1.3 Who is your buyer? (An unusual way to work it out)

OK, we DO need to know who we are going to sell to, but we’re not going to do this the usual way.

OK grab your chosen key value and let’s go.

Go to (search for) Chat GPT while it’s still available and ask it: “If someone (in the UK) stood for [value] what sort of work or job would you expect them to do?”

(I tried “depth” and chat GPT didn’t really understand, so I looked back at Corrina’s notes and wrote “deep human connection”, Chat GPT was happy with that.)

Out of the probably ten results it gives you, you’re going to pick one.

How to do that? First of all check if you have any feelings towards any one of the jobs in particular, or any knowledge or experience .. it helps if you can speak the lingo of your audience and come across like you know what you’re talking about, it’s about trust, so if you do know something about any one of these worlds, great. 

If it’s not obvious which you might choose or you would like to dive in a little deeper, ask Chat GPT “Which of those do you think would pay the most?”

One of the highest earning jobs it lists for Corrina’s (as an example) is, it says “Healthcare Professions” .. ha! .. and then there’s some detail “Certain healthcare roles, like nursing, palliative care, or patient advocacy, involve building strong connections with patients.” So that makes sense with her value of deep connection with people so that’s cool. Also, you can see that within the big suggestion (Healthcare Professions) are a number of little suggestions, there are some choices in there, palliative care and so on. Personally, I would choose one of the sub-options because the more specialised you get, the more you will be desired by your audience. Or you can ask Chat GPT to expand on that main heading (say, healthcare professionals), ask for some more examples, and then do the salary question again.

Obviously, all other things being equal, I’d choose the one with the highest salary.

Alright, so park that decision, let’s go again on a different track.

Ask Chat GPT “If someone (in the UK) stood for [value] what sort of hobby would interest them?”

Out of those it lists, do any of them interest you particularly? At least one of them should do, these are your values and if it all works, you’ll be mixing with these people. If not, I would want to check the value you’ve chosen.

Assuming that’s OK, often in digital marketing we look for interests where people spend money, so ‘volunteering’ came up .. not sure about that .. but ‘outdoor adventure groups’ came up too, that would be the sort of thing where people spend money on equipment, travel, clothes, and accommodation so that’s an automatic filter for people who have spare money, discretionary funds. If we try to glue this together, an artist into deep human connection might be inspired by volunteering but possibly that won’t pay the bills so maybe the collaboration required to do rock climbing without dying is interesting. A painting depicting the moment two hands grasp each other on a rock face could be exactly something a rock climber might want on their wall.

OK, hobbies and jobs are two routes to finding your perfect buyer. 

If you want to continue the research, if you’ve a shortlist you’re trying to choose between, here are a couple of options.

Try Google Keyword Planner. It’s free, you may have to create an ad account but it’s OK, you don’t have to place ads. I’ll break off to screen and show you that and also I’ll show you  Google Trends.

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Alright, I’m back in the room and we can’t delay it any longer.

Choose who you want to sell to, either by job or hobby. 

Sorry, it’s choices again. Doesn’t mean you can’t have it all, just today choose one. That’s the one we’re going to test for the rest of this course. You can always come back around again and try something else once we’re done with this round. It always reminds me of plate spinning .. hope you know what I’m talking about.

That feeling .. the fear of shutting off other possibilities .. “but I don’t JUST want to sell to cosmetic dentists!” is real. But I’m not saying that. We’re just trying to get a plate spinning. We’re trying to get one source of regular sales. Doesn’t mean you can’t have another one or ten in the future, in fact I think you should come round this whole process again and again until you find the market that is everything you ever wanted. But for now, we’re going to try to sell to one person. Just check that the market isn’t giving you the creeps, if it is, go back and choose something else but before you do cleave apart the ‘creeps’ feeling. You’re probably getting slightly freaked out because we’re getting close to Actually Selling, and yeah, that’s a thing, you’re going to put yourself out there and expose yourself. That sort of trepidation is fine. But cleave it apart from the possibility that the market you’ve chosen is giving you the creeps, if it is go back around and choose something else, you’re going to be with these people a while.

You’ve probably come across the idea of an avatar and perhaps developed one. The idea is that whenever you communicate, you have in front of you in your mind a clear idea of exactly who you are communicating with and possibly trying to influence, entertain, persuade, educate or help.

An avatar is NOT a market. Markets are like “I want to reach women age 40-60”. Whereas an avatar is a single person you’ve made up. They have a name, an age, they live somewhere, they may have a family, a job. What clothes do they wear, what music do they listen to? For our purposes, now you’ve chosen the job/hobby you want to reach, just flesh out your avatar a little. No need to go mad, but yes maybe find an image of what they look like so you can visualise them & put it all together in a document. 

What happens is, when you reach out to that one ideal buyer, obviously the goal is to blow their mind with how amazing you are, the deep connection and understanding you have with their situation. The fact you’re offering to help them is heaven sent. 

People who are not quite your avatar will still be motivated by your confidence and knowledge but won’t be quite so taken with the whole idea. They might still buy, and that’s OK.

People who are nothing like your avatar will probably think you’re nuts or they’ll never see you in the first place, and that’s totally fine .. we want to put some people off .. why?

No-one wants bland art, there’s no future in trying to please everyone, you’re not Coca Cola. Take aim and fire your cupid’s arrow at someone’s heart. Crack open their world and show them something that matters.

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At this point I want to make sure we take account of the variety of human existence. If you want to reach rock climbers, well, what about women rock climbers? What about lesbian rock climbers? What about Pakistani rock climbers. I guess you’re already doing that if you identify strongly with anything along those lines but I do just want to acknowledge the dominance of the white male hetero western patriarchal thing and just ask us all to be sure we’re being true to ourselves and not trying to please a dominant view. We are trying to serve our buyer and resonate with them deeply. My take is, if you are not white male hetero and all that, if you are even just one step away from that, and you stand up, you’ll be refreshing and interesting to your buyer who has probably been looking out their whole life for something & someone that speaks to them. No-one wants more of the same shit.

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So at the end of this week you should know your key value, you should have decided what you’re selling and have it ready (hopefully as a coherent body of work) and now, you have your cupid’s arrow pointed at someone .. 

.. but we’re not quite done. There’s one more preparatory step before we can create our messages. That’s next week, see you then.