"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts" - Bertrand Russell
Decision-making tools like the N2D Method are powerful stuff but they're only one way a company might become a "digital business". I've been spending a lot of time with small businesses since the last newsletter and, almost as a rule, they're looking for practical advice. So I'll be focusing more on that this year.
In the last newsletter, I told you I was piecing together a set of steps to help businesses improvise more in their planning. This is a synthesis of suggestions by Josh Spector, Arvid Kahl and Justin Welsh mainly. They're all worth a follow on Twitter.
Step 1
Create a mindmap of your skills and interests. Consider professional expertise, accomplishments and hobbies.
Step 2
Pick something you excel at and pair it with something you're interested in. Skill + Interest = Idea
Step 3
Hit Google Trends and see how much interest there is in that idea. Is it going up or down? Keep trying different Skill+Interest ideas until you find a promising candidate.
Step 4
What sub-niche might value this idea? You're looking for a really small, focused segment and Google Trends might give you some clues. Where might you find them? You can try searching for idea-related keywords on Reddit, Twitter etc. Try SparkToro too.
Step 5
Try to identify audience pains as quickly as possible. Talking to people is the best way but you can get a sense of it quickly by using a search engine and looking for "[audience] issues".
Step 6
Create a distribution system if you don't already have one. This could be a newsletter, Twitter account, YouTube channel, Facebook group etc. Newsletters tend to be a good option because you maintain control over the data.
Step 7
Allow an audience for your idea to form. This might take some time ;-) Stop interrupting what people are interested in and become what they're interested in. One way to do this is to create short problem-specific or question-specific videos on YouTube. If you find the audience is dealing with a problem or has a common question, pop a video up where you quickly solve that problem or answer the question. Then direct them to your distribution system where you give them more valuable free stuff (standard lead magnet). I recommend ConvertKit for this, but there are loads of options.
Step 8
Keep in contact with the audience and ask them directly what they need. This is related to Step 5 but should give you much greater confidence. Ignore any "I want a faster horse" comments - you're looking for patterns and trends.
I've been following these steps and now have a new focus for my main business, Subsector. I help small companies become digital businesses. It's been a fairly rapid pivot but we're open for business ;-)
I hope you find this useful. I'm happy to chat about my experiences if that's useful.
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Signals
Here are some things you might find interesting...
If you're trying to get the most out of Twitter, there are a lot of tools available to help. Typefully is a good one for crafting, scheduling and analysing your attempts. You can get a lot of mileage out of the free version.
If you've followed the steps above and come up with a new business idea, grab a free logo for it. This will probably alienate purist designers but you can spend waaaaay too much time agonising over this sort of thing. Just grab a logo and get on with it.
Don't listen to your customers
This article should really be titled "Don't JUST listen to your customers". The main argument is my old favourite: humans aren't rational so take what they say with a pinch of salt. As well as listening, observe behaviour and investigate environmental variables in order to understand motivations.
