WELCOME to 2019! Are you ready for an AMAZING year ahead? I know I am!

OK, let’s dive into today because I’ve got a big question for you:

How well do you really know your customers and what they desire?

And how do you KNOW what they desire?

This is one of the biggest questions I ask people who are having trouble with their marketing because knowing what your audience desires is the #1 key to ANY marketing that works.

In fact, one of the biggest benefits people get out of my program, Build Your Funnel Bootcamp, is KNOWING what their audience wants.

I’ve seen people have a good idea, create a product, and just launch it with no validation on their audience. Maybe you’ve done that too. I know my biggest failures in business have come AFTER I’ve done that. Basically, trying to think up the “perfect” offer on my own without getting any feedback from the people who might actually BUY it.

In fact, just creating and pumping out offer after offer is a great way to bury yourself in busy work, but it’s busy work that doesn’t end up paying off because no one wants those offers.

So, let’s look at how to unlock what your customers really desire.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

• It’s SO vitally important that you KNOW the people you’re talking to — not some made up customer avatar. You need to have a specific person in your head and KNOW this offer is perfect for what they want to achieve.
• The ONLY way to do that is to:
  • 1. Uncover their main problems. These are the things they wake up in the morning thinking about and the thing they think about at night.
  • 2. Craft, test, and prove that you’ve got the best solution for their problems.
  • 3. Create a marketing funnel that allows you to set the stage for WHY your offer is the best solution for them.

• Uncovering your audience’s main problems can seem simple OR overwhelming. It can feel like it’s getting in the way of the ‘real work’ of putting your offer together.
• Any product, service, or program that is rolled out WITHOUT this understanding is standing on very wobbly legs — and will probably fall down.
• The real work — the work that sets you up for a sold-out business — starts by crawling into your audience’s brain and really, truly understanding them.
• Once you understand their fears, the stories they tell themselves, their dreams, and their big, burning desire, only then can you create products, programs, events, services, and other offers that they eagerly buy.
• They’ll eagerly buy because they KNOW without a doubt that you understand them.
• The problem: When you’re rolling out something new, going in a new direction with your business, starting a new business, and/or trying to pivot and serve a new audience, it can be really tough and feel like a catch 22.
  • You need an audience to understand if this product, program, or service will sell.
  • You need to sell to stay in business.

• What comes first? The research on the audience or just winging it and putting your offer out there to see if it works?

• If you’re anything like I was early on in my business, you probably take the risk and put something out there because it seems better to have an offer to sell than just doing research.

• That approach will pretty much guarantee your failure, and I want to challenge you today to take a more disciplined approach to building your business on a solid foundation of a deep understanding of your audience.

• How can you start to develop that deep understanding especially when you don’t have a big audience to start with?
  • There are a lot of ways you can easily jump into the minds of your ideal audience: blog post comments; social media posts (especially within groups); doing a Facebook live, Instagram story, video, or Google live stream and asking for feedback; sending out emails; having a popup on your website and more.
  • One of the fastest and easiest ways to do that is through a survey. Yes, you CAN use a survey approach EVEN IF you don’t have an audience. Even with a very small audience, surveys can be really, really effective.

• General guidelines to help you create a survey that will get you results.
  • Guideline #1: KISS (keep it simple, sweetheart)
    • One of the biggest issues, when people start trying to survey an audience, is that they want to ask everything under the sun.
    • You need to decide what you really need to know. What are you trying to find out so that you can create content, your offer, and your marketing plan with confidence?
    • You can get a LOT of insight with 2 – 6 questions MAX, but you need to know what to ask, and even more importantly, what to do with the responses you get.
  • Guideline #2: Avoid Conversation Stoppers
    • No closed ended questions. Period. Yes or no is a conversation stopper.
    • In your survey, your #1 goal is to crawl into your audience’s head and uncover their deep desires. If you ask a closed-ended question, you’re only confirming what YOU already think.
    • If you choose to use multiple choice questions, you need to be mindful of how you do it.
    • For example, if I were to ask this question:
      • Do you want a steady stream of clients in your business? YES or NO
      • If someone says YES, they’re simply confirming this is a desire, but you have no idea why or if this is something they struggle with or if this is even how they’d talk about their big desire.
      • If someone says NO, I have no idea why. Are they already sold out? Do they think it’s not possible? Do they already have so many clients and sales that they don’t need any more?

• • • Here’s how I could rephrase that question:
      • What’s your biggest goal in your business for the next 6 months:
        • A. Find my audience to buy my offer
        • B. Create an offer people want to buy
        • C. Find a way to have consistent buyers in my business
        • D. All of the above
        • E. Something else – please specify

• • • There IS an exception that I use for yes/no questions and that is when I’m trying to set the stage for what my survey is all about. But in that case, I’ll always add an ‘other’ option so people can give me a response in their own words
    • For example, in a recent survey I did, the first question I asked was: Have you ever tried to create a marketing funnel for your business?
      • Answers: Yes, No, Other (write in a response)
    • This was an important question for me to ask because it set the stage for what I wanted feedback on in this survey.
    • Multi-choice questions help to warm up the audience and get them answering BUT the problem is that I’m putting ideas in their head which can lead to bad survey data because you’re planting seeds of what you want to hear.

• Guideline #3: Ask A Conversation Starter Question

• If you have too many open-ended questions, no one is going to want to respond to your survey but one or two are GREAT.

• Here are a couple of my favorite questions to ask:

• 1. When it comes to attracting buyers online, what is the biggest problem, frustration, or obstacle you are currently facing?

• 2. How are the problems, frustrations, and/or obstacles affecting you?

• • • Figure out what you want to know from your audience, and what simple question would help you open a conversation with them about what’s going on.

• Guideline #4: KISS part 2: Focus Your Questions

• Keep your questions focused! Surveys where every question is asking 2 – 3 questions are tough to answer.

• • Multiple questions are fine but should be asked separately.
  • Be really clear on what you’d like to ask and WHY you want to know that information. Be clear on why you want to know it.

• Three great questions you could use to gather feedback for your marketing:

• Question #1: What’s your biggest challenge/struggle/obstacle in ________.

• You want to know what is top of mind for your audience. What are they struggling with? What are they thinking about? How do they talk about those challenges?

• • Question #2: What’s your biggest question about _______?
    • This is another way to get at what they’re thinking about/struggling with. It helps you understand the kind of content you can create to attract your ideal audience. When you know their questions, you’ve now got a ton of social media, blogs, or video ideas  and you’re able to answer a specific question.

• • Question #3: If you could wave a magic wand, what product/program/service (whatever) would you like to create to ___________?
    • This is the money question. This helps you understand: Does your audience want 1-on-1 service help? Do they want a course? Do they want templates? What is it they’re looking for to help them out right now?
    • This is such a great way to truly understand what they’re thinking and what stories they’re telling about what they need to achieve their goals.
• Discovery Call Planner Cheat Sheet
• Want to know which marketing funnel is right for you and your business? Take this free and easy quiz, and in less than 5 minutes, you’ll know EXACTLY which funnel is right for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Link to episode #57
• Link to episode #58
• Link to Discovery Call Planner Cheat Sheet
• Marketing Funnel Quiz: https://www.michellelevans.com/marketing-funnel-quiz/