figure out what it is that they need in order to start working with them so I remember when I was um uh doing a lot of work with in marketing that at first it just felt very uh everything was very open and I was so thrilled that anybody would spend any money with me whatsoever that in anybody who had come in the door would just be an amazing client, right? And then as I started to do a little bit more specific work around ideal client avatars, I had a sense initially that because I'm a creative person my dad's a photographer, right? I kind of loved being around creative folks that probably most of the kind of people who might be attracted to working with me as a coach would be people like me with a similar background, right? I'm from her and I grew up in marin county I'm a democrat, a lifelong democrat and um I love the environment and ecology and I thought, you know, those kinds of people would be drawn to me and lo and behold, as I started to go through and do my work, I noticed that I was getting a whole number of clients who were, like fifty five something year old, many of them anglo men who actually we're quite conservative in terms of their, you know, religious or political beliefs but had been in a situation where they felt really stuck and I think maybe because I was so different from them in their regular social circles, they felt very safe and being able to work with me and describe what it is that they wanted to dio and I loved working with them they were such a joy and I really felt like it was an amazing experience, but I never would have imagined that that would actually be an avatar for me until I began to experiment and put out my marketing materials and see, you know who actually came to work with me so sometimes we can be really surprised sometimes we conserve people who are actually quite different from ourselves and we can provide that role of being the other being very different you know, from somebody else but you know, the beginning part of the experience is really describing our ideal client avatars in such a way that we can really know somebody when we see them we immediately kind of get a sense this might be a good avatar tomorrow morning when I have my dear friend susan buyer who's going to come work with us she's going to be doing even mohr specific definition in terms of our avatars she's wonderful at this this is what she does is a business. So we're going to dig into this particular thing with even mohr detail tomorrow, but I wanted to start to do a little bit of brainstorming so we can begin to think about who might be ideal client avatars for some of you who are in this class. I'm wondering brooke, can I pick on you? Okay, so it's brooke with an e correct? Yes. Okay, so remind us again, brooke, of what kind of business that you are in we weigh sell dresses and high end formal wear for women. Okay? And what particular kinds of formal wear? Any what kind of what air? The niche areas a mother, the bride, mother of the groom is that an acronym used when I started tio and then I called the mothers I just feel that way also serve lesbian brides cool so huge emerging market right we just had recent legislation national legislation in the supreme court hearing so there may be many, many more weddings right? So lesbian brize all right, I would say the target for our mother of the bride our mothers is women over fifty where the lesbian rise maybe forty and up is who okay so over fifty you said here and this one forty and out okay, so what are some of the characteristics for for your mother's right mother of the bride and mother of the groom kind of how how would you how would we all recognize them when they walked into the room they are sophisticated and tasteful well put together what else they're highly educated any particular kind of education that you noticed like ivy leaguer okay call it what else they're how did I turn like societal volunteers so they they run in the social circles that's um guilds and spiritually care and junior leagues and that that's okay interesting yeah and they have very particular ideas about how they should book they don't want to show you know they don't want to wear something that's completely open in the back and they want to have something that's covered in the chest where is like a traditional neckline would be here they want theirs one more just one more thing you know they're they're a little bit more conservative in terms of not showing too much they want to have a high impact but they want that in a very particular manner so ok, they want everyone to look at them but not because they're showing skin before because for half of these women this is their big day I mean, they plan an entire wedding they know most of the people on the guest list more so than the bride and groom and you know it's really their day so their dresses sometimes more important than that, right? So what kind of psychographic information do you have about them by psychographic meaning you know, personality characteristics or things like that controlling little kid I was going to say controlling okay, right. Okay, they have a have a wide social network and so that you know, kind of like putting on that air is important to them of how they're perceived then I don't know how you would wrapped up into one. Yeah, almost like socialite network a little bit more as opposed to just okay. Okay call how about on our lesbian bride's side? What are some specific characteristics in terms of how they want to look? They want to look sophisticated and tasteful but not necessarily traditional okay for a traditional a traditional I like that word I don't think it as it is now, okay? They like different types of if they're going to go with the dress a different type of bodice like there are millions of wedding gowns that's not what they want they either one a different color they don't they don't want why they want this they you know they want high end fabrics but not necessarily how you're typically used to seeing it interesting yeah I am fabric sometimes different colors blush instead of white are but again have a very define image of how they want to look so eh? So like this segment of your market they do care about the impression they do want to look really great they do want to be kind of different and distinctive but not so much in exactly the same way that you find yeah decide okay the lesbian race they want to feel like who they are not you know they don't want to put on a dress and feel like somebody else yeah exactly where is the mother of the bride mother the groom want to feel like the best version of them you know of everyone everyone they want they want a little better than you know their friend's daughter you know what their wedding and that's it's a little competitive yeah, which is kind of interesting right now it's you and knowing that when you really know who they are then you can take all those factors into consideration when you're designing okay um so it's so in this case is you begin to look at some of the specific characteristics do you how is it that you then work with this with these characteristics in order to do the designing? So do you do custom gowns or is it you have a line or how we started out doing complete custom and now we're moving more in the direction of a line and one of the things that was in the original line was a tuxedo and it was it was a great tuxedo and so we had a lot of people come to addison so I could you know you should work with this market this is what people need and so that's kind of how that section of the market came in cool so right, so lesbian bride might want a really interesting, unique tuxedo that was part didn't would you work in pair where you would you do clothing for both of the brides or we could yeah he's ok, yeah I mean way don't do there's not a lot of white on our website because that's not we're tryingto get were in the bridal industry but not for brides necessary, you know? Yeah the traditional bride ok, interesting um okay so and so kind of knowing this this is part of how you design what it is you think you wanted design how is it impacted how you have thought about where you finding these people having the two markets has been is tricky sometimes I feel like we should just pick one and run with it because where I find the lesbian brides is there not in this, you know, they're not always in the same groups yeah, people is the conservative socialites right there over really interesting actually write to bring everybody together, but yeah, they might not naturally go into each other's areas yeah, um we're trying to design something really wearable but beautiful, you know, so again doesn't have necessarily hokum open back it's not typically, just this is just for this season, you know, I don't want the things we've considered is doing a line, you know, with the traditional lines like spring fall once a year, twice a year, but our stuff we're trying to design things that are timeless so that you don't need necessarily this is it this is the two thousand twelve you want the two thousand thirteen me because it won't matter, you know what looks good looks good and we try and take a no account what looks good photographs and you know what I mean? Because certain fabrics better photograph, you know, the photography is fifty percent of the battle because if you get the pictures back and you don't like how you looked, then doesn't matter what if you had a fabulous process getting address, it doesn't matter exactly and everybody loved what you look like in person but it didn't show in the dig shafts and that's especially for this audience is very important. Okay, very, very cool. So great first example and we will absolutely picking up and working with this example is we go so you can see some examples and you already have client so you know you know what? Some of them are that's how you're describing in order to arrive at this particular list did you is this what you started out with or did you just start to notice this as you begin to work with people and people came to talk to you about we they wanted I did try and think of who's our ideal client and did some work around that and then try to design for them what do I think that they would want and then did some testing of what do you actually want? Um I would say one of the things we're struggling with now is do we design for our idol clients or do we try and turn our brand into a look? You know? And so we kind of run with we kind of take all this and take that vision of what that looks like and then really now focus and brand that or do we do do we try and go out and pick out these people so that's our that's our that's kind of the dilemma one of the dilemmas right now we're gonna go with that so okay cool and we'd love it for folks who are on the internet who are listening you know, toe way in like some of these questions should I just focus? You know, run with one area can I focus on the other one people might have some interesting thoughts about that which I think could be interesting we're going to be taking this particular example and doing a little bit of crowdsourcing here and also on the internet to try to think about you know, both what might be different directions you could go in addition to weather ways you confined more people of whom you're looking for you yeah and brooks like awesome I'm glad he's in this example I want to do it for everybody but we'll use this methodology right? It works as well. So really you know, once you get this initial idea of these were the kinds of people I have been serving here the kinds of people that I want to serve then the question always begin becomes where can I actually find them? And the metaphor that I always use in terms of looking at thinking about different markets are ecosystems so I think we all live we literally lived within different ecosystems here on planet earth right depending upon where we are and like you find in natural ecosystems you have you know different birds and plants that work together you know, collaboratively within anyone environment and the same thing is true that you have out there in the business market so you might have one person like you who's interested in actually specifically serving this market are lesbian bride market maybe with these particular wedding gowns that they would use during that one time but the reality is thies ideal clients live within an overall ecosystem right? Listening to different people reading different you know things and information so the way that I did find an ecosystem it's could include things like products what products might they use? What kinds of services other services did they use when you start to talk about weddings one of the beautiful things about it from a business perspective is they're definitely our ecosystems of services right? Our photographer students out there of which I know there are many for creative life because you do a lot of photography classes, right? Wedding photographers no stylist they no makeup artists they know caterers they know event planners and often when you begin to get connected with people who like you and like your work then you can all really begin to work with each other and refer business back and forth which is one of the great things about being connected and aware of who else is in your ecosystem so you could have influencers and thought leaders people who you really respect and admire in your space so in your case it might be designers that you really admire or uh you know, wedding planners that do an amazing job photographers you can uh look at books that people read or blog's that they read write beliefs that they have a certain kind of shared beliefs and so within this particular overall ecosystem that's where you can start to figure out you know where how can I really understand the environment in which my, you know, my ideal customer is operating so what I wanted to do? We're going to start with you here in the in studio audience to brainstorm for brooke right? To start to think about the ecosystem but I'm giving the same assignment out there to folks on the internet to be brainstorming what are some of the very specific places books, products, services that people in your ideal audience use were actually let's start with the mob slash maugham mother of the bride mother of the groom audience um let's start with us this sector first what were what kind of ecosystem do you think that these mother's livin you gave a couple little examples of things like the junior league but let's just do a big brainstorm about it, right? What is this ecosystem food? They listen to what they read, what shows that they watch on tv yes they definitely listen to each other so I think word of mouth is probably a huge selling quiet friends with married daughters is on obvious okay and where did they talk to each other at their various events okay including weddings and they're volunteer events and with the junior league hagen okay um I mean also you know maybe like if address was featured on real housewives or something that might begin okay with israel housewife a target look it broke okay wait why not so good it's a good suggestion but let's yeah because the women don't want I don't want you don't want it okay so what did they watch? No idea they're watching downtown abbey thank you. I could guess misery yeah right yeah the white board doesn't have spell check so I'm kind of in the mercy of this question majors in the room okay. So downton abbey what else? Mike I feel like they're like a npr listener okay a lot of work on nonprofit board so they'll be on uh the fat select probably art openings or is that that kind of thing gallery openings in their city first friday walk last thursday well if I need any dinner with one hundred dollar price tag they're over there okay cool right would they be like it like occupies francisco I don't know what that is they definitely wouldn't not people like camped out food I really loathe shopping like you know um ferry terminal at the farmer's market like high end farmers market stuff for fund raisers and that are you so called france on their southern okay okay yeah so yeah, whatever the equivalent would be in southern california like where would be the grove or something like that grove is that like a smaller or find a farmer's market? Okay, maybe nordstrom's do you think they might chop it nordstrom now it's a neiman marcus baby in tow like golf and tennis tennis playing tennis tennis ladies right and golf you said to e j yeah country club remember the country club are we getting any answers rolling through here? I was just gonna say what's really funny is that the answers that are coming in of the same that were coming up country club way had some of the other ones with non profit of so to be honest, I don't have any new ones yeah everybody spies like spaz right? Maybe miracle is a really nice pot we have in tucson right in the tucson area that you know sometimes is like a really fancy destination maybe like destination spas or resorts or something. Well and do you dio do you have a booth that those like wedding shows that happened convention centers and stuff we haven't yet because it's been a question because I don't think we don't think that they're there because when I talked to everyone who's you know whose mother you know, his daughter has already got married, they did not attend those, so we haven't, because you have to pay to put up the booth and do all that, so we haven't done it yet. If we got that, people were there, we'd be there, and when we dig in with susan tomorrow that's going to be really fun because some of the things that she often does with her current customers over the past customers is do a very detailed kind of questionnaire, I mean, not to overwhelm them, but to get some very specific information in terms of figuring out like, yeah, where did they go? Where did they not go? A lot of times in this case, uh, for your business, this is an example of where people might say, well, obviously, like goto all those bridal shows, what are you doing? You're in the bridal business, and when you dig in and you research, you find that your market is not there, just like everybody and other businesses says you have to be on twitter, you have to be on facebook or, you know your stupid if you're not on linked in well, what if your clients and your customers are not there? You really wanted to find what actually is the ecosystem in which this person lives in one of our questions has been two years and people between their daughters or their their daughters on twitter, daughters on facebook and if you go with that, so how many people do you try and appeal teo it once? And how do you focus? You know which ecosystem to go fishing in because they're different? Yes, exactly. So, you know, some of that is specific testing and trying, and some of that could be where you do find certain places that you know, no matter where you go, like you're bumping into people who are your ideal clients. The other thing that's really interesting about this weight we talked about, you know, and we are, do you think they ever read any blog's? Are they like huffpo readers like huffington post or something? Maybe maybe one of those more paper readers, everything paper, new reading, a newspaper, which which newspaper? They're looking at fashion magazines like vogue and stuff, or or yes, yeah, also like the wedding section in the new york times is that you're really you, and they will pick up those local bridal magazines that feature the plan, you know, they're basically just big advertisements, but the feature you can pick them up like starbucks or wherever the local ones okay, the local phoenix has one southern california has won what about, like wedding planners like wedding planners is like all right, that's, where we're trying to go next is trying to get in touch and network with wedding planners because the wedding price tag is usually the point where they're having the wedding finer record right along the same lines, maybe photographers, wedding video first damn like network tv, because those markets are the better ones because obviously the magazines and newspapers require advertising that's going to be pretty expensive and tell me maybe maybe yes, unless you can get so I've been studying a lot of jewelry stuff for somebody else, and I noticed that a lot of people have these press clippings and there's somehow getting someone on in a magazine spread would be wearing their bracelet or something, and then they could really use that push there, you know, I don't know how they get into this, but but those were all more likely in the wedding planners than then showing up tennis and golf clubs because that's not necessarily something that you know, that one has access to what exactly? Uh, not just save what about wedding venues like popular wedding venues, and some of them have caring managers or their own type of coordinators, right? And there are societal newspapers that are local, so for pasadena, and we have one, and those get red by bye everyone needed almost just looking they're almost like party pics and you just put there and see all the events and you look and see who your friends have been too what those knows at least feel more tangible and something that we could dio and advertising and neighborhood associations I know you know a lot of some neighborhoods that have, like kind of a dedicated neighborhood association put out um uh like little papers or something like that yeah. Yeah and there's this also next door when we did the silicon valley secrets a silicon valley there was a company next door which is a cool they create like community neighborhood wide uh kind of social media sites for neighbors could be connecting with each other and I'm thinking living in the phoenix area we have a lot of housing developments and some of them are a little bit higher end there's a huge amount a sharing of information that goes on there. You know, with you said some of these localized publications so part of what's funny is you begin to do the brainstorming is to see you know where how is it that I can figure out where people are figure out where it makes sense for you to be spending your time and money, one of the things the ways because I'm cheap bootstrap er and me whenever I think about press sometimes advertising could be worth it, you know, in certain kinds of businesses. But in general what you really want is to get the credibility from having a press feature so looking at something like, you know, new york times weddings, you know, bridal magazines first of all, for your lesbian bride community the biggest gigantic wave of press opportunity is right this moment because we had everything in the news recently about same sex marriage and that's when opportunity where you can have a very particular angle where you could pitch a story too you know the wedding editor of the new york times about what are trends in fashion you know, for lesbian brides or, you know, think of kind of brainstorm different features a lot of times when you're thinking about the what you want to be doing on the marketing side is getting in press in the publications that your folks read but not necessarily by advertising it in fact there's a reason why they often create some advertisements toe look as if their stories in the magazine and you notice that tricky a thing where you have to read where it says advertisement and faint letters and the top but a lot of the ways that advertisements work now is it's really featured as it is if it were a story because that's what we relate to, we trust that kind of information mohr so when you think about that and you want to think about different angles and ways to be connecting with some of these bridal magazines, those that in the in this case it serves your mothers, uh, community, right, where you look at what it is that they read, when you look at your lesbian bride community that's, where you can also be targeting specific press publications, you know, and events and really seeing where it is that people hang out, but the fact is we are, uh we are living in this huge ecosystem and there's information that's passed around within these circles. One of the things that we're going to talk about on the morning of the third day are our peer networks in our pier circles, and there are certain kinds of people called connectors for anybody who's read the book tipping point by malcolm gladwell, where within these particular areas within volunteer organizations, there might be, like one person who knows everybody, there might be the wedding planner that knows, you know, all the best people within the market that you want to serve. So part of it is kind of testing and trying and beginning to understand, you know where where your folks actually hang out? Yes, mike, um, yeah, I don't know, I don't know jump too far ahead, but I was actually thinking even before you said that every thought of making like a group of, like super friends like like a photographer and a wedding planner and you know, but I'm on a wedding venue having thanks on each other's website and you just go to dinner once a month and just talk shop and just create a relationship there, and then, you know, the referral sources will naturally come from there's something something like that it could it could totally be it. Yeah, we start to talk about the mentor circles and everything that that could really be the case, and you, khun specifically design that you have folks who were really connecting with each other when I did this exercise, I was writing a post about avatars, ecosystems and watering holes, which we're going to talk about next, and I did a brainstorm on twitter and I said, uh, when and I used the example of whole foods, which is the store that happens to be across street from this very facility, but it's a natural food store a little bit higher end, and I asked my twitter buddies I said, when you think of whole foods, what are the other kinds of products and services that you think about and the answers that came back were apple computer and volkswagen car and lululemon yoga pants and, uh, my friend leon who's from canada, she tweeted back and she said, oh my god, I'm sitting here in my lululemon yoga pants and typing on my apple computer I'm about to get in my volkswagen to drive the whole foods to get someone in here she thought she was totally like you need independent person and realized he was totally just a product of marketing but that's uh you know, that really is how it happens and it's so so powerful if you see yourself as part of an ecosystem when it comes to getting clients it's not you standing alone on the mountain top saying please you know anybody who has a pulse and a credit card would you please come work with me right? First you define what are the characteristics of my ideal clients and then you begin to understand the ecosystem where they actually live, and then that becomes very powerful because what you want to do in the context of watering holes which is within any ecosystem, sometimes there are very specific places that are just teeming with everybody who are ideal client so there's one event a year that's really amazing or there's one you know, section I know the new york times wedding section is kind of the holy grail, right where everybody wants to get in there, especially your women you know, your mom's like that would be it right to get listed where their brides were listed, especially with them and they're very attractive dressed family, pictures, family picture, right that that would just be the holy grail for them. And so when you think about that, then all of a sudden it becomes a lot easier of really putting yourself where people already are, as opposed to trying to find ways that you're just pulling people to your website because there's so much noise out there it's so difficult and a lot of folks are just you're always saying, like, how can I get people to come to my site? And how can I do these things that that could be great? We'll talk about that we start to talk about marketing, but how much more powerful is it to just go somewhere where there are a bunch of people who already are your ideal clients and you begin to show up and participate in that environment? And all of a sudden, you know, things become so much easier remember the first time that I went to stop by southwest, which is a big interactive festival in austin? It was it was just crazy, there were twenty thousand people and I couldn't take one step without running into somebody who was an ideal client all of my heroes were their famous authors heads of technology you know anybody who would want would be all in one place I remember I was sitting down I was having dinner with guy kawasaki on handley from marketing props came and sat with us zey frank who was one of my heroes who I love's a crazy fun you know, internet guy who always has really funny videos he stopped by the table I was about to pass out on I got up to leave and to walk down and tim ferris was like sitting on the floor with his backpack and I sat down next to him for like thirty minutes and I'm like no way I would have had to go through thirty two different gatekeepers and in order to actually make contact with any of these people and here everybody was sitting in this one lobby of the hilton hotel at south by southwest, right? So when you're thinking of that and especially when you are a little bit more in that boots trapper mode and your wanting to be conscious about how you spend your money that's where you want to choose your watering holes very carefully maybe the on ly conference that you go to all year is that one conference but you're really going to be thoughtful about it, you're going to be clear as to who it is that you're looking for and you're going to make it a particular plan I'm not sure for you vanessa knows you think about watering holes for your own market you know are there like amazing wine conferences or events that would be great to be seen at from your perspective because I'm not a wine producer yeah like wine specific events it's kind of similar to brooke quien specific events are not necessarily good for me yeah because my target is looking for gift engaged wine I'm not the low class leader I mix different wineries together in one box and they like that because then they're not just sending two bottles from the same winery they're sending curated somali a chosen beautifully packaged gifts so it's just like it's different than a wine then like a wine show I'm really trying to get in touch with marketing managers people that send gift sales people you know account managers any of uh you know publications that kind of thing those are the people that I really I'm after and then also I mean it's definitely a similar demographic to brooke worked like a high end someone who's sophisticated and wants to send a nice get right it could be that there's some kind of a wedding gift connection and you know it was like all of a sudden when you look at some of the characteristics of ideal clients they could also be ideal clients for you and it could be the kinds of women who might be inclined to want to send the kind of gift it's very thoughtful and customize and, you know, ecological wine, you know, seems like it would fit nice for this market. So that's, where you could begin to come up with some synergies, I'm wondering if we can have some fun and do a little brainstorming for one of our internet friends as well. Maybe we can ask if somebody already has in mind, who would be an ideal client. Avatar. Just, you know, basic quick description and the nature of your business. Uh, we can come back in a minute. Maybe we could do some brainstorming. We could help dan and greg, wait, give somebody else somebody give somebody else a chance to think about that. So maybe folks can you can choose one amongst their if there's anybody where we can help somebody else to do some brainstorming in terms of that, some specifics when it comes to, they're, uh, understanding what specific watering holes could be. It can be things like conference is one of the things that's nice about conferences as they are. You know, you make that riel human contact and it's nice to meet people in person. Blog's for some markets is a really big deal, I know, within the entrepreneurial world blog's or huge local meeting places. So that that could be the case for some of the local events like we were talking about here uhm do you have do you mainly serve people within the los angeles area or is it could be anywhere, anywhere? Okay, uh, concerts. One of one time I did this exercise, actually with some martha back coaches and we were trying to identify what might be the know the ideal watering hole. And we decided that it was a willie nelson concert in canada I like filled with who would be the ideal avatars because I think she was from canada. Love working with canadians and everything about who would come to a willie nelson concert would be her her ideal person. Uh, now, you know, it might be a little bit difficult to bump into people, but depending upon the scale of your business, right, that could be where you could do something fun. Tow. I have a facebook page for people who were going to the concert locally to be collecting your favorite willie nelson songs. Or maybe you have some kind of a booth there or you have a bigger business. You sponsor something but it's recognizing that these could be places, geographic locations sometimes there can be different places. I know it in my own work that often, if I really map out where the majority of my my clients end up coming from there's, a huge collection of folks from new york. I love new york so much, and for some reason there are tons of people that are from new york that end up being my clients sometimes because there's lots of energy and people like to move fast, they like action, which is kind of what I like is well, I also find I have a lot of canadian clients or something. I I always often say that I've never met a canadian I don't like this day, so so far I haven't been proven wrong, but there's something for some reason that that I noticed geographically, um, you know, about folks that come from canada or from the bay area, atlanta, washington, d c chicago, they're certain hubs where I noticed I have a lot more action. Interestingly, although I have a huge, wonderful pierre population within phoenix and a lot of people who I love, including susan, will be here tomorrow, I don't I very rarely have clients in phoenix the interesting and you might think, like, why aren't you doing a whole bunch of business development? It's? Because for whatever reason, that's not really a market that tends to be interested in what I'm doing or or a good fit for me. So thinking about this can really help you if you are doing for example the location independent thing mike like you are and you know that you want to be doing certain meet ups or maybe you wanna have events that's maybe where you want to be thinking about right where the geographic locations that tend to have a lot of your your audience you have any sense of where that might be um so a lot to think new york city l a it's it's funny that you say that because I every city that I go to and I've been in like thirty this year I hosted meet up and I host the meeting I create a facebook event for authors, entrepreneurs, innovators and sometimes five people come sometimes ten people sometimes thirty but every time it's like the best conversation and it's like walking into a ted talk and it's I'm going to do when this saturday so just heads up everyone world filling where where I'm not sure yet but yeah yeah I was going to actually ask that creative life guys if I could do it here but we'll talk about the way I'm not I'm a bar or you know, sometimes I I rent a space but yeah for for any of us like connecting like minded people and creating those those connections and you know good karma, social proof all that good stuff and I love seeing people who have met at one of my meet ups you know they're being friends you know, two weeks later riding bikes together in the park you know, so it's just kind of creating that for other people that's a cool and here you are doing it in local areas where people you're coming into where people already live so they get to know people maybe they would not have met even within their own local area you know by doing those meet ups and then you're you know you and then and then I leave and then they have their own little men's group or you know group to do things with and share ideas and make money and all that good stuff that's really cool yeah and I think that's just part of what you start to notice when it comes like doing those experiments and then you say like you said, the places where you have five people could be great you know maur intensive kind of communication but then other places you might notice you have a whole bunch of folks my fee favorite story but that was actually in your town in portland and I did my mic book workshop there in portland and I had a really full group it was like sixty five people cresskill abo came right a lot of folks were from that area and uh somebody told me a story was actually like a year after but somebody had been working in their day job and they kept asking their boss if they could take the day off and the boss was really resistant to the idea and they didn't really want to say where they were going, right the escape cubical nation workshop but it was just having a hard time and so finally he got the day off and he was walking up to where the kennedy school in portland where I did the workshop and he looked a little bit ahead of him and his boss was coming too, so his boss was also coming to my work on and they saw each other and they just kind of we're just smiled and, you know, it ended up being this embarrassing, that kind of friendly connection and uh and that's really, I think why is boston? I want him to go because he knew he was going to be out as well was just fantastic, but portland was was an example of a place where there are many, many people write that tend to resonate. So when you're thinking of investing more time and energy or resource, you know, especially doing a live event, especially looking at of all the places within the ecosystem where you could be spending some time, look for those places where you do have maybe a geographical connection, so what do we have any we dio soul where we're trying to figure out who to choose with your heart but I think we're going todo with a canadian just so uh kris with a k whose ideal client avatar she says she serves local women in business who want to move forward with online presence slash inbound marketing but don't know where to start so she writes content and helps plan marketing and branding for their websites and blogger and a swell as a marketing kits and then she describes them let me know when you were a cool she describes them as mamas with frizzy hair happy kids and happy clients the frizzy hair well about that I guess I could never be her client chris can underneath okay yeah christoph k ok mama's with frizzy hair happy clients so they actually have happy clients which is great and uh happy what was the last one happy kiddos yeah, happy kids yeah, okay. All right. I'm just a frizzy hair because they're busy ladies okay, so maybe quote unquote yes, frizzy right? Because their hair is blowing in the wind is they're running from one thing to the next okay and so right. So the nature of what it is kris with a k is a woman yes. Okay, what she's doing is president's branding marketing the other thing you said like marketing case studies that we've no I think also just creating marketing kit it's for people our branding marketing okay yeah online helping them getting online presence okay all right so all of us have heard this example so what I'd love to do is that similar kind of brain storm right that we were just doing for brooke but let's do it for chris including folks that are on the internet because that's where you can go go crazy with ideas so given this example of who her ideal client avatar iss and what she does where do you think that she might find people we and we can actually look what we can go straight to the watering holes yeah nowhere what might be some watering holes conferences blog's books concerts meeting places where chris might be able to find some folks well networking groups if they are in any of those kind of things okay, so local networking groups not candy like women in business or entrepreneur okay maybe like a long associations for liking me like you know business school's alumni associations all right business school alumni so chris is that her ideal clients are in a skill based or service industry physiotherapy this hairdresser's home designers etcetera ok cool yeah you wouldn't be a fact finder yes she would okay I have to try toe yank this information out of my own very client very cold sometimes yes. Okay. Where else mother's group okay, right there are moms we have jennifer saying soccer games soccer games okay or other kids sports p t a meetings p t a question for you and maybe for chris and for all of us do busy working moms with frizzy hair flying in the wind go to pt and no maybe maybe maybe not right? It kind of depends that's one of those interesting areas sometimes it could be, you know, a societal bias of how we look at it but often pts have been filled with women who don't have a job outside of just raising kids where they might have more volunteer time but you never know right that that could be an interesting thing to to explore there's like there's different specific female entrepreneur organizations I don't know bo is one that has to be involved with right in their national association of business anything w right now and bubo on dh and there's certain certain authors and entrepreneurs with huge followings of the ideal client. So daniel report report write anything that facebook quite often so or just create your own really create right right really good copy and create like the mom's entrepreneur network in blank city and it might start at five and then become ten and then become twenty yeah could kind of right that could be one that yeah, that she could create right owned her own network there's also um founding mom's uh yeah international organization of mama founding moms at school they're also business. I mean, important we have a pretty thriving sort of business development course through mercy corps northwest is the relief organization, but they have mercy corps northwest and they have a whole business development foundation courses and they they have, um, you know, mentoring um days. I actually meant her people sometimes, and they also you can also get mentors online. But I think a lot of people use that kind of thing. And what they do is then bring people in to do work shop so she might actually find some places in her city where she can actually do a workshop on how to build your brand. President, you know what kind of things you need to go in your marketing plan? Um, and then that way, you can get yourself in front of a whole bunch of people pretty quickly. So wonderful. Yeah. Any other suggestions rolling in from our friends on the internet? Yeah, we have an entrepreneurial meet ups blogger blog's for the female bloggers meet ups for them. Okay. And then chris with the k actually says that she knows that they tend to be really into ted talks. Okay, uh, local women in business groups, book clubs and great active family places, yoga classes, library workshops for families sounds like she's already done her own that's great alright think exactly on dh she also said uh when we were talking about the p t a meetings and if the's frizzy hair moms are there they certainly don't want to talk business at the wear of right when is an appropriate time to talk with exactly and right sometimes you know, within these these ecosystems I think about it for myself we had a flag football uh leak that my son was in that we were like number one in undefeated last season and I don't care I'm like one of brooks mom's right now yes, my son made a touchdown but uh yeah like often when you're in that kind of environment you don't really want to be talking too much however, when you think about that connection that you make with people where you really do end up making a great natural connection is often where you are just hanging out having fun with your kids but then when you do find out what each other doesn't business and you immediately have that report on that trust so maybe there's time you know, outside where you're like oh, great, you know, I've always wanted to have a mom coach or I wanted toe work with somebody and marketing my business and it becomes a really natural thing the key is to be conscious about how it is that you're showing up in these different environments you don't become this walking sales person right or some of sometimes all everybody is maybe been in that situation or had, you know, somebody close to them who was excited about multi level marketing some product they were selling and so you couldn't sit down for one minute without getting the spiel of like whatever it is that they're selling and it just makes everybody I think feel a little bit awkward so within some of these examples of all the places where people could go if I were working with chris and looking specifically where she should go, we can take broad categories like events or blogger blog's and say which ones in particular right? I think mike was right looking at somebody like marie for leo although marie, you know, herself um she's a step mom, right? She has a bonus son I know, but sometimes her demographic could be a little bit younger, right? She tend to sometimes have like, twenty five, thirty five there are a lot of folks attracted to her brand, but she may not necessarily be like mommy. You know, uh, business brand whereas you might find some other blog's that arm or specifically kind of targeting, you know, that kind of person so as chris is really going forth and developing just like we did what we were brainstorming our own individual ingredients you start from a very big broad brainstorm lists like this it always helps us we can see with each other that you do it in conjunction with people who are you no different from you that khun brainstorm and think about different options from that is where you then begin to kind of zero in specifically and say how can I actually make my plan like what would my marketing plan b how can I make sure that of all the different blog's that I could be focusing on if I were chris? Where should you actually go and spend time commenting? Where should you see if you want to do a guest post right of all the different events which one should you participate in when you go to networking groups? And one of the things I found is really important is to just kind of test and try and don't go and join everything and so that every night of the week you're a different events show up once see how it goes um and then and then move on with that awesome are there other questions that are coming up or well, I just wantto give some feedback and say this is awesome uh from krystal with a k says I can see some really cool ways to just be at their watering holds to build trust and organic networking yeah, so laying all these out is very helpful for her and she's much appreciate. Excellent, excellent. Yeah, it certainly makes it a lot easier, you know, when you just go to places where people already are and then you end up running in circles of, you know, folks that, you know, call it a posse, we'll talk about a little bit on friday morning, you do end up having people who do share similar values who are excited about serving the client of clients that you want to serve. Um, and and then it just doesn't make it very much more efficient and effective for what you're looking at. That's the question, yes, please let's say that you want to focus and do many three how many do you usually recommend your kind start with, like, six? Do you start with double to see what sticks or if you're kind of hard to make a game plan, a specific game plan of I'm going to try and do these three have news like events or whatever? How many specific do you usually try and go for it? Whatever, like save my number was three sort of your efforts to write everywhere can do everything, but at the same point, not all, not everything you try will pan out you, you go for double what you're going to try and do this on six and so so here yeah here's where and here's what we'll look at specifically for you is well, I liked everything in quarters, right? Like, what can you actually do within a quarter it's like enough time to have a little a chance to test and try, but not too much to wear your stuff with anyone plan? So if you have a specific ideas like for some of the things, give me a couple examples of maybe new things that you want to try losing all my pens over here buy from me trying to network with wedding planners and event coordinators. Okay, so, uh, for the other thing, I want that weaken to answer the question effectively. Like, what specific business goals are you trying to drive like within the next quarter? Are you primarily focused on, uh, just getting more visibility of, like, getting known and connecting with people building more opportunities? Or do you really need to sell mohr immediately now? And they know anything about more, okay, yes. Okay, you need to some or, you know, kind of immediately. So from that perspective, it is you look at the weight of what you're trying to do. I would lean a little bit more toward places where you'd have the actual purchasing clients, right where you know that, you know, you can one of the things that might be really strong within your your market is toe look att referrals and to go back to people you've already worked with and see if they let them know have you ever done have you ever like to ask for a referral or specifically told people that you've really had a great experience with that you would like them to spread the word about what you do wei don't have a network for re froze yet because we're just so new okay, so I have a lot of friends and you know that our target clients who have been trying to help me spread the word but at forms of like I wore this we don't have a lot of those stephen pick from okay but some who have been happy and kind of you know had a successful thing so one of the things that we want to start to bake into your marketing systems and processes are where you help people who have already been an ideal client and it could be a simple as you know, doing the implementation in the follow through after they purchased you know, doing a follow up maybe you can send a nice bottle of wine depending upon how being how big the purchase wass you know have some kind of a nice follow up have some kind of a you know, a card or something and then sometimes you could have a piece of feedback that could be simple like, you know, a couple different questions that you could ask them about their experience and then you could ask an open ended question something like way have love serving you and you know it gives us such joy to make mother of the bride or groom you know look beautiful on the wedding day if there's anybody that you feel you know might enjoy our gowns you know please spread the word or if there's anybody that you want us to contact I never sometimes it can be awkward so people ask you know well can you give me a list of five of your friends and I'm like I just bought one thing from you how good is it to ask I mean it's up to you depending upon how how you do it you could be elegant you can always give them an out but sometimes especially people our connectors they wouldn't love to do it if you would just ask and sometimes you can do it specifically where right at the high point where they're feeling great and their pictures just came out in the new york times and they're feeling totally awesome is where you can say you know I love the work up down I'm so happy we found you the perfect dress if ever you talk to somebody who was looking for a dress we love it when we get referrals just being very clear and open about that is amazingly powerful and often we don't do it and why don't we do it? Because we're afraid of, uh rejection rejection are like all of a sudden you know, like who you know that's awkward or that sales e I mean is it could it be a true statement? We love it when our mothers of the brides and grooms are happy and look beautiful we love it when we get business from them is that a true statement? Yes yeah totally so when you say it as a true statement and you don't have to go to that next level of making it awkward and so give me the phone numbers of all your best friend so I could call him yeah, I mean no way they would never do it but being very specific about you know, asking for more referrals is a great thing to build in we talk about systems and processes you building your business nowadays they're things you can actually build into your sales process where, you know, sometimes things come automatically where there's automatically you know, a little note or a card we just went we just lost our beautiful big dog named shoki was thirteen years old, we adopted him when he was eleven and he got really ill couldn't even walk so he had to be put to sleep and there was very hard experience, of course, but our local veterinarian that put him down afterwards, they sent us a card and they had made a little pop print they gotta pop print that they took of shoki I mean, of course, you know, try to hold it together for here, but it was like it was so sweet, it was so thoughtful in each of the technicians that work there that was there when shoki was put down, sent, put a hand wrote a little note. Now let me tell you, I will be a customer for life, we have two other dogs and that particular services one I hope we don't have to do again for a dog's butt. You know, those kinds of little details when you're actually following through are the kinds of things that people so appreciate, and then from that perspective, when you have shown that care for them, you know, when you when you ask them something else, when they've had a really positive experience, it could be a really good thing. So I think for you in deciding what might be the best source where you have people around you, they're saying, I want to help you, I want to grow your business. Give him a plan give him a particular action plan this is what we're looking for here the number of dresses that we want to sell you know why you know often kickstarter and crowdfunding campaigns are so popular it's because we love to get behind a very specific objective and this is not just everybody random, you know would be customers out there but your friends and your advocates and your partner's who want to see you succeed help him out say this is specifically what I'm looking for if I could get three new referrals right within the next two weeks and that means that you know, I can really meet my sales goals and make them really be partners because they're part of your ecosystem they really want to see you be successful so that would probably be the vory first a place that I would look for you but then strategically because you know that in the long run knowing wedding planners um and being connected with them could be a really good source for you you know of of clients that's where I would look actually I think for your lesbian brides community that's one that it has mohr immediate opportunities because it's a niche market it's unique the fact that you have worked with lesbian brides that you're really considerate about some of these specific needs that they have could make you a very unique resource so if I had to lean, you know, one way in terms of a market that you might want to go after from the wedding planner side or you know, photographers, then I think that that would be one that would be really good to do, but basically the way you want to know everything will do when it comes to planning is to go from huge big brainstorm tons of ideas that you know, rodney's really good at helping us decide right and then narrowing it down. What do I actually want to accomplish in my business in the next three months? I need to make more sales, okay, let's choose the things here that lead to have a little bit of a shorter path to money, so maybe, you know, satisfied customers in the past or friends that really want to help me out, um and then sprinkle in a couple of the longer term strategic things. If you make a goal to once a month, reach out and make a significant connection with a wedding planner takes somebody local to really nice lunch or coffee asked to have a skype chat I'm a fan of fifteen minute calls right it's enough to get to know somebody you don't have to take too much time but it's it is a chance for you can begin to make a connection to get to know each other in that way, if you do and you have a goal of reaching out and it's in your plan, then over time throughout the course of a year you're going to make, you know, a lot of connections with with folks in that area. So yes, you want to test and try different methodologies, but I think that you want to try a fewer of the methodologies and just do it mohr within a quarter rather than, you know, trying at a conference and then paying for advertising and pitching a journalist and because you need you need to sell more right now at this stage of business, right? You're in early, you're still kind of in early states where three, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you know what? We have to kind of make some sales. We've got a note in the chat room, a tip from awesome land eah speaking about kind of growing and manageable rate. One of the tips that she has is to ask your loved ones and supporters to think of one or two people that they could refer you to and making it small and manageable number we'll get you more requests, you can grow a quick, manageable way did you say that was awesome ideas tender but right that's fantastic, I love that yet make it make it simple, just one request and the thing is the more specific you are in the way that you describe your ideal client avatar the easier it is for people to really understand you know who it is that you want the big thing is giving them language for like what the benefit especially what the benefit would be of working with you because those two groups have specific problems and they have specific pain points and so if you if you give your referral people like exactly the right language they'll probably be more appreciative than having toe figure out how to describe you know, because really you're not giving people dresses you're giving people you know that's like the commodity but you're really giving them kind of peace of mind you're giving them like this kind of ultimate you know think that they're trying tio she social credibility right you know and in certain cases you know or just and absolutely perfect yeah beautiful visual experience that sums up you know how it is their feelings their wedding uh e j for you like what? What's what's an ideal client for you and your your mom entrepreneur it's kind of in some ways a little bit similar to kris with a k from canada yeah I think because I use like you in design system it's like kind of the framework I work with um I also look for ma much parents that are open so talking about energy and um I intend to be like, socially conscious or doing work that's around like making a difference and so um so you have some of the things that we don't have on there like I go to like kids yoga classes, places they have that, um what other kind of different things even that just like some social media crews like some groups like they're really specific groups on facebook like even just doing a search on facebook and then just looking at other groups and seeing like, do they touch on like even just touching on like metaphysics are like the law of attraction like people who are interested in that would be interested in working with human design and using that to help them shape their business very cool, right? So you're looking at yet characteristics what are other places where they might play? I was telling you j a story before when you also think of different kinds of moms and different approaches sometimes cultural differences I was is I've been saying before race in marin county, california, which we're kind of known for being a little bit woo woo I was raised in the seventies and so it's kind of like, you know, do your own thing and I was telling my best friend does ari who is african american? She was raised in the south side of chicago now she lives in nashville and I was telling her one morning that I was taking my daughter to school and she really wanted a bacon sandwich from starbucks and so you know, being the marin county mom and I am I'm like sure honey you know we'll stop will do the drive thru at starbucks so there was a really long line and end up taking a while to get through and then we got to school a little bit late so I told my best friend what I had done and she was like you did what and she told her sister who was like you did what and I told my husband who is navajo you know who was like you didn't what like for the five year old you took her to starbucks for a bacon sandwich and we were just in hysterics I was like, you know, that was my total barron county anglo bomb moment but sometimes there can be really interesting you know, shared connection that you can have right based on people's background like you said so I imagine that for some of your clients they are crossing a lot of different demographics right people who could be open to energy and so forth right can come from many different cultural you know social backgrounds but at the same time maybe based on how they understand what it is to mother or different expectations that they have that can look different with indifferent immunities I'm curious for you how that has played into what you know you think about his ideal customers or sometimes people think oh, you know I'm a woman I must work with female entrepreneurs or I'm african american therefore all my clients are african american how does that how does that play out for you? I think initially like because I'm a single mom, I was like, really wanting to work with single moms, you know? And as I started talking to a lot more moms, I realize even moms who weren't single still shared a lot of the same feelings and frustrations and like challenges um I think also I didn't grow up in this country actually grew up in nigeria and so I moved out here for college and so sometimes, like, just like, what? Certainly cultural references they're talking about, like movies or, you know, I'm kind of like, oh, I'm new to that too. And, um and so I think it's actually something that sometimes I, um I kind of like have to juggle because I know like, you know, I want to talk about like, certain songs are like certain like, you know, music or like movies that I know he's just probably part of the community that I'm part of the other people may not understand it like relate to so it's just kind of like sharing a little bit about like myself like my kind of perspective are like interesting cultures knowing that a lot of people that I may be connecting what may not be able to relate to it but then also being able to speak teo like the actual experiences and the feelings that kind of brings us together and so that's something I'm still kind of like playing around with like that too, so now you know, and in one of those things can be I think when you start to look in terms of ideal clients like the example I gave before but I can't have, you know, young entrepreneurs that are creative entrepreneurs, I could have my fifty five year old career, you know, corporate guys who are very different in terms of their backgrounds, however there's a certain shared characteristic of being very open right people that you might find my come from different backgrounds, but they're open to learning new things, they're curious and they're interested to learn about your background, right? They might. And I know many of my clients also have come from the experience of first generation immigrants or or children first generation immigrants, which is a whole other fascinating kind of experience in terms sometimes of expectations that their parents might have where they get so upset when their their child who they put through college too many times come to this country in order to give them opportunities well quit their stable job in order to start a business and that can create all kinds of specific things so you know, I think one of the things that's so important for us to recognize is where are those areas that you do have a natural connection um and how can you really define things in such a way that you can be serving the kinds of clients that you want to serve, you know that really come from abroad uh interesting kind of divers audience and and none of us are bound to think that, you know, we have to work with a certain market I mean, mike, you're a guy you didn't have to choose to work with men as your audience right on dh that's just you know, but that can be something that you actively choose where you see a need in the market and that's really, you know, the kind of person that you might want to work with so as we're doing this work and we're beginning to develop these maps and understanding where folks hang out it's an ever evolving kind of experience right where you're always I'm tuning in and noticing who it is that you like to work with the other thing speaking of energy that I've really noticed what I'm working with certain folks is you can notice for certain people that as soon as you begin to work with them and the experience of working with them and then after you work with them, you naturally feel completely like hi and energized because it's really the right fit when that happens, that's where you want to take note, you want to write out what specifically was it about working with that person that was very energizing? What did I love about it? Um, what were the psychographic characteristics? What were the life situation characteristics? What was the stage of business that they were in co native style? Whatever you notice, um, so that you could begin to look for those kind of situations in the future? Uh, do we have questions or comments that are coming in from our internet? Yeah, let's take a look in the meantime, we can continue this, okay? Cool what's going on, so I guess the one of the things that we will be digging into a lot more specifically tomorrow, so I'm not not going to go into it too much more detail today, but in the work that we're doing with susan uh, we're we're digging into do market research she's going to be talking about some specific tools that we can use, I find in particular, where you're looking for information about you know, how can we specifically figure out where people are in the ecosystem? You, khun do things like asking your friends? I'm a big fan of that, and I also always offer it to people who are friends and clients, because now I have, you know, a bunch of twitter I know thirty five thousand or something twitter followers, which is awesome, it becomes a self perpetuating thing, right? The more you have, more people follow, but, you know, my twitter stream is often a very much more effective than google kind of source of information. So you know, if I have a question, I'll ask that's when I asked that initial question about when you guys think of whole foods, what are the other brands that are related if you don't personally have a huge platform? Now ask somebody who does have a bigger platform toe asked the question because from an ecosystem perspective, you're friends with them and then their twitter followers or people interested in them. So it becomes a very unique kind of special ecosystem when you're getting information as opposed to just jumping on google and, you know, getting any kind of random answers, so you could do that on twitter on facebook on lengthen I did it all the time when I was writing my book, I would post questions to my facebook page to ask people specific questions and it was very helpful. You could do the same thing and linked in you can search twitter and facebook and lengthen toe look att specific groups that air there, it's amazing the kinds of detailed groups that you'll find on and when I'm thinking about wedding planners, brooke and the example we're working on today, if you go in, lengthen you khun search by geography, you can look for specific linked in groups and not can often be a place where you can immediately, you know, kind of create a smaller a smaller list. The same thing is true on twitter dis searching on different words. Well, we'll talk tomorrow about using surveymonkey is one of the tools when you're digging into your market research meetup dot com is a favorite sight that I've gone tio are you guys familiar with meetup dot com? Okay, shaking your head, some of the internet shaking their head? I'm imagining if you're not familiar meetup dot com is a site that indexes live meet ups that are happening by geography so you could put in your zip code and you'll see a bunch of meat apps that are happening locally. When I did my book tour in atlanta, I was looking for just the way to spread the word to more groups. And I found it was like the you know, mangle the name, but it was some kind of atlanta association of web entrepreneurs or web developers there about twelve hundred members and we made a connection. I ended up doing a totally separate day at georgia tech with over a hundred people in atlanta that I never would have met had I not made that connection on meetup dot com it's a great place if you're experimenting and your wanting to just pop into different groups right, you consort by topics you could go to different moms groups or you could go to, you know, just goto one meet up, see how it feels and then maybe you want to you want to continue it, go to webinar and go to meeting kimmy ways that you can sometimes offer particular topics like webinars on a certain topic and see who appears that's often a way that you can, you know, use the tool. I've been hosting a free call the first wednesday of the month for about the last four years and it's a great way to just kind of see who shows up and what kind of questions do they have? It's a nice way of connecting with your audience uh, all conferences dot com is a site that lists a lot of in person conferences that air happening each year and your friendly library in we forget they're still librarians who were totally awesome who are paid to find information and they you are that is what they're tremendously skilled at, and often they have very specific resource is directories, things you can't find that can help you in order to do this research. So these air always when you start with your big picture, you know what air these general areas that you really want to work in, you know, I want to look at, you know, who are all the blog's or where all the different book clubs in my area, you know, we're kind of networking groups and workshops that's where you can start to really narrow it in to get more clarity. So from folks who were in the studio audience, do you guys have specific questions? Is you're thinking about really defining and developing your ecosystem and also choosing what are those? What are some specific watering holes where you want to spend some time, throw the same question out for internet folks? So so what do you say to the person that says, oh, I don't want to get stuck in one thing like, I don't want to only do that don't do dresses for, you know, mugs and mobs all my life, you know, especially for the for the kind of scanner, multi potentially types right with that person also bu or just people that you work with, I was thinking more people that I work with. Yeah, but but also me there's a there's a piece of me of, oh, I don't want to be branded even I I love the work and I'm really committed to it, you know, um, I'm going to be doing this work in ten years, right? You may not do it forever, yeah, so I think I totally get that, and I understand it, and I think that it is it's natural. There are some people who naturally don't want to be pegged in any one area have freedom and flexibility to move on and there's some people who are always going to be many doing many different things, what I think is is that you can't you have to stand for something in any given time. So one of the keys for all of us is to take our general idea of what we want to do and start somewhere that makes sense, right? We've had some tools for doing it today where if you know that what you're doing is going to be leveraging strength, you get energized by certain people that you work with, who have very specific problems, then that's where you can say this is a really good place to start but it doesn't mean that you have to do it forever and that's why god made the internet because you can change you know tomorrow if you wanted nothing bad is gonna happen if you start out and you know, get a brand up and going and you say this is who I'm working with and you do it for a year or whatever six months and you decide you want to go a different direction you khun redirect your girl you can introduce some other new thing there's always a way to tell a story about how and why you're pivoting what doesn't work and I find this with a lot of people is because they're not willing to commit to anything people are like I have no idea what mike does like I think he was sort of interested in working with guys but then again he's like has this interest in working with vegetarian moms and there's the whole like, you know, small children work he wants to do and so nobody knows who to send your way it's just right now for like right now for this next stage of business, what do you want to do and in the little bit of the you know, old school person and me would would say if you're if you're not willing to take a stand even for the next three months or six months to be focusing on business are you really serious about about what you're doing? We all have to start somewhere but from that place there's a million ways to tell a story about how and why you pivoted to different direction or that you ended up growing and expanding your market yeah photocopier says multi potential like types he that me we're getting a lot of good resonance I think I like you are how how often pam would you review these ecosystems and I kind of go through these exercises I like to do it once a quarter I like to do quarterly planning and then you know, at the top of each month like I was discussing with brooke before if we have you know, beginning of each month you kind of know what your objectives are and whom it is that you're going after but you could just really set and make sure that what your plans are actually aligned with with the kind of work that you actually have on your calendar doesn't have to be a huge thing I think once you get going you can kind of you know at a few things and change but it is important to review otherwise often we end up in a different direction than we intended pam what are we going to do when we come back? We're going to talk about fear oh boy favorite topic everybody's running screaming and I promise it's going to be really it's going to be fun it's going to be hopefully we'll make you feel better and safer and one of the things I think we can all do together within this class is to spend some time getting out on the table super common fears that we have that we think are only hours which actually are shared by many more people so yeah, we're going to dig into it and look at some specific tools that we can use in order to address those issues, right? And what I have found to be the case is again like you don't you have to start talking before you realize that other people have those same fears and it's such a relief when you find that out that you're not alone like we started to talk about so I'm really excited about the next segment as well. Is there some well, surprise is that they're gonna happen? I think in this next sixteen prizes some fun things going on so stay tuned for that we have some fun things coming in from online thou lord who is a regular says I am loving this one pam has such great practical information so again, I love that we're seeing that people are already knowing how to do that seeing how to do these exercises and apply them to what their challenges are right now so thank you about that's awesome and mahogany stone said on twitter. Fantastic day on dh this was earlier, but how many people are going to run to complete their hold? A survey during break colby better send me like a reading card again. People are continuing to love great yeah, we've seen so many quotes from people who are just talking about how valuable this material is and you know this is valuable material. The workshop is one hundred forty nine dollars for people to purchase. The reality is we're here three days this week. People may not be able to see all of it. We may be missing out on some. You may want to refer back to some of this stuff later on just to refresh what's been said, so the best way to do that is right now you can purchase this for ninety nine dollars it's really easy, just clicking the green button below the video right now simple to do you won't regret it before we go to the break now's a good time to do it. We'll be back in fifteen minutes.