Lessons

Lesson Info

Apply Your Unfair Advantage

That we need to apply the unfair advantage to the process plan and we've already started doing this with publicity, so I figured we just leave her up here so don't think for a second so we're you're unfair advantage and you're processed overlap is your best bet for creating an asset for creating a product for creating that thing that you can sell over and over and over and over again without doing extra work so the advantage process overlap your process is the what of how you do what you do it's all these different exercises it's all the different steps and you're unfair advantages the style of how you do what you d'oh you need to combine the what and the style to figure out what that focal point is because wait for it there's the money that's where the money is this overlap so, melissa, before we let you go, um where do you see your unfair advantage in this process in in the process? Yeah. Um well, definitely the analytical piece is really where do you see that coming out most the str...

ongest. Where do I see it? Can you raise that like to even tell me what number or a couple of numbers? Where do you see like what? What? Which pieces of this are the most analytical? I will definitely number three, ok that's interesting because it's soul searching in journalist not exactly what you think of in terms of analytical so I love that you're thinking about that cause I would be like okay, so not number three no because I was doing it with I wanted to analyze the data basically write what I was discovering yeah and figure out what you know what I had to teach me um the number say five research definitely you want actually I'm gonna pull you back to number three second because something just popped into my head, which is that? Would you say that your unfair advantage is the reason were missing your unfair advantage is the reason that journaling a soul searching doesn't work for some people sometimes specifically your that could be very true so you could say you could say you might be journaling and really thinking about what it is that you want, but you're not getting anywhere with it and the reason is you're missing the tools to analyze the what you're getting out of the work that you're doing, the soul searching that you are doing, the journaling thatyou're doing, I have tools that help you take this creative process and turn it into gold oriented action yeah, that might be true I mean I can't really save it, but I suspected there might be people out there doing morning pages or something but not really taking things away from it I would say there's a very large market of people doing that yes for sure for sure which is you know we talk to natasha earlier it took me saying to natasha at some point after she told me about the you know tara I use ever know to run my whole business and I was like you watch and me saying natasha your brain does not work the rest of the way our our brains work she's like yeah so you know when I find a new tune well I immediately think well how can I get the very most out of this for my business that's not the way I think most of us look at it the way we look at it is oh, gosh there's another new tool I guess all you know we on lee look at the one thing that it can help us d'oh right? We on li look at you know, for me it was ever knowed it was, you know, just writing my blob posts and make keeping track of ideas and never thought about doing more things with it clearly it's designed for this one thing right? But she looked at it and saw something completely different and it seemed like a daughter to her so if you've got that thing that is really effective for you but you also think it's like uh that's probably an indicator that you're doing something differently than a lot of other people, but we never see them, but we never see that right and so that's one of the reasons you have to lay it all out so if you find yourself running into that yeah, anyhow, um okay, so you were about to say, you said five is also a big analytical thing? Yeah, I mean, I I'm such an analytical person in all of it really wass sometimes are unfair advantage overlaps with our process completely. I think marie, actually, now I am for shattered, okay, melissa, I'm gonna let you go on, and I'm going to take a look at some actual examples of finding the focal point for your product by analyzing and applying how you're unfair advantage applies to your process, so I took some of our some of our guests simple scrapper, so this is jennifer's membership community at simple scrapper dot com jennifer's process involves creating beautiful memory, keeps steaks, lots of people do that right, her on for advantages, project management and planning. And so when she overlaps, it comes down to that three point process that she just told us about, she can take turning beautiful memory, keep stakes into a very manageable organized process that anyone can ensure they can get more of their product projects done right yep. And so that's now the focal point of her membership community and it sounds like the very business model that you have running underneath of it as well. Yeah, sweet. Okay, let's, take a look at tan gasam adventures sasha sasha crash this is coaching for corky loans that's the what of how she does what she does that's the process that she would outline and her unfair advantages. Tango right, it's this really unique approach to self discovery, personal development, finding your independence, getting in touch with who you are is essential person, right? And so the combination of that come on, there we go. The combination of that is this product where she's taking coaching and tango and putting it together it's that simple right? And so this is kind of most of most of her process, but applied in this various very specific way for quiet power strategy. My process is step by step, goal oriented coaching conversations. My unfair advantage is deep dive strategic planning. Now this is where this one gets a little bit different and why my product my asset is a whole methodology it's because these two things overlap completely, so if you're unfair advantage and your process overlap completely, it could be you know, if if developing a methodology the whole system is interesting to you that's that's a great opportunity. It doesn't have to be what you d'oh I could I could break this down and just look at marketing, for instance, or I could just look at product development, which is what I do when I'm on creative live, right? I could I combine deep dive strategic planning with one very specific outcome, but in terms of the system that I offer in my business, it's the whole thing, it's my unfair advantage applied to the whole process and turned into a methodology. So this is how you start figuring out what it is that you're going to focus on and what that's going to end up looking at looking like so the place where your process in your own fair advantage overlap is the best place to start building a product that's made to sell. You mentioned marie earlier that I was going teo, that I was foreshadowing too much, and I see that being the same thing that you did with digital strategy school is this is your entire process. You're unfair advantages this really approachable way to think about strategy mush them together and you created a product that people are just going ga ga for right yeah, it is a product that was built to sell so I want to ask you guys, how did you find the overlap between your process and you're unfair advantage bridget I'll start with you so when I develop my breakthrough messages course actually what I did was focused on something much more discreet because it was finding is that within my process people always saying, well, I don't know what media to go after and I'm kind of overwhelmed like howto focus in my message you have so many things I want to say and I don't know what's going to resonate and on the other classes kind of I made that one little piece and then like rush past it and when I realized isn't my unfair advantage is finding those places where people get stuck and making them opportunities and really digging deep into why are we stuck here and what's the actual opportunity underneath it? So now we really focus in on this one question and apply that analytical skill to it and it's it's going really well because instead of just like rushing through what people makes people uncomfortable, we're actually lingering there and having a breakthrough with it nice nice okay so that's really that's really, really great but I think looking at stuck points in your process is helpful for everyone if there's a point in your process where your clients are getting stuck and you're not getting stuck there you have you have a solution for that? Uh then that's a place where you can really kind of expand on what you're doing and use that as a point of leverage because it's probably not just related to your unfair advantage it's probably a huge gaping hole in the market as well. For me, I did that with the customer perspective process where I help people look at who their customer is in a completely different way because what I realized was that my customers weren't getting stuck on it with me what was happening as they thought they had already figured it out and they had not right? And so I took that and I figured out, well, okay, what were all the questions that I was asking people? What were the exercises that I was doing? What was the outcome that I was looking for with just this one piece of the system? And so even within my larger system there's different peace is right. One of the bonus lessons that comes when you purchase turn service and turn your service into a product is how to think like a marketer it's the exact same thing, not the exact same thing is the customer perspective process, but it's a piece that people get stuck on because they think that marketing is about promoting what they're doing promotion is just one itty bitty tiny little piece of marketing you've to be able to think like a marketer you have to be able to create residents you have to be ableto start conversations with people that are actually meaningful that actually mattered to them that's marketing that's marketing and so that's been something that I've been developing a system for over about the last eighteen months or so because again it was someplace that people were getting constantly stuck so there's a really great example jen how do you find the overlap between your process ad? You're unfair advantage well really unique case so I didn't write I didn't but I realized today that if my unfair advantage involved intuited problem solving than what I did is I intuitively built a business on where I think they both completely overlaps my process completely overlaps man for advantage if my process involved things like connecting people and empowering action and validating purpose driven lives and all the rest of it then that intuitive problem solving and the ability to break things down into small actual steps is completely on top of that yes and I think you could look at it another way okay, which is that really your unfair advantage kind of overlapped and eighty bitty teeny weeny little bit of peace off what you did with as a photographer which is the truth just ah photographer but you were actually a lot leader in photography that you spoke that you gathered communities and movements and that that was actually part of how you did what you did even outside of the studio outside of a weighing right right yeah it was almost like in your case it was more like an arrow shot through your hand yeah and I guess part of it is because I look at my photography career is sort of done now like we close the studio and I'm not making my living that way anymore I don't connect those dots oh, but ideo have you yeah yeah yeah I think that's I think that's important I think that's what tends to what helps lend authority to what you're doing as well as this is actually this was an integral part of who you were as a photographer even if if not completely your process, right? Yeah. So cool. Thank you, murray um yeah, I think sort of approachability and intimacy is something that's been really important to me so being willing to share what's been working s o I was noticing a lot of people complaining about clients a lot and sort of seeing a lot of the same trends and being like what am I doing different? I'm not a better designer it's not just about being a better designer, so I think I was seeing a lot of designers position themselves just as designers and that there was a huge piece of strategy missing there, so that kind of allowed me to, um, let me show you the way, like, let me show you what worked for me and and come along, like, sort of create a community around it. Yes, we've encountered a lot of different questions today that I kind of thought experiments for getting around this, some of those questions are going to be helpful to you. Some of them won't, but the question I hear you asking here is, how do I do what I do differently, and really using that as kind of the impetus for your whole process, or figuring out what what was unique about your process and where you're unfair advantage overlapped and it's hard to find out yourself, right? So, it's, what our clients saying about me, what our other people mirroring back to me, and kind of picking up on on that? Yeah, and so that was the reason we started with the clan intake process, because knowing why people are coming to you, knowing what they are see in you, as opposed to other solutions, helps you pinpoint in your whole process plan, what is most important, and what is most valuable to them on most often, you're unfair advantage, is actually the reflection of what other people see is most valuable, jen, I think that that you would agree that for you that community piece that was what was most valuable about your life as a photographer is not your specific work as a photographer yeah jennifer well I think I fell into it I had a similar experience and that I was hearing people say like simple scrapper had I've created more things in this year than I ever have in the past I'm feeling more motivated more excited about my hobby I feel more connected to it and to the whole community and I was looking at all these little pieces that I was doing I had this class on how can I determine which projects to work on I had a class on how can I organize all my crab because I have all this and how can I actually start this because I don't even know where to start and I was seeing where people were getting results and even in my in my stats because I'm you know I'm a numbers per yes I was seeing that people are members almost twice as long if they really went through the process in an intensive experience with me in one of those events versus just they came in downloaded some things maybe popped into you know the facebook group but when they went through that process was merely we're getting results since that's why I'm really trying to kind of institutionalize that throughout the whole business so that everyone can I can get that benefit of the process um no matter where they come in if they come in you know as a free person they come in as a member if they come in as a in a class that I'm teaching perfect yeah, I think you know what you're talking about essentially iterating on what you've already got is also hugely important you know, I mentioned at the beginning that you guys were here is kind of case studies and experts but you're also students as well and that you're also still learning and growing and changing and I said, you know, my product has changed every single time we've released it we've improved to something about it on dh sometimes made huge leaps from session to session in terms of the content so yeah, this is this is a process that doesn't just happen when you're figuring out what you're going to say sell but that is you figure out how you're going to sell more and more and more easily it's a process that comes back and we're going to talk about that in less in valenti when we talk about getting feedback and iterating positioning, differentiating your product there's also a sustainability component for me that I remember asking you a question almost two three years ago now like I'm trying to launch this thing and then three weeks later I want to launch this other thing and you're like why are you trying to do that so I was trying to do too many things instead of creating a process in which I could do it all together yeah instead of trying to sell too many different things because I had yeah I was just trying to do too much at once yeah it didn't work yeah well and you know using your unfair advantage whether it z question of sustainability for your business model and structure or whether it's a question of sustainability and just like your mental health dublin's out on your unfair advantage leaving that into everything that you d'oh helps you be more effective more productive just mohr on top of things so that you're in your zone of genius more often and less operating outside of your zone of genius all right last one sasha how did you find the overlap between your process and you're unfair advantage um a couple of reflections that have come back to me and I think with the tang azem trip one is I gave a local workshop in berkeley and a therapist said to me oh I thought this was going to be wu but I was really impressed by the depth of your insight because you you know integrated yourself with psychoanalysts and one aside a so basically I'm so passionate about this I've been part of this sicko tongo community and one side is so actually talking about that moore gave me more credibility um and the other was one of the recent participants saying that she saw me embodying it like the tango asm and the face you know just that like I really live it yeah it's totally in my life so thanks any questions about applying your unfair advantage to your process plan no good geoffrey and we're looking at the circles where some people were totally overlapped and we're only partially overlapped and I've had this this comment that comes every once in a while I don't want to think so much about my scrapbooking so you're not a good fit for me that's why I'm going to cancel um and so what I'm wondering is that person just not the right person for me but or because I'm trying to get more volume should I try to be trying to talk to that person differently because my unfair advantages that analytical we're gonna think about this we're gonna pause and think yeah but if I want more people so that's a really interesting question andi I will relate my experience with that this year which is that one of my personal values and I thought one of the things that was kind of unique to my own for advantages, flexibility and what I've discovered is that there is a large segment of my clientele that actually isn't as interested in flexibility is I am on specifically I'm talking about my strategist training so the flexibility that comes with the quiet power strategy program is great because it's all about finding your own way to do things and not, you know, creating a cookie cutter plan but the strategies training is about having a system to use and they want it to be very systematic and so when I hired bran to help with, you know, overhauling our operations and logistics and on boarding on all of customer experience all of these things it was one piece that I had to decide I'm going to part with this I'm not going to be as flexible and I was really afraid that people were going to really push back at me and they didn't they were like this is great oh my gosh I'm so glad that we have to show up this time and do this thing I'm like really because that sounds like it sucks but it but it's worked it's worked it's working it's a wonderful and it was a huge realization that as my business grows as my business scales, I need to separate what's important to me too what's important to the business now that's not advice to you that's my experience I think that's something that you're gonna have to look at further of whether this is something that is integral to your process or whether it's a question of question of creating a different context is is guiding people through the process of thinking about it is that the most important thing, or is there a way to contextualized zit so that they know why they're taking every action that they're taking it, then that it's always relevant to them? It could be that you're still serving a very solution oriented client customer that is super driven, teo think about organized and plan their scrapbooking, but that you could be selling to a very problem oriented customer that's more focused on I just want to get the project's finished why aren't I getting the project's finished? And the answer to them may not be a process of organization it maybe instead of them thinking about it, them having to follow a step by step plan something like that where you're taking the burden off of them. There was a dichotomy between the people who were doing it for creative fulfillment and people who are doing it because they feel a sense of obligation to their family. Oh, so maybe some of the complications air coming through that yeah, tease a little more, yeah, with those air fascinating question is that we're not going to be able to answer today for sure. All right, great. Any other questions out, cory, you mentioned that you had, like, a whole bunch of different products, that you are several products that you were putting out and the launches were really close together yeah, great. Okay, so so that's something that I'm sort of bumping into and I'm looking at like segmentation and different things like that, but one of the things that I'm concerned about is that I may be putting things out in the like my strategic plan for next year. I may be putting things out too close together. Eso when do you decide to combine products and therefore up the price and all that kind of stuff? And when do you decide to keep them separate? Um, I think that's a question of wow that's a really good question, um, I think part of it's a question of scale, how much you want to scale and how much you want to segment your audience part of it, the question of flexibility do you want to bring people in and then guide them through essentially a curriculum like, do you want to kind of institutionalise that life cycle that you're working on right now? That's one of the questions we've thought about in terms of the next phase of quiet power strategy, I'm actually feeling not drawn towards institutionalizing a curriculum and instead figuring out ways for people to self select what their goals are, and then what offers we will show them so yeah, so also creating sort of a self selected survey or yeah sorting funnel, yes, so what a lot yes, next year is all going to be all going to be about multiple funnels, different ways to work with me or different ways to work with the brand, the product on the products that we offer on dh some people will opt into everything, and they will see everything and that's fine, because they won't get tired of it, they, you know, those are the people that naturally love it, right? Some people are going to be like, can I work with tear on marketing? You signed me up, right, and we'll talk, we'll do a specific marketing intensive on dso battle bb, maybe that's the on ly offer they see until I think, okay, so you've been doing this long enough that now you're ready to see this other offer, even though that you didn't necessarily opt in for that particular thing. So I would say for you knowing a sort of what I do about where you're at in terms of scale and audience size, that I think segmentation is probably the way to go that it's not, you know, maybe next year, well, you're as your rolling all of these things out, you're not going to make ultimately what you could be making, because you're not going to showing necessarily enough people to reach that tipping point revenue wise, but I think sets you up really well for as even more people are coming into your business when the book launches, for instance, you've got different ways that people can kind of self select what their particular outcome is or where they are on that customer cycle and essentially say, yes, show me those offers now they're not going to know that that's what they're saying, although you could do it that way, but I think I think that's probably the best route for you, okay? Okay, so we're going to get this hot because I basically already did that, and we're to start to wrap up. All right? So in these first nine lessons, you separated revenue from income so you could find smart investment opportunities for your business and in this case, what I'm talking about investment, I'm talking about your time because you're in the time for money cycle right now, choosing to focus on building a product on creating the marketing for it. Bringing people into that sales funnel means that you're investing in your business. It is a question of expense. It just happens to be an expensive your time. And so you want to know that the revenue that you're going to bring in from that is going, teo justify that investment you need to know what your return on investment is, which means that you need thio define yourself as a business owner and detach yourself from the work that you're doing because if you're going to do this you need to go all in so you can create that revenue that you want to create you also need to set a new goal for yourself for your business and for yourself as a business owner and that doesn't mean figuring out how much money you want to make it means figuring out what you want your business to look like what that's going to mean for you what kind of profit would kind of take home income that could look like and then also the revenue goal that's associated with it and knowing that that revenue goal on that income goal are going to look very different further and further you go into this you also identified your unfair advantage documented your client intake process and identified what you're really selling remember you're not selling life coaching you're not selling business coaching you're not selling web design, you're not selling art fine artist coaching right? You're selling outcomes and specifically your people are probably coming to you for some very clear outcomes that you could identify through that client intake process and then finally you created a process plan to discover where you can apply your or where you apply your unfair advantage most and how you can use that as your starting point for building your product because in lessons ten through eight, you're an outline ah process for building a product that resonates that's what we're doing next you're going to research what your customers know right now and discover how what you want to sell can fit right in in other words, we're gonna create marketing messages at the same time we're building products so that as you make that investment of your time in building this, you know that you're going to get that return you know this product is going to sell hugely empowering you gonna test your product with social media and content marketing so before it ever goes to market before you ever ask for money, you're getting validation that what you're developing is the right thing and you're going you're going to clearly and succinctly describe what you have to offer. You know this is a big sticking point for people. One of the I did a survey recently, and one of the number one things people said was holding them back for moving into the next phase of their business was being able to clearly and succinctly describe what they have to offer wow, we can fix that we're gonna fix it fast and we're gonna do it in lessons ten, three, eighteen and then finally we're gonna create a marketing message that resonates and, ah, plan to sell your product to your first ten customers. Ok, which means you're gonna start making money on this fast. There is every possibility that you could start with lesson ten and have a product built and ready to sell in twenty four, forty eight, seventy two hours. Absolutely, I believe it. I've seen it done. I've done it myself. You don't have to be a business strategist to get this done.