Identify the needs and problems of your audience BEFORE designing a product

Hey bloggers, we are starting on stage number six today and talking about part one. So if you are new here or you haven't listened to the last couple of episodes, we're walking through the seven stages of blogging, looking at a different part of each stage in each episode over the last couple of weeks. So we're on stage six. There's three parts in stage six. We're talking about part one today. If you have, if this is a new concept to you, you haven't heard about the seven stages before, there is an overview episode that you might want to listen to as well. And if my voice sounds really raw and scratchy, I'm sorry about that. We had over three hours of Q&A time in the membership today and it was fantastic. This is my favorite part of the month. It's when we get together and help each other out. So sorry though, if my voice sounds scratchy. Okay, let's jump in. The first part of stage six, which is the summit tier stage, is identifying your audience needs and working on product development. So you're going to find that almost all of stage six is dedicated to your product and evolving and selling your product. And the first part, it would make sense that we actually build one. So this is interesting because this came up in the Q&A sessions today. I think it's really important that you not just think about a product and put one together, but that you take a step before that and really understand the personas on your blog, the types of people who come to your blog. And then for each one of those personas, dive in and get a real understanding of that persona's needs, problems. What kind of thing, I hate to use this phrase because it's so overused, but what keeps them up at night? Why are they coming to you? What's the big problem that they're coming to your blog to solve? And you might be like, well, I'm not a self-help blog and neither am I. I'm a hyperlocal travel blog, but I have people who come to me because they want to know what to do with their kids because they just need to get out of the house. They want to know where to travel within a weekend. Some people just want to go out on a day trip. Some people want to know what's new, opening up new hotels, new restaurants, new events, that sort of thing. Some people want to know where to go on a date night. These are still problems. These are the needs of the different personas in my audience. So I want you to brainstorm the problems that your audience has and then think about how you can help them. Start with the problem first. Don't create a product and then try to force it into a problem. Start with the problem and then use that problem to come up with ideas for your products. Hopefully you'll settle on one that would be a great product for you to build to address that specific problem of your audience. Now, a lot of times, I think most of the time, I kind of default to this idea that your product should be a digital download just because that seems to be the most popular thing. But it might be a book. It might be a course. It might be a membership. It might be consulting time. I think I mentioned one of our Insider members, they offer quilt patterns. I mean, there's so many things that you can offer. But the point here is really to work on solving or understanding the problem before you decide on what the product should be. I think sometimes we just get it backward. And after that, after you've created your problem, you're going to use that language that you know, understand, believe to be true, potentially have tested about that persona's needs and problems in order to develop a compelling sales page for your product. Because you want to speak to your audience with their language. You want to make sure they understand that you had their problem in mind when you were crafting that product. And that that product solves their problem and how it solves their problem. And all of that is important to put on your sales page. But again, where does it start? It starts with defining the personas in your audience, and then understanding their needs and problems. So that's part one. And listen, I make it sound simple because I'm like, oh, and this is just part one, friend, this might be, you know, a three or six month project. For me, I've had my product built for several months now. And I started I did start with the problems before that. And then it took me a couple months to build a product, still working on the sales page just because I have some other ends that I'm tying up. But I don't want you to get the impression that I am trying to tell you this is just oh, that's it. That's part one. It's quick and down and dirty and easy to do. It's not. It takes a lot of effort. But I really think this is one of the most important things that you can do right now in light of the way that Google is changing things. I think it would behoove you to consider pivoting to maybe a website that offers a product and that happens to have a blog as opposed to just being a blogger. I think there's more revenue potential that way because if you can get your marketing message right, then that will definitely increase your revenue per reader. And it forces you to work on your email list. It forces you to work on your marketing communications. It's just an overall good strategy. So again, sounds easy. Part one. It's like less than a 10-minute podcast episode. But if it takes three or six months, friend, that is normal. Absolutely normal. Okay. Tomorrow, we're going to jump into part two. Not tomorrow. Sorry. It's the weekend. Can you believe it? We'll jump into part two of stage six, continuing the next step in the product creation process. I'll go over all of that with you. And listen, if you're like, personas? What is she talking about? Don't forget, there is a free resource at lesliepeterson.com. And I had someone write me and say, hey, this is a realtor at lesliepeterson.com. It is, if you spell Leslie the way the world spells Leslie, L-E-S-L-I-E. But I don't have an E at the end of Leslie. So if you're in doubt, go to the show notes, click lesliepeterson.com, head over there. There's a free resource for the lead magnet master kit. And the first part of that tool is helping you to identify your personas. It is using chat GPT technology, not to write any of, you know, not to build your product, not to write articles, but to really understand who is coming to your site and who you're addressing the personas, the types of people that are most likely to get the most benefit out of your site. The people whose needs and problems you want to understand before you work on a product. So check that out. Like I said, it's free. It does require chat GPT 4.0 because it's a personal GPT and they are not offering that on the free version. But it is free from me for you to be able to use. I hope that you will grab a copy of that and work on your personas, identifying the needs and problems before you get started on your product.