Lately I've talked with a lot of friends from all different walks of life, and all at different points in their lives and careers, about how they can start to sell a product or service on their blog, or make money from their existing lifestyle blog.
Now, granted, if you and I spoke in person the conversation would eventually turn to two things:
- My undying love of all things Joss Whedon.
- How frustrated I get when I see talented makers, artists, and coaches pouring their hearts into their blogs without being able to make a full or part-time career for their efforts.
If you're new to my blog, you might not know that I started freelancing when I was twenty-three years old, I left my cubicle for good at twenty-five, and this year I'm turning thirty.
I'm incredibly passionate about this because I vividly remember how big and unknown it all felt when I was starting out. I remember feeling like the only way I could make a normal job work was by putting a “realistic” ceiling on what I wanted my life to feel like.
Being on the other side of that, I know that it's not as hard or complicated as I assumed it was. And working for yourself can feel just as certain as a day job – but you have to start out to get there right.
And that's worth talking about.
So what's the first step when you want to add a product or service to your blog?
It's a lot like learning a new skill or adopting a new pet.
This summer one of my best friends, horror writer, and editor for hire J.H. Moncrieff, let me know that an abandoned hedgehog was on our Humane Society's website. Being a crazy animal lady, I was ready to scoop her up for my own before I even saw her.
When I brought her home, Ramona needed some special TLC and wasn't quiet about it! Being naturally shy critters, she was on high alert and everything panicked her. Any sound around her cage, movement or new scents and she would go into a ball and make distressed chirping noises to warn off predators.
I didn't know anything about hedgehogs, let alone how to help one who needed special care. But I had great resources to draw on, so I didn't have to guess.
I needed to know what she ate, so I asked the staff at the Humane Society. (High protein cat food! That was easy.)
I wasn't sure what kind of habitat they like, so I searched online for “hedgehog habitat pictures”. (They love places to hide and tunnel, and guinea pig cages and accessories are a perfect fit.)
If you break it down:
- I had a conversation with an expert;
- Searched online for cages or habitats so I had context for what other people use;
- I became a careful observer of her behaviour so I could respond to her better;
- Then I put in a lot of time with her, and;
- I consistently demonstrated that I was reliable and trustworthy in many small ways.
What does this have to do with your hustle? First of all, it means that you already have the skills to succeed. (Woo!) And second, that's a small-scale version of how you can learn how to help the people you want to serve with your offering, and then how you build trust them.
I bet you never thought you could tweet this: “My last business lesson was from a hedgehog on the internet.” (click to tweet it!)
Often when we create a new product or service that people might buy, we approach them with less real-world information than we do when we problem solve in other areas of our lives.
That's a little crazy, right?
There's a lot of expensive training out there that backs this idea up and encourages you to imagine your ideal client.
Tara Gentile's Quiet Power Strategy program helped me have a complete breakthrough around this. She teaches that when your ideal client isn't a real person, you're relying on yourself to fully know and understand the problem that our customers need solved.
That puts a tremendous amount of pressure on yourself to come up with all the answers on our own, and if you get it wrong there's no safety net. No wonder we feel confused about our direction. Of course, you do understand a corner of what your people struggle with, but you also have assumptions and biases that get in your way. Your perspective is naturally limited, and your solutions will be too.
Find real people, ask them about their frustrations, questions, and beliefs about what you offer, and suddenly you don't need to have all answers. You just need to listen.
That's a lot less pressure, isn't it?
The best thing about this is you can actually speak with them, but you can listen and learn from them based on conversations they're already having online in forums, on Facebook groups, and wherever else they hang out online.
Your Challenge: Start a discovery conversation this week.
- Find a real person who fits the description of someone you'd like to help. Someone you know and are comfortable with is a great place to start. Yours might be a woman over 25 years old, or maybe mom's with children under ten years old.
- Ask them if you can ask them a few questions over the phone or by instant messenger.
- Now start using those great communication skills you've got to prep some questions, and get ready to listen!
- Ask what frustrations they have around the kind of work that you do. Where they feel like things, get hard, or they would rather avoid a project than getting through it.
- Ask them if they've ever considered getting help from a freelancer, or purchasing an eCourse. Can they think of any other places they might try to get help?
Your goal is to be open, encouraging, and to talk less than they do. Make notes on phrases that they use, and how they speak about these things.
Do they ask these questions differently than you do? Do they see the same problem that you do? Is there another issue they have around this idea that's more pressing for them?
How much more helpful and ingenious could your next big thing be if you had 10, 20, 50 or 100 discovery conversations before you started creating it?
With all that information on what a diverse group of real people are actually struggling with, you're stacking the deck in favour of creating something that's profoundly helpful. It's a great way to refine what you already offer, or start out strong.
Keep listening, putting in the time, and feeding it – and soon the results you create for your clients will make sure your business loves you back!
Maybe not with the cuteness of a sweet little hedgehog, but it's a start.
What do you think? Have you done any discovery conversations before? Do they seem too intimidating, or like a waste of time? Share your take in the comments below!
LAST UPDATED ON: February 25th, 2015
CATEGORY: All Business & Blogging Posts Content Marketing Strategy Simple sales system
This is fantastic advice! I’ve been told so many times to imagine an ideal client and basically make them up, but I couldn’t do it–it seemed so fake, and a little silly. But asking the people I’d like to help what would help them? Now THAT makes sense!
And thanks for the unexpected shout-out! :) That was a nice surprise. I’m glad you were able to rescue Ramona. She was obviously meant to be your hedgehog.
Glad to hear that this resonates, Holli! I’ve done ideal client exercises like that myself, and at the time I did find them helpful. But there’s a definite limit to our perspective and to my mind it’s better to have more information and hear real clients concerns than to assume you know them all. People always surprise you, and why not let them so you can make something even better suited to them? Thanks for commenting!
I’ve been toying with the idea of downloadable patterns (knit/crochet projects) as well as offering webinars for learning to knit and crochet but I’m curious what the reception will be. I suppose it would help if I would “just do it” and start offering it? And then there’s the magazine-letters-cut-out-collage-labels that I’ve been itching to make but can’t figure out how to make them cost effective problem. :-\ lol. Thanks for this! Now how do I interview my virtual customers to get to know what they’re struggling with?
Thanks for reading and commenting, Annie. There’s a few ways that you can more information on what your customers would be interested in. For your printables and webinar ideas, you could talk to any makers at the skill level that you’d be serving and see what kind of patterns they’re looking for, how they like to learn, if they know what a webinar is, and what concerns they would have about them.
That would give you a lot of information about the concerns you’d want to make sure you address on your sales page, and in how you create both or either.
And if you’re worried about the reception, you can create a sales page for either idea – with some examples of what you’ll be creating, almost like a Kickstarter – and add an email opt in form (from a service like MailChimp or Aweber) to see how many people are interested. You definitely don’t have to leap blindly to get to your next big thing (and thank goodness!) :)
Thanks for this Kyla – really useful. I’ve been talking about creating a training programme for so long….this has just given me the kick up the bum I need to actually do it. Thanks!
Glad to hear it, Janet! What kind of training program are you thinking of creating- for PR? I’m sure your readers would love another way to learn from you.
Wow! Pet hedgehog – that’s different. We often get them in our garden and I have been know to “encourage” them out of the road even at 2 in the morning! I keep wondering about making printables as I think it’s something that I can do that people can use. But I don’t really know where to start (I mean after designing them!) do I offer lots of file types or just one or two, do I advertise or just Pinterest/FB/Tweet my heart out. So many questions!
I know the feeling, its a lot to take on when you start out! Stay tuned, I’m going to be covering a lot of these questions in the coming weeks. Figuring out how you’re going to package your work can feel daunting, but you could use a discovery conversation to talk with people who’d use the kind of printables you’re going to make.
If you ask and listen about the kinds of problems they’re trying to solve by finding a printable, you could get a sense of if they want a way to organize a whole range of things in their life or if they’re looking for help in one specific area. If they have a specific issue, single items could be helpful, and if they’re looking for more then a pack could be great. You can also package them both ways in a shop, and offer both to see which sells better. Reach out, and keep experimenting!