Lessons

Lesson Info

Develop Initial Offers and Small Tests

I totally enjoyed hearing susan today and her wisdom when it comes to market research did you guys get some insight in terms of a different way to be thinking about your market sometimes just having that structure in that format for how you khun begin to put in information about yourself and who you're looking for could make a gigantic difference? And I think having getting away from I am one of those guilty marketing people that for years out of ignorance I would say things like define you know your customers in terms of demographics and you know, what's the age because for so long that's the way that we're trained to think about our market and it's not as you're saying that that susan this saying that there aren't sometimes people who do fall within a certain demographic a cz we were talking about particular segments of you j working with moms rodney working with you know, filipino world war two veterans or serving the filipino community you working with men in a social entrepreneurs...

lesbian brides in addition toe m o b's mothers of brides and m oh jeez mothers of grooms on dh for you vanessa working with marketing managers you know, sometimes there's that demographic information in there but I just find it so powerful sometimes when you look at a framework in a structure that you could begin to work with that actually ends up being a big focus in a place you can draw from for doing all the rest of your marketing materials the other thing that often we we are taught as entrepreneurs is to talk about an elevator speech or you know how do you say what it is that you do and I find that to be fascinating sometimes when you're in the early stage of business where I might say hey rodney, how are you what you're doing and he's like well, like I'm sort of working on this thing and I have this other thing and it's very awkward for you and it's also very awkward for the other person for those people who were out there in the audience who were in corporate jobs very frequently what people will say is well, I'm a marketing manager for ibm but I'm kind of working on this side business to develop a new clothing line and when you're saying that and you're automatically telling people what you are in the fact that you're doing it as a side hustle it doesn't come across in that strong, clear, direct way that susan was saying it's like, you know, nice to meet you, jake who are you? You know, I am a clothing designer and I'm so excited because my first clothing line is going to be coming out on x date that feels so much different like so what you're you're moonlighting as a as a manager at ibm right, that's actually what your moonlight is so you don't need to be telling people everything, so a lot of the the information that we're working within the course as you began to get these frameworks and get these tools it's, why it's so simple corton tw toe actually do the work when you're thinking about it? Because if you don't and you don't take the time to mess around and fill it out, it's going to become yet again? One more thing that you have on your big to do list as an entrepreneur. So it's a call to action for anybody who's out there, who's watching from home right? When we're on the brakes, when you have a minute, take the time to do the work, fill out those worksheets or used the tools, the self coaching we talked about yesterday, the formula that susan was talking about today, because then at the end of these three days together, you're going to actually have some real things to work with. I find personally that there will never be time a cz one of the busy mom see that you're talking about e j I finally learned, you know, there's there's never going to be time there's never going to be a better time than now to get stuff done, so while it's on my mind let me take full advantage of it and and do it. I'm editing my book at night after I finished this course here, I'm off editing my book at night because it needs to be done, and then it will be done, right? We can kind of get in that mode. So what we're going to be talking about for this next section is one of the probably the biggest thing that I do is a coach, which is to help people to go from big idea. I have this idea of who I want to serve, or I want to develop this new offering into actually creating something real in the market that they have tto offer people and I kid you not this happens very frequently where I might have a client come to me saying, I really need some help with my business. I'm frustrated because I'm not making any money, and I'll say, well, what are you selling? And I've gone to their website before, and sometimes people have nothing to sell for, to which you say, well, actually, no wonder you're not making any money because you're not selling anything they might just having about paige they have if you're interested in connecting with me, here's my email address, but people don't even know what to buy if you don't have clear offers. So a lot of what we want to do is to begin to get some specific clear offers and for those of you for brooke and for vanessa, who have physical products, right, which is a little bit different than service based folks then sometimes offers khun b specials or, you know, a certain time of year where you might get ramped up and ready for, you know, some kind of season I know, brooke, you were saying yesterday that you like to create your your gowns and your garments that really are seasoned less right? They can work in any kind of season, but as you look at what can happen certain times when people are thinking about planning ahead of people are thinking about spring weddings, for example, which I know in phoenix is a really big time where all the hotels get booked up, then that could be a time where you can think of what's, top of mind for folks, and how could you create some kind of an offer that would be really effective for them at the time that they're actually thinking about it, right? So we can start to think about that the other I couldn't sleep last night thinking about you, vanessa? Like, how can we get her money in the bank so she doesn't have to, you know, take out of line of credit in order to buy all that wine herself and maybe that's one of the things we can work on to is there an offer that you could make to some of your very best customers or some kind of introduction? We're basically it would be clear that they're booking ahead. Teo secure these very specific baskets thes these gift baskets, but the whole deal is that they're going pay a head so that you get some working capital so that you can purchase that wine that you know, that you need to and maybe reduce a little bit of that fear that you have I, you know, I learned a lot about money, and in fact we're going this afternoon will be talking about money with kyle. One of the things I've learned is there times where it really, really make sense to spend money. It really does make sense state, sometimes at a certain stage of business, to get a really good site designed, or it makes sense to hire somebody who was really a professional assistant or it makes sense to really hire somebody at a certain stage of business who's going to help you to, you know, get information about your business that will end up making you lots and lots of money. But other times, you don't need to be risking it's always worth asking the question, do I actually need to be investing all this this money in something right now? And I think in some ways, some of the old school ways that we've looked at business we tend to think about it is very resource and capital intensive. I was talking to a wonderful person on the plane right next to me on the way out here, and she was saying that her husband had just lost his job and had some capital to work with, and he was trying to figure out he wanted to have a business, but he didn't know what kind and he was thinking of investing in things, and we talked about different options and maybe something that was like heavy equipment, and I was like, no, probably because I have my married to my husband and I had that experience sometimes of buying a physical piece of heavy equipment and not have it actually be something that can hold its value. You know, you want to think very carefully about how it is that you test and try your decisions. So one of the beauty, the beautiful things about testing early and often and failing fast with little risk is that you get the data that you need in order to make better informed decisions. And I know that's something that's kind of been driving a lot of what we've been talking about, right? How can you make the best decision about who you want to work with, how you want to scale and grow and strike that balance right between sometimes investing in yourself so you can get over a certain hump so no, I like what liz smith said she said begins somewhere you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to dio so it's really, really important to just start tio to take action and begin to figure out exactly you know, how can we begin to make an offer? How can we get out there? And this honestly strikes terror in a lot of the hearts of people who are new clients maybe who were still stuck in their corporate job and they really want to leave, but we start to talk about taking action it can begin to increase people's heart beats so I'm curious for the folks who are out in the internet, you know, when they for maybe folks are a little bit earlier stage of entrepreneurship or for those folks that are more seasoned if they are let's, say, moving from one stage of business and growing into another what what are some of the fears or doubts that come up when they think about taking a leap into the new and new area right, maybe the first time you stand up and you decide that you're going to speak in front of an audience or you take a risk and you put together a book proposal and you shop it around to different agents, what curious for the folks in the internet? What are some of the concerns that come up for taking a leap? And then for those of you in the studio audience, what what does stop you from may be like taking that next step in your business? Um to really test something if you maybe you don't have it all together, you're not exactly sure if it's gonna work? What? What are some of the thoughts that come up in your head when you invite a test? I took a like a a little bit of it uncomfortable leap and I and I started just put it out there, but I didn't really promote it much and I'm sure you deal with a lot of creative people like, you know, we generally do custom work, and whenever I see websites of people who are selling like package design services, it just it feels like the quality like I wouldn't expect to get a high level of quality from those people and that might just be my my bias but but what I did do is try it I'm trying to develop some service is that can be more affordable for certain types of people that can't hire me for a bunch of other stuff, but I still, you know, make money and can also produce something of quality for them. So, like one of them might be doing, you know, a brand assessment and you know what I do? And I've tried to, and I sort of created, like, sort of sales pages, which is very strange to me as a designer. It's not something that we dio on and that's the not something we do, and so I'm that's been an uncomfortable but also kind of interesting little thing, and I and, like I said, I haven't I even actually this freaked me out put prices on just those particular services that I know that I can control that don't have to be really custom because it's like here's, what I give you x number of hours, this is what you end up with and here's, how it'll benefit you. So it was interesting to work through that that process, but but but I do have a fear because I feel like I'm sort of, you know, watering down the mystery of what a designer does, but it also feels like the right place to go because I think people needed. I love it when people need it so like if somebody wants to buy that service they can but if you want the custom thing then that's the traditional method of figuring out you know what your goals are and then giving up a project cost exactly well and it's so interesting doesn't inherit and some of that as you said like we don't do sales pages right designers don't and it's just that's an example from your own demographic but sales pages in and of themselves we're going to talk about that in the section today are one thing that get people a huge heart attack because it can either be this kind of service I don't want to become one of though you are right I don't want to push right I want to come across as too slick on dh those are often the things that can kind of get in the way are there any other things that get in the way of trying to, you know, take a new step or put forth a new offer or, you know, get in front of a new market uh do rodney and then broke well, it's not necessarily because I'm still dreaming scheming rage but about this idea for a website and service for a while and I've tried out a little bit but it's basically like fantasy football fancy sports with a social good component and I've tried it and it sort of seemed to work with my friends because they're of like mind but I haven't launched as business yet because of the fear of well well the scale will be a market for it well you know so I have a lot of questions you know, not of so the fear of that and I guess I really need to dive in and really do more research and figure out so or maybe do some tests I mean that could be one of the things that we can dig into today right? So will its scale you know, how are people going to take it or some concerns brooke what about you when we're putting together our website we're gonna need pictures we're getting pictures of the dresses we're going to need toe put together some dresses and put them on someone to take the pictures and it became how many do you dio how many's too few how many is too many like what's the bare minimum aiken do what colors do I do them in? I mean it just was like one decision after another and sometimes it feels like in the beginning you have to make those decisions in a vacuum because you're like well let me pick what I think is best because I have to start somewhere and if I mean you could I could get stuck forever unless I just make some decisions and that's let's, go with seven seven feels like it could never be started, what a one didn't work, so we went to seven and then yeah, but I look back and I think seven things off on a web site from a product perspective for a designer isn't a lot or is it because I could have gone with like three things so rights had just had a pick and choose and go for it? You do? And sometimes you notice that process of starting with big, and then it gets more complicated than you thinking gets smaller and smaller. I remember when I got married one of my criteria for the wedding planning. I didn't have a wedding planner, but my criteria was if it gets too complicated, I'm not doing it ok forgot like any kind of headache involved, I'm not doing it way chose the perfect place. We had certain things in place that I knew were important, but at one point we were a friend of ours makes cakes and she was going to make a hogan shaped cake. Hogan is a traditional navajo home. I love the idea so amazing it became very complicated and so I went to costco and I was like, here's, my wedding cake and it was totally fine. That kind of mentality where you're aware of what really are the key priorities so let's say in your case, brooke, those pictures that you did take those gowns that you did feature, you would want to make sure that they were a really great quality, right, that you had a good photographer take them. So the lighting was beautiful, so they draped really wonderfully and showed the quality of the gowns instead of having fifty different examples that were like shot in your bedroom with a you know, where the shoot behind you with your iphone, right, which would not be good, that that's an example of where you look at the things that are important, which is to have some really high quality examples, and then you can cut out those things that are not important, like having fifty different kinds of dresses. So what about from out there with our internet friends? The trend that I'm seeing are people concerned about the financial issues and then concerned about the validity of their idea. So on the first count, jennifer kent, she fears that her ideal client won't be able to afford her pricing out, which he's worth then steve mccoy, on the other hand, says that he wrestled for a long time, wondering if the content of his book had any value to others. We found that it doesn't for all, but it may have value for some, but the question is, does it hold any value? And that's been a huge challenge for him in what is one way that steve could find out if his book has value to put it in the hands of some people who will read it right? How can you do one quick test to see if people will pay what it is that you think you're worth? Publish it on your website, have a prospect, talk to you and say, how much does it cost to work with you and take a nice deep breath and have a smile and say it is three hundred dollars or one hundred fifty dollars or five hundred dollars, or whatever the amount is, is that is, ought to me, the on ly way ever that you, khun b for sure, in getting valid answers to your questions, right? I don't know, susan, if you have a different thought, part of what we're going to talk about in the section is what can you figure out beforehand before you put out a test? Yeah, but I'm so used to like when it comes to pricing, what are some of the ways that people talk about e I think it's so important, I hear so many concerns that air coming up from what if what I have they don't want right because we're starting with what I have you're starting with my dresses I think the better way to think about it is what they need that what problem did they have that I can solve so instead of delivering you're not delivering dresses you're solving a problem you're delivering a solution and you can illustrate that solution with three dresses or three hundred dresses it's the same solution so if we start to think about what's the problem what's my solution then lots of things become so much more clear because we're starting with the audience in mind and you know I'm thinking about the guy who online who is just like what if the people what if my ideal customer can afford me? Okay, so I had this problem because my work out in the marketplace attitudinal segmentation research can cost eighty thousand dollars one hundred thousand dollars ten years ago it was two hundred fifty thousand dollars dang we should pay not business right pants, right? So I came out saying okay, I don't want to be that because I think it's ridiculous to charge that much for for this so I want to be a lot more reasonable so my my project prices were twenty five or thirty grand what I started to realize over the course of my business though is that the people I wanted to serve didn't have that much money okay so I could work with an agency that might have one client or two out of their whole roster that could afford to pay twenty five thousand dollars on richard before they even started doing anything right and that and and my clients the agencies that was a really tough sell for them because you know who wants out twenty five thousand dollars the agency right if the client has fifty they don't want to give twenty five of it away before it things even get started so I had a problem where the people I really wanted to help we're we're not a fit with what I was charging so I figured out a way to spend a lot less time doing what I do without denigrating the quality of it so that I could take my price is down by two thirds so my average project now is about ten thousand dollars and I have clients I have agencies that use me on every client they have because they can so if you're a perfect audience can't afford you one of two things has to happen pick a different audience or find a way to make yourself affordable for that audience on what I did was take a huge amount of time out of my process by introducing some things like data visualization software and stuff like that so that my time on the project was the valuable time and not the invaluable time and I cut a lot of corners on things that didn't affect the quality of my work but made it a lot easier, faster and less expensive for me to get that work to my clients that's wonderful and what one of the ways I can see in the case of I forgot the name of the person but it was talking about coaching is sometimes when you start to talk about coaching, having a market segment that is able I mean you could you look at your overall business model right of how what's the total amount of money that you want to make and this could be true for really any kind of a service business, right that for somebody who's a coach, you can look at what's that percentage of one on one coaching time that you can deliver and you can make a certain choice of saying for a particular kind of person this is really what the coaching is worth and it's it's my energy full of energy and experience that I'm putting into the situation in order to serve this kind of client. But then there could be other kinds of services that you can provide that would be things like doing a group coaching program or doing a webinar siri's where maybe you're serving twenty people, so instead of charging two hundred dollars an hour, you charged people two hundred dollars for a three month program where then they also get to interact with other people and so I think one of the things that's really important one of the things that we want to test and try when it comes to pricing is in really looking at finding that right ideal client and if you find it is really the right person and like susan was saying that it's simply you're you're out of sync with how much money that you're charging to do things a certain way that's where you can adjust your services another thing was a really amazing insight that I got from my friend room eat satay who I know has done a class here a creative live about personal finance and I did a whole long interview with him about pricing and I was saying being somebody who cares very deeply about my entire market I have a lot of people who have been laid off or really don't have extra money and they want to start a business but they really can't afford coaching. So I said, you know, I have certain courses that I really want to make accessible to the market and some people can't pay more than ninety seven dollars for a course they really mean that really is actually a lot of extra money for many people when they're they're just trying to make it and get by and so what remains said which was so powerful for me is you could just have certain folks that you serve that can't afford your services that you really charged it that full value of price and then just give the other stuff away. I was like that is so brilliant, so imagine how valuable that would be, how good it would make me feel to be able to take courses which I've put tons of time and energy into which I think hold a lot of value and instead of selling them at a price, imagine if certain things I'm doing I'm saying it's two thousand dollars a day to be working with me to do an intensive strategy session and by the way, you can buy a multiple four part course for forty seven dollars people would be like, well, are you the forty seven dollars, person? Are you the two thousand dollars person, right? And sometimes you begin to get this dissonance within your pricing structure. And so when you think about it, where if I could just be giving all that away, that could be a wonderful way of being of service to people of having that generosity, that utility that susan was talking about that that jay wrote about in his book, but at the same time not having to have that struggle with the brand dissonance, and I think this is something that's really, really powerful, so ah lot of this in my experience are things that you do at different stages of business in order to test and try things when I first started as a consultant seventeen years ago I was so excited that anybody would hire me for anything I was just like astounded it was amazing and so I just made up a price like that sounded like a huge amount of money it was probably just my salary that I've been making before just you know, divided by whatever the hourly rate was and I wasn't considering any other things about what it meant to be self employed so I work for my first project I went to my second client and as a true sign that I had my pricing wrong my client asked me to raise my price person who has to manage their budget of consultants like said you really should raise your bright eyes so that's a kind of sign that you get but what I learned from that experience then is actually for almost every client after that I would double my price now my clients at that time were large silicon valley corporations and it was the late nineteen nineties and money was flying around it was insane right? One of the things that one of my really wise mentors told me her name is mary jo potter and she was a longtime consultant she said it's really important and particularly for women because we know that that the statistics say's that generally women charge less than men we earn less than men, but we also negotiate for less than men and she said, you must charge what the market will bear, right? Thinking about the competitors thinking like susana saying for people who are offering services that's going to serve my market when you look at positioning yourself against those folks, you want to be positioning yourself in charging at a similar level but then she said, which I thought was so important you can choose to give it all away if you're the kind of person who believes in social causes who wants to turn around and invest in new entrepreneurs at that time I was running a local martial arts organization here in san francisco is a volunteer executive director, and then I had money to pay for kids transportation to be able to buy them meals to help them, you know, to get through high school, and that really shifted my thinking a lot you know about money, so we will be talking more about money this afternoon. But the thing about pricing is you don't really, really know until you begin to get out in the market and actually see what it is that people will pay sometimes when you're asking them and surveys, you know, how much would you pay for a solution like this? They'll make up anything don't yeah, yeah the right weight right and that but then often then it comes to putting an offer out there and you know, you see the results and often it's very different than what people tell you. So any other questions that come up or concerns when when people are testing let's see if this is really about testing ok come up a few times, then chat room and brainiac is talking about building a reputation which you touched on a little bit okay, he wants to know how to take a leap without getting there, putting your face and name out there but also protecting your safety and privacy or do you just have to forego that and take a chance? Wow that's interesting and it's actually it's a common thing I think for two at least two major categories of people one or people who are employed you do not want their employer to know that they have a side hustle and that's a very real consideration when we start to talk this afternoon about contracts and everything you want to make sure that you're actually ethically and legally not doing anything wrong if you have a side hustle in your business but that could be a case where you don't really want your employer to see you out there you know hocking your wares when you're supposed to be fully focused on your job okay, so sometimes in that case, you khun b building all the foundation of your business your focus you could be doing like kind of secret test with people and getting information, but you're really going to go live at a time where you want to go live the second is maybe a person who doesn't feel as comfortable in the new world of work where we're really putting ourselves out there and we're sharing who we are sometimes it works from a branding perspective where you have a company name or you don't, you know really clearly come out is the founder of a company not every single company has to have a very clear identity and brand I leaned more towards I have to say maybe it's a personal bias, but I want to know the person behind the business if I go to a business, any kind of business page and this is like I do this all the time because I'm always fascinated by it. If I go to the about paige and there's no information whatsoever about the people behind the business I actually trusted less so I'd love if people think that I'm discriminating against those who like want to stay anonymous, please tell me I'd love to find some kind of solution or maybe to understand it better, but I think these days especially in the new world of work, we do want to know the people who were behind a business who were the founders, what are their story now? It's very different to come out with a very clear business identity, right? When you're like stepping out for your first test and you're you're showing people what you're doing, you don't have to be sharing intimate details about your personal life. You don't have to post pictures of your kids, I think sometimes people equate everything together, right? If I'm standing in front as a representative of my business, that means that I have to be sharing everything about my personal life as well and that's a totally personal choice. I am probably really far in the extreme of having, like, an integrated life, if you know me, you know, my dogs, you know, my kids, you know what I'm feeling there's certainly certain things that I don't share with everybody, but that feels very comfortable for me. It stresses me out to maintain a dual identity write what you see is what you get if you're sitting at home with me, right? Mike mike's been to my house, what you see is what you get, maybe a little more mess around me, you know, my kids climbing over me for other people, they feel much more clear in secure of having a business identity and then having a personal life that's separate so I don't know what what you guys think in terms of being a business owner and not really coming out you know, in public I didn't speak a lot has um a couple of things one when I worked in a in the corporate world I worked in financial services there is a lot of kind of has a tense about social media especially in financial services and I really locked down everything maintained my brand so so tightly and I didn't like that it wasn't comfortable for me I am a sharer I like to share my life and so for me to have my own business it's been really great because I still maintain my brand very carefully and you know like my facebook is pretty locked down but I I share very openly about twitter and that I'm a giants fan and all of these different things and share personal photos of my dogs and all of that so and it's really nice to also talk about that I love wine and these other things as well and I think for me being a business owner is really made it okay for me teo share all of the things that I love or say something about something that I don't like that going on politically or whatever and I don't have to worry about it anywhere and it's really it's really nice and then I've also found that that does bring customers to me and helps customers really connect with me, they want to help me and they want to know my business. Absolutely, michael, you know, yeah, I mean, I write openly about my life way more than anyone safely possible, but, um, but the good thing about it is that yeah, I trigger a lot of people and I get hate mail and, you know, and and I've lost friends, but I've gained the world, so I mean, there's I've gained connections and friendships with people who, you know, they just they just e mail me there that, you know, I love everything you're doing, and they're my ideal client or my ideal friend, so, you know, I mean, I've gained people who value authenticity and integrity and openness and giving back on and it's scary, and I'm you know, on and it's and it's really scary, but like, my guess, my spiritual practices like continually playing at my edge and growing like my comfort zone and still like sending love two people who, even if they don't like me, but just knowing and but it's it's really hard and painful, but it just it draws people to you who are your people? Yes, I see it because I know what I read your block and I and I know you personally and paul, your facebook and that is an example in some ways, it's what people fear about putting themselves out there is some of the responses that you get people saying, like I actually, you know, I don't like who you are, I don't like what you're doing or it's the wrong decision, however, when you look at the integrity with your brand and the message that you're bringing to the men that you're working with, you're saying for generations we've all been hiding behind this facade of being these very carefully put together, guys who don't show any emotion and, you know, and and never show any vulnerability and that's been very harmful, right toe all of us to men or men or women, et cetera. So I think, you know, there's there there's a lot of different components to it in terms of putting yourself out there, but I think especially in this day and age, it's not that it's ever impossible and like, I always do what you want, like, who cares what I say? Who cares what susan says? I mean, seriously, like, if you really feel like this is a strong stand you want to take in your business, you can figure out a way to do it, but it may be a little bit more more challenging as you go on so so I want to talk about specifically a couple components, and we start to move from generally figuring out what our people need to begin to bring it into the land of actual offers, and so part of it, the structure there, we're going to look at there's one that there's a book called web copy that sells and actually ask my friend sonia simone, who writes a lot of copy blogger who is a wonderful person and just has such a gift with writing and has done a lot of work and helping to really study and understand how do you actually structure copy so that it moves people to action let's, add this to the list of skills that I'm jealous about. That was the design and singing from yesterday, and that is great copy writing. Have you guys ever read copy where you read it and maybe don't even I want that product or service, but you find yourself, like reaching for your credit card because it's, so compelling and compelling in a good way, not compelling and that people are flashing messages of lack and that you're going to be, you know, living in a van down by the river if you don't buy this thing, but that you get so drawn in and it's it's done so well, and it's, like susan, was saying you feel like it's customized teo you that somebody has really leaned in and listen to you and when you read, you know ah, copy, maybe it's a service page on on somebody sight or you go to a page where you're searching for dresses and you land there it's a very, very best compliment you could ever get where people say, you know, I feel like you wrote this just for me. I feel like you really understand me. I've been looking for this information and it's wonderful, I've got many of those kinds of emails, but the more that I really start to focus on identifying the particular problems and writing for my audience in that way. So you can see that some of the questions from here from the book web copy that sells first or what's the problem okay, second is why hasn't the problem's been solved? The third what is possible then? What is different now? And what should you do now? Very, very important question to answer generally it is take out your credit card, press this button and enter it, okay? So, brooke, I'm wondering if we can pick on you for a second. I love the market segment that you're talking about for lesbian brides because this I think is one it's very interesting that has some really unique characteristics where there's an audience of people who feel very frustrated that there needs have not been met right I mean it's not a new well it's on new market but obviously as we talked about yesterday it's one that's going to be expanding given recent legislation yes earlier from queens pop photo who said please tell you that who that please tell the studio audience member who makes dresses for lesbian brides that lesbians in general struggle to find clothes in general which which reflect their personal style and if you advertise directly to lesbian bride community that I get you you will rocket you will go far t get some of these questions teo yeah exactly right so I mean so tuna who is this who needs proper photo queens pop photo okay so right queens pot photo we need you here it was like our prince with yesterday way needs careful tracking right on this goes to susan's idea of like imagine that she is on your what panel and all that right on your panel on your board and get some you know interesting diverse representation from that particular market segment where you can bring it to them and say this is what I'm thinking what do you think ibm amazing so you're the first one queen prom photo booth number one so what is the problem? What what is the problem for lesbian brides that are looking for us you described yesterday you know, uh stylish different you know interesting kind of gowns and or you know, tuxedos for for their wedding so so what is the problem that I think that there are you know, a million wedding dresses who that don't necessarily speak to what they want to wear and feel free susan to pop in with your questions because I know you're I know your brain's going no breathing yeah I want you to jump in and ask for well, you know this I love this what is the problem because um I will tell you that most people looking for something they don't know the solution they know the problem right and so many people I mean jane was talking to me about clients she gets who are asking for all sorts of stuff from marketing because they don't understand marketing they have a problem and they've maybe read someplace that this is their solution and it isn't but they don't know any better so that question what is the problem I think really will reveal a lot about what people are trying to you know, what are they trying to solve? You have the solution they may not even know you exist they may not even know that there's coaching for entrepreneurial moms or that you could get wine gifts that are already you know, prepackaged and they may not even know they know they have a problem and they'll be very clear about that your job is to tell them you have a solution exactly, right? So there are a million options for dresses, but what else? How else could that problem be defined? Yes, she says that lesbians need to always imagine their minds how they make traditional clothes work for them. So I think that's part of the problem trying to keep it traditional, but tailored to their style. Okay, so that's so the problem would be, is that they don't know how to make traditional clothes work for them. Is that right? Traditional wedding gowns or something? Would that could that be part of it? So maybe I am I'm not the target market, but honestly, it seems to me that it might be a little awkward to have both women up there in a frothy dress, right was actually one of them never wears dresses, right? Please, wedding dresses like I've been into some of those places, and I don't even like them, all right? And I'm not the target market either. Early where my mom's dress so I didn't have to go shopping. Yeah, but yeah, so for some of these women, it may be like, how how can I be formal, but look different than my partner or being comfortable in my clothes? And cleans up photo clarifies problem is not keeping it traditional but modifying the on ly options that are available uh right and I make a tux look feminine and the other is this the time right? Yeah. Okay, interesting. Um another thing and queens pop photo you know, we hopefully we'll have some other representations or lesbian brides come on, wait it's a very small sample. Yeah, exactly, but, uh, one of things that I would imagine is well, that comes to somewhat of what jane was saying is, uh this is an issue we face in society that not ever some people have really strong views about whether it's a good thing or not, right? So I would imagine that if I were walking into a bridal shop part ofwhat would concern me is am I actually going to be judged? Is somebody gonna really even want tohave me in their store if I'm coming in? Because maybe they don't agree with the fact that I should even get married that's deride kind of creating a safe place, eh? So I'm not sure if that would be a real consideration or, you know, for some of the folks that you've worked with if you know they talk about that but just being extremely clear that you are welcome here you are safe here, I'm excited about your about your wedding well we don't have a boutique per se because we saw online but yes, yes we try and mention you know mention who were trying to serve and so relieved by putting it out there come over here come with us we may know that gets not just for for this but right so in this case and we'll see if we get any feedback from the audience but you know, that would be what I would just imagine knowing all the dialogue that's been going on is one of the problems khun b is not everybody supports gay marriage and therefore you know there could be some awkwardness and finding vendors that really served that one healthy yeah oh I hope that's why the problem hasn't been solved but I was hoping from hadn't been solved I hope that it's because when you talk about demographic information when we talked about this morning you're taking a whole group of people right lesbian right whoever whatever it means a huge age range you're just having to make like almost gross generalizations about what they want aware yeah and you know for me do they want to wear a suit do they wanna wear a formal dress that's not a gown do they want to wear a gown? You know? I mean, so you're trying tio teo guess what in particular they want where is typically for a bride you want to wear a white are off white or ivory dress and so mom dress short now there's a wide spectrum on that but for them like what do you really want? I think in terms of what hasn't been solved right and that kind of goes to that making traditional gowns work because there really hasn't been other options before, right? Yeah, maybe this is a little out there but I wonder if maybe some some of that target market would maybe want to be part of of disrupting what has been a you know, I mean a traditional bridal gown store and they're disrupting traditional marriage you know? And so maybe they would want to you know, be part of something or help you know, change something you might even include like a survey I mean there's a woman who started a brawl website and you like to find the perfect broadened you fill out, you go through this step by step kind of question answer thing it's it's the whole part of the web site and that might even be something that you do which helps you gather information but it also ends up making people feel like they get to kind of craft their own exactly right so would this be known as a gigantic opportunity to be collecting some data to figure out what the problem actually is think every opportunity is tio yeah, yeah what's the problem right? Because when we're going to make a mistake is when we're going to make an assumption that doesn't apply to all of the people out there so um you know, it would be a mistake to consider lesbian brides one sort of segment and everybody looks exactly the same because there's a huge swath of difference in what they're wanting maybe you mean there may be people out there who both want whereabouts but they want him to coordinate right? They won't don't want him to conflict with each other and how do I get to gowns that actually will work together? You know, in front of the photographer or all this things like there's a huge range of things so I think, um that exploration piece is about understanding the range because then when you understand the range you can go okay? I can solve that that can't do much for that but I could do that yeah and that's where you sort of start to parse out figure out okay, we're within that community can you be of service given what you want to do, what they the problem there trying to solve? For whom do you have that perfect solution and it's not gonna be one hundred percent of lesbian brides? Of course right? How how demeaning to suggest that it would be just like any bride right anywhere is that it's not going to be all of them but for certain ones, you have the right answer, and this is where you start to look at things suzanne falter, who I did that original class in where I started my blogged she talked about we often start with huge big categories, right? It feels like it's a specific area. When you start to get into it, the more you dig into the data to define the problem, you might find that within that segment there's what she calls an inch wide and a mile deep where you have a particular kind of lesbian bride who maybe does one address and wants a certain kind of dress and maybe that's all that you actually deliver so that, you know, going from what feels like a small thing, but when you really start to dig into it, depending upon the numbers of people that you're talking about you, khun, begin to really, you know, focus your efforts. So for the purpose of this exercise, you know, for this first step, a lot of what susan was talking about earlier, a big part of the equation is actually defining the problem with some data defining the problem by digging in and actually finding out what people want, how do they define the problem? Once you do have that, then you can start to look at why hasn't it been solved? Right in this case and the purpose of really working through it, it can be because right that you know, they're onl iwas there on ly were traditional gowns, right? Um uh what what could be some other reasons why the problem hasn't been solved that kind of there not more options for dresses were things for gay marriage was illegal in the states, right? But in terms of this particular things for just the dress right for kind of finding formal wear the next of customization yeah, right can't organization yeah, okay, so in this section, you're kind of going digging in and just trying to find out like yeah, I mean here's the problem and here's, you know what people are looking for, but why actually hasn't been solved? Nancy duarte when she talks about in her book resonate going from what is to what could be backto what is which is a fundamental part of story structure that's part of actually what we're doing here in this framework of a sales letter is going from you know, what is here here's the problem? Why hasn't it been solved? This is a very particular, you know, concern, but then you go back up to what's possible, but wait a minute actually, we have these beautiful, not traditional custom made gowns that will make you feel beautiful and uniquely who you are. So you have a wonderful day, and you look, you look gorgeous, that brings people back up, you know, to what's possible. So in this stage and you're defining the problem, why hasn't it been solved, right? What are the barriers that get in the way of actually making progress? What is possible is generally like your solution, because right here, what we're talking about is we're talking about the structure for a sales letter or some kind of an offer. So it's okay, here, if you're saying I'm the solution, right? Because you've done the research before and you feel pretty comfortable that what you're offering is going to be the right thing, you know, for for people so kind of, you know, what is possible is my particular solution is beautiful clothing. What is different now is really describing what nancy dorte calls the new bliss, right? So you're comfortable, you're, you know, at the wedding, you're feeling good, you get people excited in that view of possibility, if we're talking about cj's audience, right, the classic structure is, you know, I'm overwhelmed, I feel like a bad mother, and I'm you know, business isn't moving forward, right? I want to do I don't have resource is you know it feels like it's an impossible thing but wait a minute actually there is a way to make it happen and that's by having a session or a series of sessions with e j and then after that's done oh my god it sounds like total nirvana but what's different now is that I'm an engaged parent in my business is actually making progress but I just get excited in saying that you know I mean really you have to bring people along in that journey on dh it's not the place sometimes we get stuck is you know you are broke and you can't pay your mortgage now and then you work with me and two sessions and you're going to make a million dollars and here you are you know like with a corona on the beach under a palm tree like really is that like really are highest aspiration is like to be on the beach with a corona with the palm tree I mean probably not on dh so you know it's important to be really couching that what is different now in terms of things that people really want that's this again going back teo what's their initial problem and really what do they want solved but when you confer a vied examples of like here's what's different and by the way you know hear three people that are just like you that felt the same way that you felt and then after working with e j r, after working with you, brooke, and buying into the perfect down there, we're so stressed about it and they were worried about it and they felt so wonderful and it was easy, and everybody complimented them and then here's the picture of them, you know, here's here's, their bridal picture, these kinds of things really increase the confidence that we have been working with somebody. Um, and then what should you do now, when we're talking about a sales letter is you should buy right? This we'll talk about the sales process tomorrow. This is coming later in this in the sales process, where you've established that they're in need you qualified the person, right? So you get to a place where they're really ready tto actually purchase make it easy, here's, how you do it, right, big arrow here's how you do it, click here there's some crazy, um, data that brian clark from copy blogger found I'll try to find it the break. We can share it with the chat with the folks in the chat, but it's something like when you put in the word, click here before a link it increases the the click through by like thirty seven percent or something, I'll figure out that the specific percentage, but it's crazy you want to make it really, really easy for people to understand what to do next if what you're doing is actually trying to maybe get people to join your email list, right, which could be a really important thing early on in the process then that's where the call to action would be something like enter your email address, you know, here right now but this basic structure if you start to go through and answer some of these particular questions, can be the foundation for how it is that you you put forth an offer now we talk about offer a lot for folks that have service is now on the web in terms of like a sales letter, right? A sales letter we might see the same thing could be true in the form of a proposal, right? You're proposing a project for a partner? You if you're answering these particular questions and you're presenting the information that way that it's going to make it much easier for them to actually make a purchase decision? So are there any questions or comments that came from our friends on the internet? Yeah, I'd like to address a little commentary that was going back and forth from li ke who said I think startups should never be considered businesses but more like experiments and I wanted to get your thoughts on that framing that mind set in a different way um well, first of all it's like whatever works for you so everybody has different reasons for what it is that they're doing if you're in a more square one or square to where you're not really sure if you want to have a business and you want to experiment that's exactly what it is another way of framing it is the early stage of business is testing and trying different offers right? But to me it is part of having a business it would be foolish and we've seen some people who have had this experience where they invest in their business and they spend the resource is in their business like they would if it were in a much later stage of business and it fails because they've done no testing and then they're totally out the money right? So I totally agree I think the more we are researchers and scientists and we do experiments all the way along it's great chiyo might have some interesting perspectives though in what it means to go back to our thought work in terms of what are we really saying if it's like you know what just kind of my thing this is my job be I'm not really serious if that's what you want that's awesome that could also mean that you may not take some steps to actually make it a viable business and you may come across that way to somebody else so it seems like it's really about the terminology so brainiac says it's really the words start up he says calling a startup makes him feel like he has to measure up to the zuckerberg's of the world but when you call it experiment it brings out the scientist in him and makes him cool headed that's totally awesome so if it works for you at the on ly great question that dr phil ever asks is how's it working for you is working on it that's like the greatest coaching question in the history of humanity isn't it it's brilliant uh and so if it is working for brian is it or brainiac or whatever there was brian in there then then that's awesome and I think the bigger question though if maybe brainiac is looking at building a viable business is just being conscious about how long, what kind of where is that thought coming from? It goes a little bit back to we talked about yesterday if you're constantly saying that in some ways kind of giving yourself a break like this is not really riel it's kind of my job be then sometimes that can stop you from really taking some boulder leaps, you know? But if it helps you to take action, I am totally for it and it's interesting again just that like it's all about your mindset because valerie I s solutions for you says start up sounds like a serious business but experiment teo her sounds like a hobby or an interest not something ongoing yeah exactly way get so tripped up in the start of world it's ridiculous people are like well, you know you're not a startup and I mean people you know you're you're not an entrepreneur because you don't have any employees or you're only an offer if you had a million in business and I'm like I'm whatever the hell I want to call myself thank you very much, right? Yeah, you know, as far as I'm concerned, if I have to make all my own money for myself and my family and nobody is just handing me a check every two weeks I'm an entrepreneur it's useful? Sometimes I think about different categories of business and certain kinds of business culture, right? Like startups we think about having vcs and having investors right? But yeah, call it, call it what you want it and call it something that's going to make you feel empowered but be thoughtful because sometimes we can chip away from our own strengthen our power because we use terms that keep a small as opposed to using language that just helps us feel comfortable taking action so there's one example that I wanted to show is another model that is on copy blogger copy blogger is the site that writes a lot about persuasive language and, you know how to use it, there's a particular framework that they use, which is a wordpress template, which is called premise and premises basically kind of has baked into the particular software some helpful questions. I thought this was actually really clever the way that they have it structured where, you know, this is a particular plug in you can use for wordpress for those of you who have aside on wordpress and when you get this, this is an example of the kinds of sections that you might want to have in your sales letter, if you have, for example, an offer that you're putting out on the web. Now, one thing that's really important to remember is it can be designed a million different ways. So we've probably all seen the, you know, yellow highlighter, bright red, tight things that feel like they're jumping at us with like flashing arrows going doesn't have to be that way, but there's been a lot of intelligence that's designed into what are the particular components you wantto have in an effective offer? And what is the order? That's, the optimum tto help people to move through and make a decision, and this is this is just an example that they have on its a get premise dot com you can see demo landing sales page you could just look it up you know if you go on premise this is just an example that I pulled up where you can test it out but you notice in the first part a compelling headline is crucial for a sales page so that's that's the part where you would want to have some kind of compelling headline are you tired? You know, shopping for a million dresses and everything is white frilly and you can't stand it you know, lesbian bride at a strong subhead to amplify your promise and drive the reader down into your opening well I'm totally excited because I've been working on this amazing clothing line just for you or whatever I'm a terrible copywriter on the fly so similarly talking through to give some examples okay you kind of have that section you have some very specific you know ideas of kind of you know what to do it walks you through you know, paint a picture in the reader's mind right after the subhead maybe have a visual to you know really focus on their problem andan you can see some example sometimes where it's useful to have something that's kind of called out in a little highlight there right? Every word of your sales letter for the first half page is designed purely to get the reader to keep reading everything else is secondary you can see it starts to give you some information for knowing howto actually layout and structure the information that you can see that we talked about earlier. So then, you know, you go. You see the different sections, so identify the connection between you and the buyer, right? How how do you actually connect to each other? Where do you have some commonalities? Why're? You actually interested in the market that you're interested in, rodney, if you were doing your kickstarter project, right, let's, say, you're doing your kickstarter project in this documentary about filipino american world war two veterans, then that's. This is where you want to tell the story of, you know, my my parents are filipino, and I don't know if you have any veterans in your family, but, you know, that could be where you tell some stories. Like, I remember my father, my grandfather, you know, telling these stories and begin to build that connection that basically says these this's, the reason why you and I are here together, then you look at what I've got for you again. That wouldn't be the headline necessarily sounds a little. Used car salesman but it's the section right here's actually what it is that you're going to deliver and here you can start to see an example of specific information so maybe for e j for you is you're putting together your offer you know, for busy women people like to see in a clear way like what am I actually getting so there's no time with me and there is a forum and then we're going to meet together you know with free day care for the kids and you know here's an example of all of us meeting right on dh then you can see that there's a section here you know in the middle of you know add to cart or some kind of by button often you see that in the middle of a sales page where you have that particular offer you see some areas where you could have a testimonial right? Those were our friends there they were super happy with what you offer that social proof extremely important it's extremely important for them to be true teo use people's own words don't just make it up and have a bunch of like fake internet people right or everybody that's always the testimonial for everybody else's site really think about who would be very relevant for your audience I almost always like to have my actual clients rather than the people who my son calls the fancy people right you know rich famous richard richard branson says hamm's really awesome richard branson is doing quite well in terms of his business like I care more about like rodney says, who worked with pam when he was in a situation just like you I personally think for many folks that's folks I like to work with they're going to care that I was able to solve your problem not that richard branson you know knows that I'm cool and he doesn't know me so if you're watching richard, I think you're cool too so anyway and then you can you kind of go through and you see more and more the detailed description but this is just unexamined, I think which is really useful. One of the things that often gets us stuck as entrepreneurs is and we start to talk about testing or doing things we think we have to figure everything out from the beginning and you look at like this blank page and try to put together, you know, a sales letter or an offer somebody's already, but tons of thinking into it this is one example you can look at the book webb copy that cells which also has another set of examples you can go to favorite programs that you've purchased and you can look at the structure of it, but the key to really get going moving with some kind of an offer is to begin to get the basic structure down, and then draw the specific information that you've been gathering to. Define the problem in a clear way. Present your solution in a really clear way, and then and then move it forward.