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The napkin test
I was just on a call with a newer business owner who was asking what to do next.
It was clear he needed to do some work articulating his point of view, who his ideal clients are, and what the before and after looks like in their business. And one of the recommendations I have him was to journal about it.
I didn’t give him any specific prompts because this wasn’t a coaching call. But there is another way to do this that I would recommend to everyone reading this.
Send daily emails.
Daily emails are a forcing function. You're forced to articulate your point of view, your philosophy, your thoughts on your topic, and answer questions about what you do. It forces you to get better at not only doing what you do, but talking about what you do. So that’s one of the reasons I like to write and I also like to recommend writing daily emails.
Then on the receiving end of it, it's an opportunity for people to learn your point of view and decide whether or not it actually works for them too.
So I figured, why not take my own advice here and write about one of the things I shared with him on the call.
I’ve a seen a number of different marketers talk about this in a very similar way, but I learned it first from Tad Hargrave, so any resemblance to the way he teaches is purely intentional.
Imagine for a moment that there are two islands. You’ve got Island A and you’ve got Island B. Your ideal clients are over here on Island A. There’s all these things wrong with it. It’s not where they want to be. There’s a particular problem in their life that’s not really working out for them, and they want to get to Island B.
Island B is the outcome they’re hoping to achieve.
And in between, you have this boat.
The boat is the vehicle you use to get them there. That's the coaching you do, the methodologies, the frameworks, the step-by-step programs. All the things you use to get them from point A to point B. It's helpful to have that well articulated. But for the most part, people aren't particularly concerned with the boat.
At least not right away.
But having your boat documented, with the methods you use, as long as people can recognize them by name, will attract the people that it matters to. But often times, the methods you use just end up sounding like a foreign language to the uninitiated person who does not quite yet understand.
That's an important thing to keep in mind.
If you're going to talk about the boat, there needs to be a very important reason you're talking about the boat.
Let's say part of your boat is writing.
Writing is part of my boat. The people I work with are either having me write for them, or they're learning to write better. So if I claim to help you do something through writing, it's important to get that out of the way. Because if you hate writing, you're not going to like learning from me.
You might enjoy hiring me to do you writing (which is fine).
But you’re not going to like learning how to do marketing from me, because the way I teach it, it involves doing a lot of writing. But if all I talk about is the writing… like hey, I’m going to help you become a better writer, and you will understand how to write well, and you will get really good at it, you will likely be disinterested because you do not know what writing that purpose will serve in your life and what kind of outcomes you will achieve from doing it.
So if you set the boat aside for a minute, and you’re not particularly clear on what the before and after looks like for your ideal clients, like if you can’t draw them both on a napkin with very few words and show to someone who’s your ideal client and they’d get it, then it’s probably worth articulating better.
And you might even do that by drawing those pictures while you’re at it.
But the other thing I mentioned this person do, was check out the Minimum Viable Email List training inside my community and get himself a lead magnet (because he didn't have one yet).
Maybe you could use one too?
If that’s the case, here's the link:
Talk soon,
Kevin Hood