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Dig for Market Data with Susan Baier

What's exciting I think about today is we're going to start to talk about some things that to me make the difference between a totally stable, thriving business and just doing what we call a job e good job b is like kind of a job hobby something on the side and it seems to me especially with all of you here that some of you have been in business for a really long time right like you jane but that you you want to create something that actually a strong and enduring and sometimes I think is creative entrepreneurs we focus on just building the marketing side of the business where everything is aboutthe launch and getting sales and bringing people in and we forget sometimes about the really strong pieces of the foundation of actually understanding the business and how it works, which is the most empowering thing in my experience about really understanding what it is that you're doing and getting excited it sounds crazy but like getting excited sometimes about getting good legal agreements ...

in place and you could you know it's like it's it's it's amazing when you start to recognize what it means to really trait treat your business with honor and respect and treat your partners with honor and respect which I think is all about having a really strong legal foundation what we're going to be doing to remind ourselves and I want to give another huge shout out emily shepherd, who did this beautiful, beautiful piece of art yesterday as I was giving the journey of entrepreneurship we started yesterday looking at understanding yourself and understanding how are you wired? What is your cognitive style? How do you take action? What your strength? What do your ingredients and like jane was saying, just because you have a huge amount of skills doesn't mean that in your business you have to use all of them in that particular recipe, so we have the recipe of your business that what you're choosing to do right now and a lot of what we're going to be talking about today or actually particular offers so what's one recipe of a very specific thing that you can really deliver, but the more you understand yourself and how it is that you're wired with your natural strength that's how you can make sure that you're building a business where you can feel good in the delivery of it that's a huge priority for me. My own personal definition of success is to enjoy my life while I'm living it right I mean, who wants to just be doing stuff to make money and not enjoy it and a lot of that's a choice right being present being in the moment the more you set up your business to understand yourself leverage your strengths that the more you'll feel good about that then we touched on the first part of identifying your ideal client and looking at ecosystems and watering holes rodney that's the greatest story ever and doesn't it? You know, I called my business journey a magical mystery tour because it seems like sometimes the mohr that especially you get into the adventure of the hero saga where you realize that you know, you do begin to notice things that maybe you didn't pay attention to before and I personally think there is no coincidence that you would you know, have that experience you'd be drawn to visit that particular bookstore on dh meet people it's on ly going to continue and I think it on lee continues when you just honor and respect that what you have to deliver to the world is important and necessary, right? Those commie really positive signs so looking at the context for those of you who weren't in the internet who weren't here with us yesterday an ecosystem is just defined as the entire environment where one where your business lips so if your micro toschi and you're working with these high adventure you know kind of men they might watch ted talks and they go the world domination summit and maybe they purchase apple products and I don't know what kind of clothes you all where you know you like, uh you know, probably you're friends with derek help turn and you know, like totally into like you know seo and driving you know made people to your mailing list and you know, a whole series of of people and brands and products and conferences that make up the ecosystem where you live now within that ecosystem there could be some watering holes like rodney was describing ah watering hole where he's wanting to really tell the story about world war two veterans and that these air filipino world war two veterans until that story having a center of those veterans in san francisco is one example of a watering hole arrive you can walk in there and find out all of these people who are so wise who khun tell their stories who of course also are connected to all of their family members and probably they're also connected with other veterans associations uh within that within the rest of san francisco within the rest the united states I immediately think about my husband's relatives that were navajo code talkers which in many ways have an interesting kind of similar story in terms of a special role that they played in world war two and I know that a lot of I'm sure my husband's navajo relatives would be really excited and interested to hear your perspective in your journey you can begin to see where watering holes have yes ideal clients or partners but they're also connected to these networks of people who are inherently interested in what it is that you're doing then we had the opportunity to dig into fear which is one of my favorite topics we learned that fear is actually your ally it's there to support you we learned ways to talk to your fear to figure out what it's trying to tell you sometimes really super helpful things and we also did some exercises for examining your thoughts we did self coaching where you can examine your thought when you're feeling kind of crappy ask yourself what am I thinking right now? You know I'm really scared and I'm nervous and I know people will like me well what's your thought you know, sometimes your thought is I'm not good enough to be here on the stage if you change your thought you're going to change your feeling that gives you a different kind of action that gives you a different kind of result so we constantly want to be conscious about what it is that we're thinking and in some ways stuart smalley even though it was a fictional character on saturday night live I think was very correct of if all of us can walk around saying I'm good enough I'm smart enough and dog got it people like me in general that's kind of a good way to approach life right so it's very very important and then we had fun bouncing on a pallotti's ball which was a tool that mike friend and client cheryl dolan taught me about at which is a way to organize your nervous system to increase the dopamine in your body we've in this studio audience we kind of have to remain seated right normally if we were doing an active workshop together we'd be jumping around and salsa dancing and moving because often when we're moving our bodies physically is also a really good way to shake up fear but for two not freak everybody out on the internet maybe they'll be salsa dancing sometime you know that we could do but but not not really for today so what we're going to be doing today is to jump into much more death we're starting a session with one of my favorite people in the world who will introduce in just a minute susan buyer and susan is a professional market researcher one of the things I find often for creative entrepreneurs is business coach is probably like myself will say go figure out what your market wants right go go research about your ideal clients and people kind of just stay hovered over the google search box and say what in the world like how do I find them? How do I know what what they actually need or want so susan's going to help us get into lots of details about exactly how we can do that? Why it's important then I'm going to be working with you on testing and trying how can we start to shake out some initial offers get action moving figure out of all the things we could do, what? What are some concrete steps that we can take a look at, you know, the construct of sales pages, then I have my good friend kyle durant who's going to come in for the last two sections of the day and talk about building your business foundation again in a way to respect yourself in your business, respect your clients, make sure that you have a structure that's going to allow you to grow from in a stable way, and also we're going to look at things like intellectual property, which is a really important topic, especially where the things you're creating are really, really special and really, really important. So that is the journey that we're on today and it's just it's amazing to me how valuable this information is, and I'm so delighted, and I just want to give a shout out to creative live for allowing me to bring in susan and kyle because they're people that I go to personally for this information, they're people who I respect so much, and I'm just so glad that all of you get to experience them, and I don't have to spend the whole day talking to were just awesome, so as a reminder of what it is that we did. Yesterday for the homework, because I am a coach, I like to remind us that one of the ways to not be overwhelmed is to be doing little pieces of work every day. And we talked about yesterday with naming your stage of business. We had talked about the squares of change for martha back where you go from death and rebirth, kind of deciding if you want to be an entrepreneur to dreaming and scheming, thinking about tons of different business ideas, the hero saga, taking one idea and moving it through the different stages of business, which could be very difficult. And then the promised land where you actually work everything through and you get to a stage where you are very stable, so we want you to name what stage of business that you're in, define your ingredients, brainstorm a big list of all your skill strengths, write down your fears and then bounce on on a yoga ball or pallotti's ball so that's, those are all things that I think you're really going to help. So, um, that is all that I'm going to give in terms of set up for today. What I want to do is to turn it over to susan buyer, who is here from phoenix, arizona, and I met susan, I think it gangplank, which is one of our really fun, cool, crazy coworking spaces in arizona when I first moved on from the bay area originally and when I first moved to arizona, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. It was very different, different culture. I didn't really know people and I somehow found out about gangplank, and it was this amazing community of people that were software developers and, you know, marketing folks and business people that we're all together with an extremely strong ethic of really supporting each other in collaborating and community. And susan is the organizer of what we call laid off camp phoenix, which is for five times we did a totally free conference for people in the phoenix area who were laid off and we had hundreds of people that would come, everybody would volunteer, so we had food donated. There was no cost for entrance. You know, I always volunteer people would help write resumes, photographers would take pictures of people for their headshots and linked in and to me what it was so amazing about it was a total demonstration of love and support from our community for people who have been laid off. And if anybody has ever been through that experience or anybody on the internet, you know, sometimes sometimes like going to a air quote, job fair, it's, just a depressing thing where you end up leaving, feeling less than and you know, it's it's, just not you know, you really don't feel good about yourself, and everybody was saying when they came out of laid off camp that they felt supported and very positive and optimistic and that that really I think those are all words that describe susan so in her profession, she runs a firm called audience audit, and she'll tell you a little bit more specifically about what she does. Susan is the person that I go to when I have specific questions about how to really go in and research my market understand their specific needs and make sure that I'm just not totally making stuff up all the time. So, susan, welcome to creative live and work the scythe be here a cz pam knows one of the reasons I love this opportunity is because I am you. I am one of you, my background I've actually a liberal arts major like pam, although mind was in literary writing in seventeenth century poetry, which is super practical, and then I got my mba and entrepreneurship and promptly went to work for very large fortune five hundred corporations on did that for a long time I actually pulled my own ripcord once and left a big corporate job to start my own consulting practice after my daughter was born, and then I went back to work for an agent see and had somebody else pulled my record for me I was laid off right at the height of the whole recession thing and decided I was not going to work for anybody anymore, so I consider myself largely unemployable now, which is fine because I because I do my own thing but I've so been where all of you guys are and I I love working with folks like you because I truly believe that these small businesses are the engine that's going toe that's going to fix a lot of a lot of things that are wrong now so super happy to be here and to be with you guys, how many of you have done any kind of market research at all a few years? So so what did you do, right? Tj? Um, I did like the usual stuff, like kind of looking like facebook groups are part of that I know, you know, my ideal kinds hangout and, um, I've also just done like internet research kind of getting stats and stuff, and then I've also done like interviews where I just call like, mom's up and good for you for like, forty, forty five minutes, okay? Ask them questions about what they're going through, what they like with an ideal solution would be good for you girlfriend that's awesome, excellent who else who's done anything mike, what did you do? I do lots of more like a qualitative like if anything ever comes up in my work and I don't know an answer, I just put it out to facebook and crowdsource it and good I mean, I have tons of friends who are I mean, authors and bloggers and entrepreneurs and the discussions that was really roach that's often it's not super so that's great to hear and I know some of you have done it and some have it a lot of people are super freaked out about market research, my backgrounds in marketing strategy, that's what I've been doing for twenty five years and I do research because I think knowing is better than guessing that's what I think, unfortunately, we're not always in a position where we can know, right, and especially when you're small and you're getting started up and you've got a small budget sort of big quantitative market research studies or massive focus group operations or whatever are kind of out of reach for us and that's and that's okay, I still think there's a lot we can do to go further down the line of understanding our audiences than just like hoping we get it right, right? Which is what a lot of us sort of do, do we just go? I'm sure I have something someone will buy I don't know who they are I don't know where to find them, but maybe if I throw it out there someone will stumble across what I do right? So we could do better than that even when we're small even when were we have very little budget and it's just us and we're and we're not really sure what we're doing so that's so that's what we're going to talk about today um so pam yesterday told you know there's a lot of conversation about you you you I'm here to tell you to the session is not about you you you okay? This is about them them them and it's so easy for us, a small business people to get really wrapped up in what we do, what we can do, what we could do, what we have done right and thinking about pushing it out there, right? Especially like I was laid off right? So I was like, I have to sell something I have all of this stuff I could do who will buy my huge basket of stuff anything in there I'll sell any of it, you know? And so when I originally started a business, I was like, oh, we've been doing marketing for twenty years I could do anything I can write marketing plans I can help you figure out strategy we could do a little research going I can do anything for anybody and that's a very normal thing to think it's not a good way to sell it's not you know I could do anything for anyone is very hard message to get your head around and do anything practical with and it's not particularly appealing to the people on the other end because most people don't want somebody who could do anything for anyone they want somebody who could do the thing they need for them for them and preferably is built for them right? Everybody loves that that's what we want okay, nobody wants to buy those dresses that are like, one size fits all you just put a built around it, okay? We want something for us. We want something understands our style on our color preferences in our body and all those things right? And and selling anything is no different than that whether selling to cos you're selling to people they want something built for them. Okay, so the whole I could sell anything to anybody is out the window. If you're thinking that right now with some of you may be just get rid of that let's just let's just start there. The trick is who are they and what do they want? So we're gonna go through some exercises today to help you figure that out and I guarantee that once you go through this process that whole, like marketing, what do I want my website to be? What should my marketing plan b? What kind of research I need to do? We'll get so much clearer. We'll get so much easier because we're going to eliminate, like a ninety five percent of the stuff you guys are worrying about right now. So have you guys done? Have you done a marketing plan? Okay, some of you having some of you have it. Did anybody google marketing plan to go get, like, a template? Has anybody done that? Okay, did you print out all fifty pages of whatever template that you got that started with, like, market opportunity and statistics from the census? And did you did you, like, go through that big, nasty process just now? In the past, I've done them, and I probably stopped halfway knowing, right? Because it's so daunting. It's it's absolutely horrified on my concern is that small businesses like us forgo doing a marketing plan for go doing any marketing strategy because it's so frightening, it just seems so overwhelming and let's face it. Most of us aren't in business to do marketing. I mean, if you're a marketing person and you're starting a marketing agency that's fine, but most of us are accountants or wine merchants or designers or whatever we're not marketing people so sort of having a fifty page document that says this is how you have to figure out your marketing by yourself is completely overwhelming so we're not going to do that I I actually espouse a completely different way of going after a marketing strategy and that's how we're gonna work through today okay step one who's perfect solution are you now we're going to we're going to do some guinea pig work so um just they put on your big girl panties here we go. Okay, so somebody needs to volunteer for me. I want you to in a very short sort of sense since I want you to describe your perfect customer let's go somebody come on okay a mom who is, um been procrastinating on a big business project and feels guilty feels like she's not doing her business right but then also feels guilty because she's kind of irritated irritated with her kids I feel like she doesn't get enough time to work on her business because they have love j you're like my hero do you know why? Okay, hold that thought I'm gonna tell you meanwhile you're my hero mike let's hear it? Um so my perfect customer it's an entrepreneur or an executive either in a relationship or wants to be in a relationship because that's a huge piece of my practice on dh there they're open so they're they're open and they're willing to do the work of a supposed to their wives pushing, pushing their husbands in front of me, which happens all the time. So, you know, so they're actually coming to me for the work. Yeah, okay. You too are are are my hero. Okay? One more. And then I'm gonna tell you why, yes, a marketing manager who sends a lot of thank you gifts to people who work for them. Clients, you guys are doing great. Okay? And here's. Why? When I usually ask this question who's, your perfect customer to my clients to other people, I talk to here's what I hear, um, women twenty five to forty eight with a household income in excess of seventy five thousand dollars and two kids. Okay, what I hear back and the way we're trained to think about our audience is demographically is what these people look like on paper, right? The reason I'm so proud of you guys who volunteered is because that's not what you're talking about, right? So e j, you get a few points off for saying mom because that's a demographic but you talked about what they're feeling, what they're worried about, what they're afraid of, what they're trying accomplish like you were like self directed want to do this want to do that I love how you guys are thinking about your audience because that is the right way to do it, okay? Because that's the stuff that matters really people don't buy something because they're twenty five to thirty four and live in a certain zip code they don't and you can line up a whole bunch of people that look exactly the same on paper, right? And ask him what their dream vacation is and they'll all be dead different because what they want isn't dictated by this right it's in here, it's something in here. So this is I think, why so many people get frustrated with the prospect of research because who do you, who do you talk to and all the resource is that you're looking at? If you've done any market opportunity, researcher you looking whatever isn't it so daunting? Because all you get his numbers about people, right? And when you're trying to sell something to somebody or build something to appeal to somebody, those numbers don't tell you anything, right? One of my biggest pet peeves is when a company will say, well, women with children, um, and they're working working women with children, okay? So by definition they're stressed there, harry they're really worried about safety they don't have any time and they need a lot of dry cleaning and your like because there's a huge range of what women want within those even those fairly narrow demographic parameters, right? So what happens is that marketers make these big jumps he's big assumptions they see what people look like on paper and then they say okay now let's guess what's motivating them to buy our stuff, okay it's that yes, but I'm trying to eliminate with my business so I helped companies know what matters know what those motivations are instead of having to guess so if it were up to me, all of these descriptions about who your target audience are would have absolutely no demographic in them at all and that means you can't say men you can't say mom's okay? You can't as an exercise now it doesn't mean that for your particular businesses there isn't an important demographic affiliation with your target audiences, but as an exercise I want you to try to think about your target market without any demographics at all okay, so here's what this looks like instead of saying um men who want a better relationship or in a certain age and income range okay, I want you just to say either people who blank or companies that blank once b to b once b to c okay, so I want to hear from somebody who didn't give me their target market because you guys are pretty close to being able to do this so that's awesome so somebody else come on, I know you've got it in there so give me an example people who're companies that, um cos that our most likely their social entrepreneurs you know, people who have businesses that are trying tio you create some positive change I mean, I want to support people whose values match match mine and so I put that out clearly so people can can know who who need they may or may not know that they need better we don't have to talk about what they need let's talk about who they are but that's okay that's goodly people who I don't have a very strong brand image either in the story they're telling people their messaging or in their visuals and they're probably kind of, you know, overwhelmed they they don't really have a marketing plan, they don't, you know, and they they want somebody who can actually, um not only design materials for them, but somebody who can also help them through thinking through the bigger picture stuff and awesome and who doesn't want to nest viscerally hire a big company on dh they want to work with someone who will be a partner in your life four steps ahead of you know this is so good this is so good. Okay, so what I heard you say in this very simple exercise is people who want their company to drive a social good that's what I that's that may not be perfect, but it's a simple is that people who want their company because you're talking to people who are owners, right? They want their company to drive its social good. Okay, that's just the first piece and what will become a longer thing but that has no demographics in it that doesn't say what color they are, how old they are male, female. It also doesn't say how big their company is or how little their company is. I know you know what? I do research all the time for like a massive organizations and we do all these attitudinal segments that are like these people care about this, these people care about this and they all look the same on paper, the big companies, aaron there the little cos they're in there it's not like all the big guys aaron one segment and all the little guys because often those kinds of motivations cross all lines demographic lines for consumers, sort of company profile lines for businesses okay, that makes sense, so that was good and that's short and sweet yeah, please do perfect well I'm saying I'm here and again everybody this is a huge opportunity for you to interact with susan and pam and kyle here today so get in those chat rooms so we have three eighteen media who says cos that air small to midsize nonprofits that need an upgrade to their web presence website social media design etcetera okay so first of all take out the company's small to mid size that's demographic okay you're not allowed to do for this exercise so I need an upgrade to their web presence okay so that's getting to a need um but we're going to talk in a minute about refining that need because there are a lot of reasons people can want something or companies can want something okay, so less hold that thought you'd come back to that because we're gonna be able to refine that a little bit better let's go back here. Ok, so um I did work for a company that sells candles fragrance candles and this company was all about fragrance like super like she she fragrance very complex the guy goes to france twice a year with his amazing nose and develops all these sort of amazing things. Okay, so when we did research one of the things we realised was that yes there is a population of fans for this company that are buying the fragrance and for them fragrance sets their mood so it's not about anybody else right it's about my house, my bathroom and what I want to experience at the end of my day, okay, all about me and that's who this company believed they were selling to they were right, but that was on ly like twenty five percent of their customers because they had a whole another big chunk that didn't care about fragrance at all. One of them was using this stuff to decorate with when people came over that whole like martha stewart thing and their candles got put away when nobody was there and they didn't care about the fragrance, they needed an orange candle in this bathroom and they need something purple on the mantel in the living room. And so in fact, for them fragrance was not only unimportant, but it could be bad. We would see a lot of these people saying, do you have that in unscented which for a fragrance company is like, oh, why would you? Why would you want that? It is because they were using it for in a different way, same product purchase as the other people, they might look the same in the database when you're tracking what they're buying, but wow are their motivations different? And then they've got another one that's gifting these things, okay? They don't care honestly what's in the box at all well, it's about the box it's about the brand and whether there's foil on it and how expensive it looks they like that you're so awesome you have the most amazing guessed right that's what drives them okay buying the same products but they care about fundamentally different things and if you think about the first person who's like my house my bathroom my mood my fragrance and the last group it's like slap some foil on it baby and as long as they know the brand name I'm in okay those people are buying the same product but they're buying it for really different reasons and that's what I want you to think about with your business why would somebody want you why would somebody want what you d'oh because the reality is what you do is completely unique okay when I started my business I was like I'll do marketing well there's eight million marketing people out there how am I different? Well, I have this weird little research thing going I have this weird mix of corporate an agency I have you know, I just had I have this like small business thing I have this I have this weird mix of things that make me completely unique and you have that too whether you're providing a service where they're providing a product there's something extremely unique about you and the goal is to find the people for whom that is like perfect where they think to themselves where have you been all my life? I have always wanted someone like you and now I have found you okay? And this is where that whole eiken do eight million things becomes a problem because it disguises that perfect thing that you are for that perfect person because it's lost in a sea of all this other stuff that you could do okay does that make sense? Okay, so does everybody have a picture in their head of somebody for whom you are absolutely heaven on earth who would just be like where mike how did I not know about you before what would I do about you what would I do without you right? Do you have a person like that in your head? You have a client or somebody that you know feels like that about you yeah, I mean, I never tell anyone who my coaching clients are but he's already out of me but you don't have to tell me who he is I don't need to know like his phone number. I know you have somebody like that. I have one that just working with him I get on the phone afterwards. I just I feel great I'm just huge results in his business and he just loves you right he's like sending you small gifts I'm just right pretty close to it, okay, but nasa broke you guys have somebody can you think of like that perfect person who would just love you right you love u so it's not hard for you to imagine somebody else who might okay now here's the nice thing about approaching things from an audience standpoint if you think about that person okay who else is are you up against for their business okay who are you competing with when it comes to that person and here's why this is important stay you run a mexican restaurant a local mexican restaurant okay who your competition is depends on who your customer is that day because you might have somebody who wants local I only eat local okay your competition for that customer is local local places they could be thirty miles away but they're local and they're using local produce they're they're local you might have another customer comes in five minutes later who's into mexican your competition for that customer isn't local it's mexican might be thirty miles away but it's mexican okay and the next guy that walks in want someplace he could walk to from his apartment so your competition for that customer is different yet again all those restaurants within a five minute walk that aren't local aren't even mexican okay but their clothes okay, so for every one of these customers that you think about who you're up against is a different and that makes fighting those battles a lot easier doesn't it right even if you know you have three different kinds of customers at your restaurant and you have to fight battles for each one of them now you know who you're fighting and if you think about who you're fighting and who you're fighting for, can't you pretty easily think about what you would need to say to those people to win think about that for a second do we have another any other questions coming in is everybody like totally freaked out we have a question from darlene and she wants to know are we trying to define a feeling in our target audience? Is that what we're shooting for? Yes and attitude ah motivation because here's the thing those attitudes driving need okay, so for hee jae's clients that she talked about ok, that attitude of I want a business but I have so much going on in my life and I'm really afraid that I can't do that and raise my kids right that's kind of close okay that big bowl of motivations and attitudes and fears is driving a need okay for somebody to help me figure out a path to what I want to do and still keep my family up and running so if you think about what's driving these folks that's that's what that that's where we're going with this makes sense okay? Can I ask one thing susan sometimes I find especially when I'm with my more pacifists uh my friend paul cause um yoga people you hear a word like pick your battle and competition and win the fight in people say but I'm not competitive like I love everybody and I don't want to crush my competition it's not a fight well, what what do you say about that? Well, you know, I'm not a big fan of, like, a negative campaign s right? And I think the perfect solution for any of us is find the people that just would really want us if they knew that we were there, they would pick us naturally over somebody else, right? Nobody wants to compete with somebody they can't win against, okay? And part of this thing we're going to go through today is understanding who your best audiences are because let's face it, none of us are perfect for everyone and you talked yesterday about how sometimes you'll have a client and you're like, you know what I think I know another coach that would be better for you yes, okay? And honestly, like I'm a little company and I worked with big companies and every once in a while I come across somebody who's like I'm not working with you not working with you you wear jeans and a t shirt, right? I need somebody that has at least fifty employees and is listed on the nasdaq okay that's fine, that is not me that's ok? Because honestly trying to pair up when you're not matched is a bad idea that shit doesn't work out well for anybody. So I think this whole competition thing really comes down to understanding the potential audiences that are out there for what you d'oh understanding who you're up against and picking your battles because there are some folks that you will not win against, okay, you don't have the price for people who are looking for price, you don't have the selection for people who are looking for selection, you don't have a credibility for people for whom that is really important, okay? And it doesn't mean you never will it's this whole thing about like, you know your business is not static it's going to evolve and it's going to change, but often you can see opportunities that you're not ready for. Yet you khun see audiences for whom the battle is too hard for you now, but a year from now you'll be in the money because you have eighty testimonials on lincoln that says you are a rock star at this and then the people who really need that validation I can breathe easy when you're starting out let's find people who don't care that much about that validation let's find people who trust the word of a friend better or or who really wants something local even if they've never had it before, they're willing to step out a little bit to try somebody local because that is fundamentally important to them. So I think it's not about trying to beat up your competitors I think it's about understanding your competitors and staying away from the ones that are going to beat you up does that make sense? And in another thing that I've seen a lot and we'll go to the internet is where by not recognizing that people are shopping around with other folks sometimes we don't stand in our best, you know, dress and you know, fancy earrings and you know, we're not really presenting ourselves because we're we have the thought I'm very much like susan, and this is the way we work in phoenix where we just want to find the right person for the right offer, but the reality is there are other people that your ideal clients might be looking at, and I often have people who say that you know what? I'm evaluating your program and marie for leo's and I might go to your event or I might go to chris gila bo's event both of them are good friends, but if I'm not really prime ing myself to say, how can I be the crystal clear about how I am different in comparison to people who were wonderful at what they do? Then I'm going to miss I'm gonna miss some sales because I'm just kind of relaxing into not recognising that people that are making really strong statements may be attracting my ideal client simply because I'm not showing up clearly and powerful enough that's good point that's a great point was there absolutely yeah there's just a lot of dialogue going on here way loving people just jumping in saying wait what's her last name s oh yeah steve mccoy's is very few people work to understand how they khun benefit their customer most tried to sell for their own benefit making a serious effort to understand the customer needs will separate you from the majority of the competitiveness and I think that's so it is so on target and that's such a good opportunity I wantto I wanted and I told pam this this morning so there's a book you guys need to read okay? It just came out it's for my friend jay bayer b a e r and it's called utility why o you utility hey brand new new york times bestseller the guy's fabulous a genius and awesome and a real expert on tequila and smoking smoking meats if you ever need any of that. So this little book utility is about helping other people it's about building your brand and your business by helping for free giving information and help and support away and it's got tons of examples in there of little companies just like us that, like, blew the lid off because they just decided to help so one of my favorite ones and I apologize because I can never remember the name but it's a pool company and the the forward is by this guy marcus shared in who had this pool company okay, so we're so it fills pools, recession hits they're not building any pools totally miserable everybody he does show up tio he has to spend, like, three hours with them talking about what's involved with building a pool because they before they ever get to the conversation of how you know should I build your pool okay? And it's just it's killing their little company so he decides what the heck he's gonna answer every single question he's ever gotten about building a pool? Okay, and and he start blogging and he does opposed for every single question he's ever received and he opens up the kimono. He talks about everything about how much everything costs about how long it takes. He talks about pool building stuff they don't do okay. He talks about services they don't offer, okay? And he just does aton of content and his little pool company becomes the number one resource for pool building a pool information in the world. Okay, revenues revenue goes through the roof. Everybody loves him, and now when he meets with somebody they've already seen like eighty pages of content from him before they even call him, but when they do call him they want him to build a pool okay? Because every question they have has already been answered when you talk about like efficiency when you're a small business like that time you have to spend with a client to get them to buy what you sell the longer that time is the less time you have to do anything else okay, so if you can eliminate the questions and only deal with the people for whom you are perfect and they know that wow that's super powerful okay, so get this little book it's easy read and it's full of tons of information about how to do exactly this that we're talking about understand who you are trying to help and go out and help them on watch what happens watch what happens to your business, okay, nothing is worse than sitting in front of a client knowing okay that you are not the right person for them and still wanting them to buy your stuff haven't we all had that situation like especially when you're starting out and you're like, please please buy something for me? You know, I've got to get to the grocery store, you know, but doesn't an awful feeling and where we talked about fear yesterday that whole insecurity that comes with what we're doing I mean, jane said to me today, she's like, I'm not an expert in that, you know, we were chatting, I'm not an expert, I get that, okay? I don't. There are lots of things I'm not an expert in either. Okay, so the solution is not to pretend you're an expert for people who really care that you're an expert it's not to like go home to your hp and print up a fake certificate that says you're an expert. The trick is to find people who don't care if you are or not that's the trick that's a battle you can win, ok, fine people who love you for who you are that is a battle you will win every single time, okay, so their million audience is out there. They're not all great for you let's do some work to try to understand which ones are and go after those, and you can always add more as you get sort of maura acumen, arm or experience or some of the other things I coached a guy, actually a friend of pam's the other day and he's embarking on a coaching business, and he uses some tools in his business and he's worried that there are people who will know he's new and we'll want him because he hasn't been doing this for twenty years. And I said you're right there are so let's not go after those and let's go after the people who know you're new and don't care let's borrow credibility from the tools we're using and the documentation that says they work okay and your personality and let's adjust your pricing okay because it's really hard to pretend that you should earn eight hundred dollars an hour if you shouldn't not rocket science okay all right so pick your battles now for all of those people there you go why you win so we've got here in my client's here's my perfect audience okay here's who I'm fighting against for that particular person why am I going to win okay, so in jane's case we're not going to pick those people for whom winning requires that she has twenty years of expertise in this particular thing that's a losing battle ok but for that perfect audience why are you gonna win mike what are you gonna win for that person that you have in your head? Why are you gonna win over all that competition that's out there for his business? Because if I if I vetted him out so much if I have qualified it's just it's just it's you know it's like a match made in heaven okay and just kind of flows from there so it's a good personality fit that's important for your business right knot is important for the wine business right but for your business having a good personality fit super important okay, so you're gonna win with that guy because you're a better fit for him than anybody else with that particular guy okay, what about for your wine business where you gonna win for the people that you have in your head is like perfect for you um I'm gonna win uh for two reasons one my wines that I have are packaged really beautifully for a gift and they're not going to show up in styrofoam all ico friendly post consumer waste but also lovely um so that's one um number two I'm gonna win because the wines are different unique great for, you know, sending two people sending sending two people who love wine and want to try different things and because they all come with custom y notes that talk all about the wine and tell stories about the winemakers and just have that higher level of experience okay? So awesome. So right in there you have to different audiences that you're talking about right one that wants an awesome gift that's going to look impressive that they don't have to wrap that comes like beautiful right and another one that's really into wine and unique wines and wants to know a lot about their wine and for them you're winning because you have a ton of information about their wine right? So marcus shirt in the pool guy excuse me? No it's another example from the book of this little amusement park near where j lives that's like holiday land or something like that, and they post a bunch of stuff on their website about all their roller coasters, including where they weren't manufactured, what world records they have, what the top speed is like a list like this of stats for their roller coasters. I'm not a roller coaster person, so that's not going to appeal to me, but for folks who are really into their coasters that's perfect and that's the kind of content you're talking about, like deep information for people who I want that and that's going to separate you from bev mo or anyplace else that they could go get wine, right? Might I say something else, too? And based on what you were saying yesterday, vanessa, is that you in the way that you describe your relationship with these marketing managers with thes thesis folks, you really put yourself in their position, you are interested in what they're trying to do, you understand their business, and you have natural strengths that air about your ability to relate with people and knowing marketing managers that worked with a lot of folks and vendors, if you have somebody who gets you who is like, gets back to you is fun to work with and positive that's somebody that I know I would go back to time and time again, and I think that's a distinguishing factor? Absolutely, I mean, think about what you've got to offer for we are all unique, and my personal opinion is, if you've got it, use it, ok, if you have somebody who would buy from you because you are a pregnant mommy, wait, yes, excellent, because you know what, you're gonna win against the guy down the road has also got an e commerce wine business, but as fifty employees and is a little more commercial and selling into costco. So yes, thinking, so I feel like I win, because I I would go beyond just delivering clients this kind of finished pretty thing that they just mail out or stick on the website or whatever, but that I help them figure out how all the parts of their whole kind of business brand a story fit together and, more importantly, to me, because I've been in education a lot, that I want people to be able to feel smarter and more confident about their business, because my feeling is the reason why I've veered into a slightly different direction. Is that it's really clear to me that a lot of business owners have teo really manage their own brand in a way that they haven't seen four and there's much more of a pressure for them to kind of understand their whole business story and the reality is that even if people don't I feel like they know how to write they all have to kind of do their own blogged have to do their own newsletter and they can't really hire out I mean, they might have a staff for that and and so I really try to encourage a lot of businesses like the pool guy like I'm working with a design build firm right now and I keep telling him like you guys have probably been asked so many questions by the people who were doing renovations for like you guys have such a wealth of knowledge and their ways like what do we what do we what would we blogged about what we put in our newsletter is like you you have like the answer's two million things people want to know like just go be the go to person like the pool people and I think that like like that what I try to write about on my blog's that people will start to demystify that and not think that they have to be like they're experts in that thing that they do and people are hungry for that and once they need their house to be renovated that's who they're going to go to, I love that but that's absolutely right yes that's absolutely right and that's what j talks about in his book that's utility right there that is helping right and your your gift is that you've done so many things in marketing right but you see the world above the trees right so that's valuable for an audience that you were targeting um I win because most people get market research get it done by people who are researchers get a big stack of paper folk on the desk and then have to figure out what to do with it okay I'm a marketing strategist I do this because I know what you can do with it so it's built from start to finish knowing what they need to be able to do with it okay, so I have this weird background but nobody else has I know what's marketing people I know lots of research people I don't know anybody like me for the audiences I target that's why I win because they need somebody who has both sides of that coin and you've got that same opportunity because of the breadth of your experience in all sorts of different areas so if you've got it use it to find an audience that wants it that's it readable right there, you've got it any any questions or comments that are coming out we have a lot of people sharing why they're going to win and they're loving eyes going to win because she authentically cares about the career frustrations of her clients I've been in their shoes and I know how valuable it is to have someone handhold them through the process of a career change that aligns with their purpose it doesn't if you're one of her clients don't you just can't change I got shivers I got I just got goose bumps because that message will speak to the people she wants and they will be like thank for you I thought I was alone and I'm not right there not anymore there are there are artist karen says says I think she might have two businesses my coaching students will and there are other artists come to me because I can help them understand that selling art is business and then she says my art buyers want me because they love my color and my sensibilities good, wonderful and I love the people are thinking about different ones because that's the key here we're gonna talk about that a minute you don't have one audience and I just have to beat this into my client e yeah I do want to read off kris with a k s here very inner so shout outs to go chris, I'm going to win because of my personality I'm super cool wait and because I can write content that will make you cry and organize a content creation strategy that will make it easy to communicate okay that's great on dh my only comment chris is we're gonna put mohr in there about them I know what you could do let's talk about why they need that thing that you're doing okay so here's where we pull it all together okay, we I are the perfect solution for blank audience and need an eye and both of those things are short and sweet. Okay, we win against a type of competitors er like an example because they love me for blank. So let's think about our mexican restaurant real quick and let's think about those folks who like local as an example so guidos in chandler are the perfect solution for people who want to know everything they eat is local every part of their meal is local okay, we win against applebee's, right? Other restaurants chain restaurants like applebee's because here every piece of the meal is local fromthe wine to the silverware to the food. Okay, so that's all you want if you can distill a single person a single audience you want to serve into this, okay? But you have the key to a lot. You have a key to a lot you know what they need, why they needed who you're competing with for their business, how they're going to pick whoever they finally go with okay and you have a pretty good head start on where they're going to be looking does that make sense okay anybody want to try it come on anybody okay? E j let's go um I was actually when I was running through my head I was thinking that may work better if I actually talk about the offer I have like okay so believes that session is the perfect solution for mom entrepreneurs who want to manage your time better um we went against business coach is like me way hey like mommy coach I like lamb because um because I create customized solutions based on your unique energy blueprint or your unique success flew print or let's bring it up why did they love you e j um because I really I really understand their unique needs and also can tap into their unique strength they're not gonna love you for your blueprint they love you because you get it you get their problem and you have a solution for their problem that's why they love you the blueprints gonna be oh yeah no when you say that I mean I think like what people really get after working with me is like just permission to be themselves like they have to they stop kind of striving to like, fit some ideal and they're kind of like oh, I can just be myself and it's okay, so they love you okay? Because e j gives me permission to be a successful entrepreneur and a mom at the same time that's super powerful that's super awesome way want to do another one? Does anybody on the internet want to spit one out? Well, we're waiting. Go ahead if you feel in the audience and need is that when you go back, teo keeping the demographic information out, or do you want to put it back in and I prefer you keep it out. So now for people who for people who that guy preference now let's, be realistic. E j kinda needs to have the democratic in there that she's dealing with moms, right? Because it just goal in life is not to serve anybody who wants to balance entrepreneurship and family. It's this mom thing, that is the magic of what she does and the people who she wants to serve. Okay, so if it's something like that or for mike where it's men you're working with men, okay exclusively. I get that that's. Ok, now you can put that back in. What I don't want you to do is use the demographics as a crutch instead of thinking about what really matters to these people or these companies. Because that's, what happens? Right? Then we fall back into oh women twenty four to thirty five with kids, okay, which you can see if we put that in here. For e j that would not be as powerful as what she just came up with, right? E j is the perfect solution for women with kids who have a business she wins against other coaches like pam because, uh, not doing it for me, okay, so if you have a strong demographic thing that you're going after that's fine put it back in the exercise is to see how much you know about those folks if you didn't have any information like that. If they think about this, if somebody called you on the phone and said, would you be a good coach for me? And you knew nothing about them? What would you ask? What would you need to know to determine whether you should work for them or not? Okay, hold argue how much income to you that's exactly what you're checking I know everybody thinks that's what consultants out that shouldn't be it. Okay, so if somebody comes to you blind, what would you need to know to know the year? The perfect solution for them and it's? Probably not how old they are, what gender they are probably not sometimes there's a strong component, but I want you to try to think about things without it. Is there something from online way haven't example here from brian church? Okay, he says, I am the perfect solution for busy martial artists I will win against my competitors like local dough jos because we train outdoors we breed a sense of community and we focus on fundamentals and promote honesty in our training I love that okay can I just add to that because that's the one I was going to read as well but what I was going back teo because brian has been participating all along the way tonight is to see the progression so brian started out with male female interested in earning morning early morning traditional martial arts practice he then went teo people who want to start their day with early morning martial arts practice that way it looks on these tio s o to me that is incredibly inspiring that is transformational on my guess is if we ask brian he would say he now has a much better sense of who we should be talking to him what he should be saying right because it's really hard to talk to people twenty five to thirty four right but busy martial artists bubba now kay we're narrowing down so now let's talk about the other important piece we've learned as going through this process okay where they look this is watering holes now okay now my guess is brian can probably come up with a list of where those people are looking for help what are they where they going? What are they using? What are they typing into google search right there not typing in dough joe martial arts class okay what are they what are they gonna be typing in there like morning martial arts flexible martial arts training small class martial arts training okay because now because we know why they're looking we also can get a pretty good idea of what they're asking for which is incredibly helpful when we think about how we would talk to them where we would find them and what we would say does that make sense okay, so I'm going to pick on you again e j okay these women that you identified in our last statement where are they looking for help? What did they what are they doing to try to solve their problems? Um well I think what I found is that usually like they've gone through like the usual routes like they've taken out like the business programs and coaching programs and group programs and there's still kind of feeling like why have a night well why am I not able to like attraction or are so I would find them in those like group forms are you know, like where alumni if those courses are um they're also there really into self development and so they also would be into like yoga and dance and so on and they're also into their kids development and like metaphysical churches so that was kind of like places so here's something to think about well here's what we know about these women they have kids they want a business they want to do both and they have this issue where they've gone through all this generally available stuff and it's not speaking to them and they've got this guilt problem can I even do it should I even do it or people gonna judge me if I do they got all this going on and they have not found a solution okay, my guess is they're trying to find other people in the same boat so maybe they're googling mommy entrepreneur support groups right um business training for mom's entrepreneurship for mom's like that way we all do this okay we do all of our research whatever in in the absence of help who do we go to people who understand us people like us our friends trying to find communities of people who get it you know pam mentioned game playing what do you think a co working community is it's full of people who have no other place to work hey that can't work at home or they don't want to work at home they don't want to be all by themselves so they come together okay community is what it is where we all go when we're frustrated ok? So I would look at all the things you mentioned and I would also be looking for where would you go? You've probably been in this boat yeah I mean well I actually started a founding moms like mom I'm networking group in oakland way like they're a lot of like woman like business things that I mean mom's end up going to but they aren't but there are like but now you and you saw the kickstarter project for oakland huh? Yeah I have the part of the other coworking spaces to me I was blown away by their whole campaign but that to me would seem to be a really interesting place and even maybe to have a place to host the group that you're currently doing with mom's because there's probably others they're going to peking around from that space that has a cross section of different people because again sometimes within the families of you know entrepreneurs there khun b two entrepreneurs where there's a husband that's working and he's like oh my gosh you know my wife has this business and she's trying to figure it out and that could be a way to refer as well think about what we know about these people now and for me now I'm like a marketing geek so I I always have a sort of weird things bubbling up in my head but somebody goes through this process and I just start oh thanks like if you were going to start a support group for these women you should have day care yeah there last week and they bring their kids okay now there are audiences who might like your coaching but I'm really not into kits okay? They're people who go to restaurants because their kids can go on there people who go to restaurants because there are no kids ok that's ok right so let's think about now that we know about these people we think about them there so much you khun d'oh now you get them there's so much you can do to understand what you could offer them how you would talk about it right like the world's your oyster and now we're not talking about the global twenty four to thirty six year old female market now it's down here and then you can understand them so when I said at the beginning I want you to build your marketing plan a differently this is how I want you to build your marketing plan yeah okay no thank you for that that was just so helpful because I like their last dimes on talking to moms and their kids like whining in the back and they're like apologize and I'm like no it's okay and then we end up like being able to use it I could actually mention in my marketing like it's okay if the kids are home in the back of the man we want like goose bumps again and imagine the woman tried looking for help find your sight and reads on your site bring your kids to the appointment stay for the way your kids to the appointment it's totally cool we have lots of that liquid germ stuff like kind of a conundrum that I bet other designers and stuff out there have, which is that sometimes like I've had some interesting situations I don't know yet whether they were ideal clients or not and maybe they maybe you'll say that they weren't but I've had people referred to me who I kind of wanted one thing like like one specific example, you know, a friend referred some people who really wantedto like higher and ceo expert for their website and I'm not an expert, but I looked at their website and I realize they have no they have no brand story, they have nothing there's nothing there there's no there's, no key word rich copy there's nothing you know, to connect with anybody and specifically when they get there and so I just kind of contact to them. And I said, well, I can't help you with the ceo and I don't really think you should spend money on that but here's what I think that you need and I talked them into sort of just a brand discovery kind of siri's of sessions and and it was really, you know, fun and it was interesting for them and they kept saying, like we never thought about any of this stuff before we've never we didn't even know we needed it, and so it was it was a fun and it was a challenging process because I was getting someone to go from here to away over there, but in theory, it might be better to work with someone who's a little bit more, you know, savvy is kind of here, but they need you to go from here to here. So my question relates the searches like that exercise this and what we just did, some form of that could be turned into marketing copy for your website, for example, but it's the people finding you if someone doesn't really know that they need something and they don't know until you start asking them questions and they get curious, what are they searching for? So let's talk about that logically, ok, dig into those good research don't assume that you've got one audience you have lost, so that little thing we went through, I want you to do that, like five for five different audiences, ok? And every one of them is going to be different. So stop thinking and cram everybody in the same thing. Okay, first of all, let's talk a little bit about how you might find out a little bit more about these folks in general and what matters to them you know, people talk about market research qualitative and quantitative and all that kind of stuff. Here's the deal. You need to think about research in one of two ways. It's either exploration or its confirmation. Okay, you're there trying to find stuff out or you're trying to confirm that something you believe is true. Okay, confirmation requires numbers. Volume? Really? Okay, so if you talk teo five hundred people and you say you know which color do you like for the cover of my catalog? Okay. Um and thirty percent pick red and seventy percent pick blue. Okay, if you have five hundred people in that error range is about four percent means anything that's more than eight points apart is legitimately different. Awesome. If you have twenty people that you've asked that question too. Okay? Error margin is over twenty percent, which means that thirty percent and seventy percent are the same thing. Okay, that twenty percent that thirty percent could be fifty two percent that's. Seventy percent could be forty eight percent. Okay, they're the same thing. So all I want you guys to think about is if you're really going to confirm something, you need numbers. Okay? Numbers are often not an option for small business, so let's think about market research for our businesses from an exploratory standpoint okay, let's understand going in that most of the time when we ask questions, the answers we get in our facebook groups or whatever are not going to be statistically reliable answers and that's okay, but let's know that going in? Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, so let's understand that? Go free if you can. So some really good tools for asking questions. You have these audiences. Now you gotta try to find these people and ask them questions of them. Okay, if you want to do a survey, I love surveymonkey. I use surveymonkey for my corp. For my business, I do surveys for massive organizations in surveymonkey. It's easy works on every single browser. And the nice thing for folks like you is it's free. They have sample questions, a huge database of sample questions that you can use so that you know you're asking things the right way. You can build in an incentive, they have a little sweepstakes thing they do now with the prize, so you pay fifteen bucks and they can do an amazon dot com card or you can send them something of your own. Everybody who completes your survey could be entered in the pool. They handle all the rules, they handle all the everything super easy, okay, so that's a good tool, um do some social listening so how many of you guys have search is set up in twitter or anything like that for kind of the stuff that you do start doing some listening now start listening for the kinds of things you're identifying these people are probably wondering about so for you e j I want you you should put in a google alert and you could you should put in a search on twitter for like mom entrepreneur busy mom, entrepreneur help but do a whole bunch of these and start listening to what the conversations our around these kinds of things okay, so that's easy and it's free mike you mentioned you have sort of a community on facebook or if you have a community on google plus or whatever like that's a little focus group as long as those people are sort of the kinds of people you want to be selling to as some questions do I hang out every friday do I hang out and have a question that you want to ask that community and every friday just to hang out or do a little like twitter hang out or something like that and ask a question and see what they say yeah uh recently I started to say right also and a lot of my writer's group the people I want to in writings class with we started to this saturday morning writer session because we realize actually seen it on google plus where they would do and hangout where they would write together because writing is a lonely thing so for fifteen minutes they would talk forty five minutes they would write ok google plus so I thought, why don't we try to do that with my group of writer friends? So we did this about a year ago and it's actually grown this community people have started hearing about it so literally we get together gatsby's bookstore in long beach every saturday morning and it's literally grown to like eight people ten people you know, from actual published writers tio people that are starting and they just love because we like you said we sit there for fifteen minutes and then we right but we don't necessary way and we try to help each other out you know, we talk about, you know, things that they're struggling with. This has been this really, you know, community is really, really growing from it, and now we're talking about thinking about branding that in some way of bringing that out so like maybe offering it tio other people just help and it was so fucking free, we just feel like everything when I started my first business, social media didn't exist and I left my business because I was lonely now the world's a different place and we can have communities supporting our businesses even not geographically it here it to where we actually are so use things like google plus start to build a group of people customers prospects people interested in wine start building that and start throwing out questions and asking them things like who else do you see in this space when you're looking for somebody what do you usually looking for blah blah blah blah blah here's another fun trick and this was one from the utility book there's a lot of great examples on stuff in there go to the google search far and put in like what you do vs and then step away from the screen google has a thing called google suggest and it will show you a list of the searches the popular searches that complete that phrase okay and it'll show you who you're up against right people will look up facebook vs twitter, google plus whatever like just just just go in and type in the first part of either your brand or competitors er or what you do or whatever vs and then see what see what they show you ok? Because google results are numbers they're big numbers so if you're understanding how people are looking for what you're doing that gives you a lot of ammunition to work with. Google has a free tool that digital marketers love called google google keyword tool and it helps people we're placing ads on google find out what kind of words to use or if you're building a website, what kind of terms to use on your website it's totally free? You go in there and you type in a search phrase, but you think people might use for your business and it will whip up the volume of searches across the world every day that come in on that thing, and it'll give you a huge list of suggested other searches, so you start to learn the terminology people are using the popular ways people are talking about business support for entrepreneurial moms, probably not using that phrase, they're using something else, and the google keyword tool will show you what they're using. Okay, so there's a lot of free stuff out there to sort of try to tap in to this, um, and that's and that's good for guys like you because let's face it, most of you aren't coming to somebody like me and saying let's, do a big quantitative research study its out of reach and that's, okay, but focus on your audience, what they want, why they want it, where they might go looking and start doing some digging, you gotta roll up your sleeves a little bit, but you'll learn a lot about how to speak to them the last thing I want to tell you and for people online and people here too, I'm gonna be around all day don't go back to phoenix tonight, I will be on the chat rooms so I know this is a lot to take in, but on what do you have you available in the next section where we're talking about testing and crying when we can look at maur specific examples of how we might test in try. So for those folks online, I'll be online for the rest of the day today, answering questions and all that kind of stuff. Um, build a panel, build your own community of people who will support your business. This is incredibly valuable. I work with clients who buy panels of people to ask them questions because they don't have a panel of their own build a pan. Is it like a binder of women like a man or a women? Okay, just start collecting email addresses or set up a google plus group or, you know, get him on your facebook page or whatever, use those people people like toby asked opinions, and if they love you, e j and they love what you do, they want you to be successful and they will give you advice, okay, so I don't care how little you are start. Building a panel of people that you can talk to about your business because these people you can say I'm not really sure if I should do this or this and they will tell you okay and then you khun follow their advice or not but it's incredibly valuable for small business like we all need community of other business owners build a community supporting your business and then you can throw stuff out of him and see what happens you know you could test your theories and see if you're right with this promotion be helpful if I were going to do a session for entrepreneurial moms would you want me to have day care what time of the day should I do it? Nap time or other than naptime what's what works best for people and start asking those questions so build your own build your own no what no business is too small a sum okay, I know that's a lot sorry um I'll be around and you know here's what? Here's I'll leave you with one last thought because we've all been there okay, sometimes we feel like our website is our resume and we put everything on there that we can do have done might do could figure out how to do if somebody was willing to pay us for it you name it okay your web site is not your resume your website is a sales tool okay and big secret you don't have to have just one so if you wanted to sell design you can have a website that says I sell design I specialize in design for these kinds of organizations that are looking for this they're having this problem I do design okay and then I do s e o specializing in seo for the people for whom that is important now I'm never gonna encourage anybody to lie about what they're doing but it's so easy to think about like I gotta put all my stuff on my website about I can do everything don't the question came up yesterday for jane should I specialize please specialize please specialize please specialize it doesn't mean you stop being able to do all that other stuff that you could do it if somebody wants to pay you for it go ahead do it hey but think about what you're selling I think about who you're selling to on on ly have the stuff on there that makes you look like the absolute perfect choice for them because here's what happens if somebody wants a specialist for entrepreneurs? Prin aerial moms and you've got a bunch of stuff on your web site about you how you'll do financial coaching and you'll do retirement planning on all that kind of stuff what happens to your message about I specialize in entrepreneurial mom's uh know you don't I could tell that you don't so please specialized even if you have to specialize in three different things from three different audiences pick one pick that thing specialising that thing talk about that on your web site don't talk about anything else bring any experience you have to bear that will improve your value with the people you're trying to hit for that thing so awesome all right thanks everybody it's time for a break but I do have one important question that I see a lot in our credit five chat rooms and that is trying to distinguish who the who the target is when it's not like it's different specified businesses but the person paying might be different than the person you're serving. Okay? So for coach dorrie who was confused is my customer the young teen adult I work with for the parent that hires me for their young teen or adult what I do is coach lost young souls to help them select their ideal career and life direction can't you see that in different types different ways okay, your customer is the person who pays you her customer is a person who hires you and then pays you okay, however, to be the perfect solution for that customer you might have to serve somebody else okay? So most of my clients are agencies, marketing and advertising agencies looking to add some actual data based insight into the strategy that they're building for their clients I sell to agencies okay, but in order for me to sell two agencies I have to bring something of tremendous value to their clients because that's just paying them does that make sense? So you may in order to appeal to an audience. Okay, so remember when we go back to our little like who why I win so why I win with agencies because their clients love me okay? Because of their clients will end up wasting less money wasting less time getting better result which makes my client look right that's how I win so my win with my clients is dependent upon my winning with theirs. Okay, but never lose focus on who you're selling too because you could be everything awesome to their clients and if there's not something in it for them or you can't explain why there's something in it for them they will never buy you there has to be something in it for them for my client's what's in it for them is yeah, I helped them and make them look awesome with their clients that's a win for them so does that help? Okay, very helpful. I can't tell you how much praise there is in the chat rooms right now off tell us again uh tell us again where everybody confirmed so my name's susan buyer my company is audience audit audience et you die dot com you could go to the site I'm also susan buyer on twitter all mushed up together be a I e r on twitter so and I love talking to people about this stuff as I told pam, my challenges is starting talking it's stopping so just be careful because you're careful what you ask for because you make it but I love talking about this and I've loved talking about you guys and I love how far I've seen you come since I started watching the session yesterday morning to where you are now and I'm so excited for where you still have yet to go. So thank you very much for letting me be with you today and be part of this process. Thank you. Okay, well, when we come back, we're actually going to take some of the frameworks that susan was talking to us about, and we're going to look at how we develop specific offers. So what are things very specific things that we can have for sale? How do we describe it to people? What should be in an offer and what we're talking about testing and trying? We're also going to be using some of susan's brain tto help think of like, what are we testing for? And how can we measure the kind of results so so that we could get an accurate test so that's, what we're going to do next? Fantastic, great, yeah, just to recap, there was a lot of positive prays for susan in the chat room all morning, ali said. Excellent session, thank you for the great thaw and suggestions, jennifer kent said. Yea, for unemployable peeps, o m g I love this woman, sweet, nadine said. A great new way of thinking about my potential clients and the rainy day store said, unrealistic has been so hard for me, and susan made it so easy. Yes, yes, that's, awesome, yeah, so we are going to take a fifteen minute break, and we'll see you all back here in fifteen.