I'm seeing lots of c
be easier or harder for you to succeed with.
And "choosing" is a non-permanent action. You can (and probably will!) adjust and adapt based on what you learn from Safari, but until you make a choice, you can't learn enough to adjust/adapt.
So if you're feeling stuck on audience selection, make a choice using the guidance we provide so you can move on to the next step of finding watering holes! You won't regret it :smile:
1 Reply
[2022-10-19 02:18:37 PM] : Understood, Alex. The focus should be on learning the process and gaining the right perspective first. Once that's mastered, we will eventually get to fly through a variety of audiences.
[2022-10-19 02:28:41 PM] : if you choose, though even with mastery it's smart to use your advantages!
speaking personally, i will say that even as someone who has mastered this stuff, working with audiences that I don't belong to is still MUCH MUCH harder than audiences where I have built in advantages.
my primary income is still from serving communities I belong to. in my other businesses, i have a partner who belongs to the audience the business serves.
if you look at most successful businesses, "someone at the top" had some built in advantages with their initial or core customer base. it's just not always obvious.
there are outliers, of course, but they tend to be exceptions that prove the rule (or straight up luck, which you can't really learn much from)
[2022-10-19 02:29:59 PM] : mastery can shows you a wider range of what "advantages" can be, though.
[2022-10-19 02:31:34 PM] : remember what "stacking the bricks" is all about: using the small advantages you have to create tiny wins, that add up to bigger advantages and bigger wins.
[2022-10-19 02:32:02 PM] : I didn't know I'd be doing most of the things I do today, until the stuff before I did made it possible to do them. :smile:
[2022-10-19 02:32:50 PM] : but yes - focus on getting results from the process ON EASY MODE before trying to play the game on the most difficult setting.
cuz unlike a video game, you don't get bonus points for playing on the more difficult mode. :joystick:
[2022-10-19 05:32:32 PM] : This is helpful!!! I think it's just the nature of the safari that is making it harder for the audience picking! It seems like that process is a huge part of what needs to be done alex and being able to have an audience you belong to AND easily accessible safari locations and communities seems to be an added issue! There's technically tons of safari locations for small business owners but you don't really get the info like you get from other audiences! For example right now I'm thinking about freelancers because it's such a big online community and there's still a lot of open non-paid spaces for it vs. the online business world which feels pretty pay walled? I mentioned this earlier as well! I really want to do the work but that's the piece that has been tricky
[2022-10-19 05:37:46 PM] : Freelancers is a good example where if you're struggling, it might make sense to get more specific.
[2022-10-19 05:38:19 PM] : I feel like freelancers feels nice and open
[2022-10-19 05:38:24 PM] : but I'm not really one haha
[2022-10-19 05:38:37 PM] : I haven't been one in a while, not since 2011!
[2022-10-19 05:38:52 PM] : but there's so much safari material!
[2022-10-19 05:39:12 PM] : Most people don't introduce themselves as a freelancer without also noting what kind of freelancer they are.
[2022-10-19 05:40:49 PM] : Even though the problems tends to be the same across diff kinds of freelancers, people like to think their kind is special :wink:
[2022-10-19 05:46:08 PM] : ummm hahaha
[2022-10-19 05:46:12 PM] : now I'm confused again!
[2022-10-19 05:47:02 PM] : What’s confusing?
[2022-10-19 05:58:10 PM] : So I originally started with small business owners who want to create digital products and courses and I was finding it hard to find usable safari locations and so I changed to freelancers and there are tons of places to safari! so many groups and reddits and everything else where people are still asking for free info in public place
[2022-10-19 05:58:44 PM] : so I decided to do that instead with a focus on copywriters, marketers, and brand strategists because that's who I am vs. just freelance writers
[2022-10-19 05:59:48 PM] : and I think what I was saying is that the audience you pick really has to do with what audience has the best quality safari locations! Otherwise the process doesn't really work
[2022-10-19 05:59:56 PM] : am I getting that right alex?
[2022-10-19 06:00:24 PM] : my original issue is the audiences I have a lot of experience with meet online but they aren't asking as many questions
[2022-10-19 06:00:30 PM] : so there's nothing to grab
[2022-10-19 06:19:36 PM] : I just left work for an event so I'll be able to write a more thorough response when I get back!
[2022-10-20 10:56:55 AM] : okay, so here is my analysis from what you shared here Shenee Howard:
"I originally started with small business owners who want to create digital products and courses and I was finding it hard to find usable safari locations"if you revisit the audience lesson, we note that whenever you're describing an audiences as "X who Y" like "small business owners who...." the "who" acts as a splitter. before the who is the audience, after the who is actually a problem or a pain. so in this case, I would start by Safari one of two ways: option 1: finding "small business owners." as you found, this is a really, really wide net that includes basically every kind of small business under the sun, who describe themselves very differently, use different tools, different jargon/langauge, etc. I'd narrow this by choosing a kind of business that you currently run, ran in the past, or successfully served in the past with products or services OR option 2: finding "newbie/aspiring course creators." this might seem wide, but consider how much more specific it already is than "small business owners." there's going to be some common language. common tools. common interests. and most importantly, people seeking out advice, tools, recommendations, etc. [2022-10-20 10:57:24 AM] : > I changed to freelancers and there are tons of places to safari! so many groups and reddits and everything else where people are still asking for free info in public place
so I decided to do that instead with a focus on copywriters, marketers, and brand strategists because that's who I am vs. just freelance writers[2022-10-20 11:00:23 AM] : so, this can DEFINITELY work! I had originally misread your comment further up:
For example right now I'm thinking about freelancers because it's such a big online community and there's still a lot of open non-paid spaces for it vs. the online business world which feels pretty pay walled? I mentioned this earlier as well! I really want to do the work but that's the piece that has been trickyi misread this as you were finding freelancers challenging, what you actually said was that freelancers were easier to find than "small business" or "online business" which makes sense! freelancers are a kind of small business, with a lot of similarities even across the kinds of skills they offer their clients. [2022-10-20 11:01:21 AM] : my suggestion to go narrower to a more specific kind of freelancer was if you're having trouble finding them (which was how I read your comment, my mistake!), or finding discussions that you can safari. but if you're finding them, you don't necessarily need to zoom in. [2022-10-20 11:01:43 AM] : > the audience you pick really has to do with what audience has the best quality safari locations! Otherwise the process doesn't really work [2022-10-20 11:02:05 AM] : i'd say this is mostly true, though I'd reframe it slightly! [2022-10-20 11:06:43 AM] : the audience you pick does need to be findable online (cuz consider: if you can't find them online to do Safari, how are you going to find them online to offer them your product?) BUT I will say that when people write off audiences because they can't find them, and I ask what audience it was, 9x out of 10 it's because they've invented a definition for an audience that doesn't really exist as a group or identity. I usually push back and say "how would that person introduce themselves at a business or work event? what title might be on a business card? not the cute/clever titles people give themselves, the way they'd describe themselves to fellow community members." that leads to a more concrete set of terms that can be plugged into the watering hole search framework and 99.9% of the time turns up watering holes they were missing or ignoring before! [2022-10-20 11:11:06 AM] : so to sum this up, you're looking for options in the venn diagram overlap between: • professoinal audiences that you already know/understand from personal experience (aka belong to at some level) or have other distinct advantages • that you can find interacting online (which may require adjusting how you describe them, to how they describe themselves) • that have enough in common that they discuss things like their challenges/pains, share common language, use similar tools/techniques/processes, etc. and again, you don't need to (and probably won't) hit a bullseye right away. you're looking for options that fulfill these criteria enough to begin doing Safari research, and refining your understanding, the keywords you can use, the ways they describe themselves, the problems they have and share (possibly with other related/relevant groups you hadn't considered), etc. hopefully that (and the notes above) help clear some of this up :smile: [2022-10-20 01:16:40 PM] : yes alex this helps a lot! I'm wondering if I should focus on copywriters and brand strategists specifically who want to productize their work/get out of working 1-on-1 or developing more higher level services so they don't have to work so much but is that a step beyond what I'm meant to think [2022-10-20 01:18:14 PM] : it's a lot of retraining my brain because I have a lot of assumptions about where I think this is all gonna go based off my experience but I want to use the safari method but I just want it to be fruitful and not me going around in circles just trying to find questions to look at because the watering holes don't have anyone asking questions!