[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite online business podcast. If you are listening, if you are watching, if you are tuning in on the day that it drops, it is Monday, August 31st. Welcome to the last fucking day of August.
Also, if you can hear my fan, I'm not turning it off. I'm sorry. It is hot.
Climate change is real. It's really the humidity. And it's not nearly as bad as like, you know, being on the east coast or anything like that.
But like, it's humid. So I got the fan on so I don't die. But I kind of want to just jump right on into today's episode, because it's so top of mind.
Also, I don't really have any life or business updates aside from the fact that summer is still summering. And like I said, the fan is on because it is humid. And I could, I could, I could do without that.
I'm here for the heat. Bring it. Humidity, please leave.
Take the mosquitoes with you. But I love it here in Southern California. Despite the fact that Trump is still in office, fuck that guy.
And fuck that whole administration. They're all trash. Despite those things, those very real realities.
My life is very good here. So I want to celebrate that, focus on that. Actually, a little update, not even an update, just sharing my joy.
Harbor Freight. Y'all know what Harbor Freight is? You ever heard of Harbor Freight? It is a hardware store. It's not even a hardware store.
It's a, I don't know what to call it, a tool store? Because they don't really have that much hardware. So I wouldn't call it a hardware store. But you got the tools there.
And for really good prices. And my love for it has been rekindled. They just had recently had an amazing parking lot sale.
And an insider's track sale. Yes, I am an insider there. And I got a new jack for the Jeep.
And I might go get some jack stands today after this. I'm done recording here. It's literally like 1.5 miles from my house, which is amazing.
It's a great problem to have. So we're celebrating that as well. That's the only life update.
But let's dive into today's main topic, which is you gotta ask first. What the fuck am I talking about? Well, anything in life that requires consent. But as it specifically relates to this podcast in this episode, I am referring to the fact that you 100% absolutely must ask your audience if they want the thing before you go and build the thing.
The only caveat here being, I'm thinking about my guy, Anthony, Anthony Sacramento. The only caveat here is if you absolutely do not give a single fuck if anyone buys that thing, or if they're even interested in the thing that you're building. If you're just like, I gotta get this out of my head.
I gotta create to create. I just want to make it. I don't care if anyone or a single soul even knows about it.
Then by all means, go forth and build the thing right now. But for the rest of you who do care, myself included, especially those of you who are building and creating things as it relates to part of your business, you must first ask the people if they want the thing before you build the thing and before you launch the thing. Otherwise you will probably cry.
I feel like I have been saying this for 11 billion years because I have, but I just cannot overstate the importance of this, the necessity of this, the prerequisite nature of this. I don't follow any other business coaches, online business coaches on Instagram, anything like that. And I don't really see what folks are teaching, thankfully.
But I do get a whiff of it every now and then, largely through threads, which is again my least favorite platform. But with the exception of my bestie Jill, there's not a single online business coach out there that's suggesting that their clients first assess demand. What the fuck are we doing? Y'all, building the thing is the easy part.
I realize that tech may not come naturally to you. And I realize that copywriting is objectively a lift, right? Writing the copy for a sales page is a lift. Writing those emails is a lift.
But building out the course, building out the program, building the challenge, the freebie, the workshop, the webinar, making those things, that is the easy part. I promise you. Getting the people to actually buy the thing, that is the hard part.
That is where you need to be putting your effort. And that is what you need to be focusing on doing first. The absolute first step of getting people to buy something is assessing demand and asking if they even want this thing in the first place.
Notice I said asking if they want this thing, not just asking, hey what do you want? Right? An open-ended question like that, what do you want? That is really tough. Think about yourself as a consumer. If you know the brand or a brand that you didn't even really maybe know yet.
We're just like, what do you want? You're like, I'm not sure. I don't know. And in addition to that, if you are doing this kind of market research and you're using something like social media, remember that the people that are on social media, you included, myself included, we're on there to consume.
We're not on there to do work for the people that we're consuming from. I don't know, you fucking make something, I'll tell you if I want it. Additionally, that line that customers don't know what they want, it's bullshit.
Customers do know what they want, typically after they have seen it. So give them something to see and give them something to choose from. The online business order of operations is what I'm going to call it and how I teach it is as follows.
First, you make content. Then that attracts an audience. From there you see what's getting attention, what's getting interaction, and you listen to any of the questions that you're getting.
If you're not getting any questions, keep making more shit. When you start getting questions, you make more content around that specific topic. From there you assess the general engagement and then from there you ask folks if they want a paid solution for that specific topic.
If no one says yes, don't make the thing. Do not make it. You have some options of what to do next.
One, you can try asking again and ask a more pointed question about this thing, make it more specific, like, you know, about the thing that you're trying to offer. Two, you could create more content around that specific topic to see if you can attract more people, see if maybe those new people are interested in a paid offer. Or option number three, you can start creating content about a different topic, still within your niche, and then start that online business order of operations process again from the top.
I get it, reading about launch strategies, learning from coaches, myself included. Jill and I, we taught launch strategy. It's sexy.
Launch formulas, launch strategy is sexy, and perhaps more than that, it is comforting because it's a plan that's been laid out. It gives you exact steps to follow, which is great for folks who don't know what they're doing. If you just started, you don't know what you're doing, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's also nice because it allows you to, like, check boxes off and cross items off a list, and it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something. But that stuff needs to come after you assess demand. All right, Jill and I taught this a bunch.
She still teaches it. I am clearly yelling at you teaching this. You got to assess demand first.
You got to ask first. How do you ask? You literally go wherever your audience is and say, hey, I'm thinking about making this thing. Would you buy it? I personally recommend putting as much information on that ask and with that ask as possible.
If you know the price, the date, the commitment, all of that, et cetera, right? It's all going on that. It's all going in that ask. Because when people may say yes, if you don't have that information, but they're saying yes to basically getting more information, which then skews your conversion, right? Conversion rates.
So I put as much information as I can on this thing, and then I'm asking, would you buy this thing? Instagram stories are a great place for this, right? Which is why I want you in your stories all the time, not just when you're launching. Your email, your podcast, anywhere where you have an audience that trusts you and engages with you, that is a good place to ask. If and when you hear back from people, it then becomes about percentages, right? So I like to tell people to assume that 10% of the people who respond and say yes will actually buy.
From there, you say, I have a number. Is it worth it for me? If it's not worth it for you, don't launch it. If it is, then launch it, right? So if you have 10 people that respond and they're like, yeah, I'd buy this, assume that one person would buy, right? That's 10%.
And then you ask yourself, is it worth it for me to run this thing if it's only one person? A quick note on quote unquote worth it. Any amount of success is worth celebrating. And that is a quote from Jill's brother, Brandon Coleman.
They just did a podcast, the four of them, all the siblings. And that's one of the things he said. And he was talking about his career when he started off as a dance teacher.
And there was like two people in the class. And he was like, any success is worth celebrating. Lean into that.
You don't start off with 50 people. You don't start off with 25, right? You start off with two, maybe five, maybe eight. It's a low number.
And then it grows from there. I do think, in saying that as well, the toughest pill to swallow, one of the toughest pills to swallow in the online business game is the fact that not everyone who plays the online business game will win. And not to imply that online business is zero-sum, because it's not.
But if we talk about playing related to sports, not everyone who plays any sport gets to win. And that is how online business is. And it's not because you've lost to someone.
It's just like not everyone wins. That's just not how it works. There's definitely, it feels like to me, there's definitely a bit of, and I think part of it comes from the coaches giving people false hope so that people will buy their shit.
But there's definitely a sort of mindset with online business that if you show up and do the things, you should have success. You deserve success. You will automatically have success.
And that's just not the case, right? And it does break my heart for some people. I watch them and they're doing all the things and it's just like timing is a thing. Your actual niche is a thing.
There's so many factors, right? But to bring it back home, keeping this episode short, to bring it back home to the main point, and I will likely make a bunch more episodes about this very topic because, you know, things land when people are ready to have them land. But if today's episode is landing for you, hooray! All right, please, if you are thinking about launching something, you're thinking about making something, creating something, building something, selling something, first go and ask your people if they actually want it. And then, only then, if they say yes, get to work building it.
All right, that's it. I'm cutting it short. Use the rest of the time you would normally have to think about what I just said and then go ask your people.
As always, endlessly, endlessly, I mean it, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.