Professional Documents
Culture Documents
STUFF FOR YOUR PEOPLE NOT PEOPLE
FOR YOUR STUFF
A lot of the time, when people start learning marketing, they think, H ow do I find someone who
can help me sell my stuff? or How do I figure out how to sell more of my stuff? instead of
thinking about their target market and the problems of their market first.
In Silicon Valley, they often talk about this as a solution in the search for problems. I've heard of
it. They also refer to it as solutionism. It's where you've got the solution already. Now, you're
looking for the problem or the target market who's got that problem.
Here's a better approach, and I want you to have this mindset shift that rather than trying to find
people for your stuff, you're trying to find stuff for your people. We start with your audience and
your tribe first. Then, we figure out what problems they're having and how we can help them
solve those problems with your products, services, and deliverables.
Now, quite possibly, what you already offer or what you already have as a product or service
may serve a particular audience or market well, but we don't want to start with that assumption.
We want to first start with the audience, with the target market, and with the people we want to
serve.
So this brings up a logical question: How do I choose my target market?
Well, the first way is through personal experience. For example, if you think about me in my
business, I used to be a business owner who just struggled with confusion as it relates to
marketing. I just simply did not know what to do to bring a customer in the door.
I was a tech geek; I had an IT business. I was good at what I did, but I struggled at the sales and
marketing side of things. Because I've been in those shoes, I deeply understand the feelings that
are associated with not being able to get a customer and the frustration of knowing that you're
really good at what you do, but your competitors are running circles around you.
So this empathy with your target market becomes incredibly important when we start our
messaging, as you'll see in our next module. So if you've got personal experience as a member of
your target market, you've got a really good advantage there.