Create The Product *You* Want To Buy
Whenever we want to create something new in our business, we tend to start with ‘what do people want?’. This is good! In fact, you might go so far as to say that it’s a pretty hard and fast rule of business ownership – create products that your customer really wants. Do surveys and research and put together their suggestions with your know-how and hey presto! But sometimes, business ownership means breaking the rules…
It feels strange for me to write that maybe sometimes starting with your customer isn’t the way to go. Generally, it would always be my answer to any question about marketing: “start with your customer”. I think if you’re feeling unsure and a bit lost with what you’re doing, your customer is a great anchor point. If I’m stuck for an idea for a podcast episode or blog post, I’ll often turn to a Stories poll to find an idea to write about.
A ‘start with the customer’ approach provides security in the knowing that this new thing is really wanted, especially if you’re using pre-orders to judge popularity. It allows you to create something in the exact way the target customer needs, giving you more guarantees of success. It’s safe and sensible, which is perfect when you just need to shut your eyes and get something out there because you’re terrified.
But you’re not always terrified. And in a lot of ways, the safe and sensible approach can feel like it stymies your creativity. I know I’ve created things in the past where I’ve felt like the ghost of ‘what my audience wants’ was the puppet master controlling my arms. They were projects that I knew a lot of people would get something out of, but I wasn’t getting something out of it. The process was unfulfilling, it didn’t test me and I ended up dreading the work because of it. And we didn’t start our businesses to feel like that, did we?
When you approach new offerings from what your customer says they want, you are letting them dictate the direction of your business. You may have matured in your thinking, or in your style; you may have developed a new technique you love to use or shifted your approach following some training or learning. You must feel allowed to develop your business in the direction you want to go in because, again, why have your own business if you’re just going to have an invisible external boss?
As a coach, I’ve realised that sometimes what people think they need isn’t what they really need at all. I come across people all the time who think their problem is needing a bigger Instagram following when really they need to know and communicate their brand values. Even if you’re a maker, sometimes people think they want another grey cushion but actually they need a rich mustard to add depth to their room. This is part of what they’re paying us for, our knowledge and guidance towards the solution that will solve their real problem – so we have to allow ourselves to do that.
As I’ve been thinking about new offerings as part of my 2020 goals to move into a one-to-many business model, I’ve found myself taking a different approach. I know that if I started with asking my audience, I wouldn’t get answers I could use to move forwards because, through my marketing, I’ve ‘trained’ them to want and expect a certain type of offer from me. And of course, we all want to please! They’d probably want to make me feel good and say ‘oh yes, I want what you’ve got’, which doesn’t help me to shift.
So over the last few months, I’ve instead been thinking ‘what would I want?’. Most of us started our business because we couldn’t find something we wanted, so we made a way to get it – and we are proof that other people often want that thing as well. In this way, we are all also versions of our ideal customer, so what we want isn’t going to be a way off what they want either.
My course The Playbook started in this way. I thought back to a year or so ago and thought about what I struggled with then, what the course I wish I could have taken looked like. So you can look to past you, and you can also look to your peers. When you think about the people who you love and admire the most, what do you wish they would bring out? I had an idea for a new hybrid offering by listening to a podcast announcing someone’s new membership and thinking ‘that sounds good, but it would be great if it had this and this’.
You can also think about your current self. What is the thing you wish someone would bring out – and why can’t that someone be you? This is how I came up with The-Unmastermind. I spent last summer wishing someone I admired would bring out a small group mastermind-style offering for people with businesses that were going good but wanted to make great. I didn’t want to be talking about sales funnels and millions of dollars and 10x-ing; I didn’t want to be in a group with people whose idea of success was flying around the USA from conference to conference and building a team in a shiny office (good for them, not for me). I wanted a close-knit group where we were all pulling in the same gentle direction and could speak in a shorthand language.
I was actually researching (unsuccessfully) a few options and realised that the bits I cared less about where the explicit ‘teaching points’. My problems weren’t ones that could be taught away; I needed some impetus and support to work through them myself. The experience and status of the mastermind leader meant less to me than the structure of the offering and what I could do for myself, with others. And in that way, there was no reason why I couldn’t be the person to create this offering.
But what about that security? While taking risks might be a part of being a business owner, taking ill-informed ones isn’t. Of course, I still wanted a bit of security that this would be something that other people would want before I committed my future to it! So rather than take the ‘start with the customer’ approach, I say ‘sense check with the customer’. Have the idea, dream on it, work on it, be excited about it. Then sense check it. “Is this something that would be helpful to you?”, “would you rather work on a 6 month or 12-month basis?”, “would you want a subscription service or one-off payment?”.
Most of the time we don’t know we want something until it’s in front of us, so by starting with what you want you can be creating something you are enlivened by, something so different to other options in the market and something that, ultimately, creates a greater value for your customers.
