The Question No One Asks Me

Most content creators obsess over growth hacks and vanity metrics.

• How do I get more likes on Instagram?
• How do I get Twitter followers?
• How do I grow on LinkedIn?

While I understand these questions, they really aren’t the best questions for most people trying to build a business. And you can find the answers by searching around online anyway.

Hell, I’ve answered those questions (and dozens more) in this newsletter, in my courses, on podcasts, and on social media. I’m out here answering these questions daily.

Reflecting on these common questions, I’ve come to an interesting realization:

Almost every question people ask me relates back to their own success. How can they get from point A to point B? How can they achieve something bigger?

The Most Important Question

But here’s the question that no one has ever asked me:

Why are your customers so happy?

See how that takes the focus away from the creator and points all the attention directly at the customer?

Why are your customers so happy?

That’s the million dollar question people should be asking.

I don’t think there’s another course creator on the internet with reviews and testimonials as good as mine. I’m proud of that.

My secret sauce is that everything I write, say, and build is about helping my customers. And when that’s the focus of any business, the right customers will line up to pay for whatever you’re selling.

Yet so many content creators expect to build an audience first, and then deliver value later.

The order of operations is actually the other way around. If you deliver value, your audience will grow - along with all those other metrics you’re concerned about.

You can find all the information you’ll ever need about building audiences or perfecting funnels by Googling, watching YouTube, or grabbing a great course. But product-market fit and customer satisfaction are the foundation on which everything else gets built. Nail that, and organic growth will follow.

So, if you have customers, the most important questions you can ask yourself daily is, Are my customers happy? And if so, why?

Figure Out How To Make Your Customers Happy

The most important work you can do (whether you have customers already, or not) is to understand your ideal customer’s struggles, and then create solutions that help them.

And in order to do that, you have to talk to these people, and really pay attention to what they share.

• Make a point to speak with at least 5 people who fit your ideal customer profile. Have a real conversation where you ask them questions about their challenges, goals, struggles, and what they want. Take notes on their answers.
• Ask them about your proposed solution. Does it sound like it would help them? Are they actually interested in getting help?
• Refine your offer based on the feedback you get. Don’t stay focused on an idea that you love if your ideal customers tell you it doesn’t help them or they’re not interested in it.
• When your customers describe their ideal solution, take careful notes. A great question to ask is “What would absolutely delight you?” If you hear the the same thing from several people, you’ll have a specific deliverable to work toward.

Refine Your Offering Over Time

Deliver focused value to small groups at first. And then let the outcomes speak for themselves. As people benefit from your help, they’ll talk about it.

Share what you learn from helping those people, and refine your process. Then use your content channels to talk about the results you’re getting for people, and the problems you’re solving.

I hope it will come as a relief to imagine how you can stop chasing follower counts or praying that one of your posts will go viral. You can focus on your customers’ happiness instead.

Remember that the transformation you offer your customers is the core of your business. The platforms you use and the funnels you build are just vehicles for delivering that transformation.

But ultimately, growth will be a result of being useful and helpful to your customers.

Making your customers happy.

So your action step for today is to reach out to at least two people who fit your ideal client profile, and schedule time to talk to them. If you need to pay them to make it worth their time, do it. It’s an investment in your future. And those conversations very well might save you the trouble of building something that doesn’t make your customers happy.

That’s all for today.

See you next week.