AP 1118: What’s My Target Audience and How Can I Break Into That Industry?

AP 1118: What's My Target Audience and How Can I Break Into That Industry?

Announcer:Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1,118 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. Today we're talking with Dani from commonsenseanalytics.net. She has a specialty, a superpower, if you will, related to analytics, how to read them and how to use them to grow your business. A superpower for sure. She initially wanted to target small mom and pop shops because they obviously need some help, but the opportunities just made more sense to get into larger companies that have a lot more money to spend. Sometimes with the mom and pop shops, it's just hard to implement too. A lot of the resources, a lot of the money, is in the more Fortune 500 type, medium-sized businesses, where they have money to spend, they're actively looking for this kind of stuff and they can implement it fast.

Pat:
So that's where Dani's headed, but we're trying to figure out how to break into it. How do we establish ourself as an expert in that space, in that industry, in that realm, without having done it yet, right? It's like when you go to get a job and it's like, "You need experience first," but you're like, "Okay. Well, they all say that. Where do I start?" These are the kinds of things we're talking about. So, target audience, breaking into that industry, let's talk about it. Here she is, Dani Galbraith from commonsenseanalytics.net. Hey Dani, it's Pat here and welcome to AskPat 2.0. Thanks so much for being here today.

Dani Galbraith:
Hey, Pat. Thanks for having me.

Pat:
Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself really quick, and what is it that you do?

Dani:
Absolutely, would love to. Yeah, so my name is Dani. I started my own business about a year ago. It's called Common Sense Analytics, and my focus with it is on bridging the gap between your typical business stakeholders and the analytics professionals in the business. I've spent about 18 years in corporate world, starting in different analyst roles and then moving into more traditional business functions. The big problem I've encountered there over and over, is that the business managers and the analysts speak completely different languages, and there are just, unfortunately, a lot of missed opportunities for the business. So my goal is to help educate business leaders how they can get more value from the analytics programs they have, the staff, the systems, the data and all that. So far I've built a website. There's not a whole lot out there yet in terms of actual content, and I'm also writing a book, which I'm actually super excited about. Yeah. So that's where I'm at right now, just struggling with the target audience piece a little bit.

Pat:
Yeah, that's actually what I was going to ask you about was, out of all the businesses out there, where is your focus? I wasn't sure if it was Fortune 500 companies or we're talking the solopreneur who's trying to figure out their new business. Why don't you speak to that a little bit and where your head is at.

Dani:
Yeah, absolutely. I think you got right to the core of it actually. When I left my job, my initial intent was to go more into small business consulting, so the mom and pop shops, the solopreneurs, like you said, and there's a lot of low hanging fruit there to just get them up and running and showing them what they don't even know they don't know. I felt like I ran into some hurdles there early on, and I chalked that up to fail fast and I figured maybe that isn't the right audience, at least not at that point. Really what I realized was that I'm more passionate about more the larger companies that have entire programs built around... that have more of a budget for more involved programs. That's my background. I worked in large corporate setting, so that's who I'm going after, but I'm not sure that the audience necessarily knows that they should be in my audience, if that makes sense.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, let me think real really quick. You're thinking bigger businesses, lot of employees, everybody from a sales team to HR, marketing, CFO, you know the whole gamut of that ladder.

Dani:
Correct.

Pat:
Of all those people, who do you feel would be the one that you'd like to reach out to and get to know? Or if you could present in front of them, for example, which of those people would be it?

Dani:
All of the above. Is that okay? Yes. But here's my belief on analytics, is that it's completely agnostic to any function or type of business, right? It's the language of data and anybody, anywhere, has data, whether they know it or not. My comfort zone is more the mid-level management, the decision makers, those who are close enough still to the business to be actively involved, but also high enough up to actually be able to work with roadmaps and go down those roads of making those bigger decisions.

Pat:
Got it. Okay. So middle managers, but across the gamut it would be useful for everybody. You said that you were working on a book, and I thought that was really interesting, because when you started talking about analytics, my mind went to a book that I've read in the past from John Doerr called Measure What Matters. I'm pretty sure you've probably heard of that before about OKRs and things like that.

Dani:
Right. Yeah. I haven't read that specific one. I've heard of the title. Yeah, so the book... I'm intentionally staying away from technical stuff. It's not meant to be written for the analyst community or go into any great details. It's more about how do you, as the business, if . . . I'm just using a broad term here, how do you understand what's available, what you can do, what does it take to get there? I'm seeing a lot in my experience where it's either very, very basic rudimentary activities going on, widget counting in an Excel spreadsheet. Then there's always the . . . call it the shiny object out there. All of a sudden your neighbor is doing artificial intelligence, so you want to do the same thing, and there's no in-between really. So the book is focused on how do you, whatever your starting point is, how do you move forward, what's required? And it's intentionally written in English, not in-

Pat:
In layman's terms. Yeah, I think there's definitely a big need for that, because I mean, I read that book Measure What Matters, which does deal with analytics and data and OKR, key metrics and stuff, and it was a little bit over my head in terms of language. It just felt like it wasn't really for me, and I feel like I need a book like what you're talking about. But I think, business owners, we all know that metrics are important, but we either shy away from it because we don't understand it or we try to and we over-complicate it. So I think, just to verify and validate, yeah, I think you're on the right path. I'd love to ask you, if you had, for example, a magic wand and you were doing business with these companies in the way that you want, what would that look like? Tell me what one, two, three years from now is like for you if things are going the way you want it to.

Dani:
Oh, yeah. Again, I'm a little on the fence on the consulting. I definitely see that as a possibility, but in terms of passive income, the book is one way to do that. I really am very passionate about teaching, so I want to build out my blog to cover just all kinds of topics around that general idea. I would love to have some online courses that I can then pitch those to that audience, rather than doing it one-by-one, face-to-face. So two, three years down the line, that's where I think there's going to be a lot more online content.

Pat:
Okay. So you're not imagining getting hired by one of these companies to come in and present and speak and get your hands dirty in there, which obviously would probably come with a big price tag, but definitely not passive.

Dani:
Right. Yeah. Never say never, but not what I'm actively pursuing right now.

Pat:
Okay, great. So, I think for number one, like your target audience, it makes sense to me. However, we could get a little bit more honed in on, okay. Well, within that audience, what particular industry, for example, would you want to start with? If I were you, I would try to find a company that fits the avatar that you're thinking of, and really go in there and see how you might be able to help them out, even for free, just initially, to get a case study, to get a testimonial, to get your hands dirty and understand what it might be like to help a real company like that. Just to see where you might want to create a course to help them, or if that's something they would even be interested in.

Pat:
I think a book is going to be perfect, because a lot of these middle managers are reading a lot of different kinds of books to help them, everything from productivity, to team management, and obviously analytics and understanding that data is going to be really key. So there's definitely a giant market out there for you, and a lot of times these books are what put people on the map, but I think that, in addition to that, some really real results that you could offer can begin to start becoming inspiration for other businesses who want to have similar results to what you've been able to give them. Do you have any current case studies or specific companies of that nature that you've served yet?

Dani:
No, I do not.

Pat:
Okay. That's where I would start just to . . . Because what that does is, even though in your head right now you're probably like, "I don't even know where to start or how that might look like." That's the whole point of doing this is to figure out how one might get started doing that, and to see what it would be like and to just answer those questions that are always going to be left just as wonder to just get to the bottom of it and to see if it could work out. Because in addition to getting the book, and I would definitely and highly recommend keeping that going into completion, having these case studies allows for some proof of you and your expertise, and it just takes one.

Pat:
If you can get one customer one result, then they're going to want it from you elsewhere. I think an online course could likely become the flagship product of yours where, in a company's own pace, they can go in and go through the modules and lessons to understand those metrics. But you're going to learn so much by helping just one business get the results that they want, because what happens is you start to understand a lot of their objections. You might get a lot of nos, which are going to teach you a lot. You're going to get a lot of people who are going to push back, or maybe you are teaching them, they gave you the okay, but then they're not getting the results and they're not even doing the work and you're left wondering why. You can start to understand that, so that when you do put it into an online course, you understand the behavior already and it's just tailor-made instead of starting from scratch. Then you've already done it, if that makes sense.

Dani:
Yes. Yeah, it makes complete sense. Are you picturing that first one, the case study, would be a smaller one-on-one, small business setting, or with that ultimate target audience in mind?

Pat:
I would see how to get it to match your target audience, and it's going to be a little bit tougher because a lot of those people are like, "Well..." It's like when you try to get a job and they're like, "Oh, well you need this much experience," but that's the whole reason why you're trying to get the job is to get that experience, right? So, it might take a little bit of creativity or convincing to do, and I think, again, that's a big opportunity to learn about what's going to get a person to say yes to this opportunity? How can you speak their language? How can you make them just crave what it is that you're offering, and whether that's . . . maybe it is a consultation to start. I know that you don't want to do that and don't imagine doing that all the time, but at least once, to get your hands wet, like I said, or your feet wet.

Pat:
But I would gravitate towards your target audience. I remember . . . Gosh, who was it? I think it was Noah Kagan. He runs a website called the OkDork. He's the founder of AppSumo. He was number 17 at Facebook, I think. Anyway, he got in front of mint.com by literally creating an 18-page marketing plan for them out of nowhere. He wanted to get hired by them and they weren't hiring him, so he's like, "You know what? Screw it. I'm just going to create a report and share all of my knowledge for them for free," and that definitely got their attention, because they then started to go, "Oh, this guy actually does know what he's talking about," versus just a normal application process.

Pat:
So maybe you might have a relationship with somebody who's in that business, which is always a great place to start because then you can reach out and go, "Hey, I'm wanting to start doing more of these kinds of help for businesses of your nature. Can I do this for you in exchange for a testimonial after, if it works out? I want to help you out." If you do have a relationship with somebody who has a business like that, that's where I would start.

Dani:
Okay. I have to look through my contacts, see who would be a good person to reach out to. Yeah. I mentioned earlier that I started with small businesses as my target. I had talked to a couple people that I just know personally that own a very small operation of their own, and I realized right away that they, as much as I was trying to speak their language, they had no idea what I was talking about. When I say analytics, people's mind go to Google analytics and charts of webpages and whatnot, and you're talking about, whether it's cost benefit or growth trends, right, there is so much going on when people just watch the numbers come in and not really looking for deeper opportunities. I was realizing that that is not my target audience. I can go in there and take their data and put it into a bar chart, but that's really not what I want to do. That's [crosstalk 00:14:14]-

Pat:
Right, right, right. They probably gave you a deer in headlights stare when you started talking to them, right?

Dani:
Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. Exactly. And so-

Pat:
See, that's so smart of you to do that. Everybody listening should take note of what Dani did there. She wanted to go for an audience and started just literally having conversations and just soon realized that, "Well, this isn't really who I want to . . ." I mean, you wanted to help them, obviously, but it's just, how you wanted to help wasn't going to work. So that was really smart of you to do, and I think you could do something similar with this new group. Yes, they're likely going to respond a little bit better, but you're probably going to come up with some other challenges related to how much they think they need this, versus how much you know they need this.

Dani:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Kind of a chicken and egg thing. That's where the case study—I think that's a great idea, because a lot of times with this type of work you're selling something really abstract. If they can't touch it or can't see it, it's really hard to get them to pay for it or prioritize it at all, and you can't really show something until they've invested in it, right?

Pat:
Right. Right.

Dani:
If that makes sense. Yeah, so that's where some of the objections are, that even when there's good intent, it's that hesitation of, "Well, show me first." So, yeah. And I have no problem doing that for free for somebody or 10 people. You're right. It'll help open someone else's eyes to say, "Oh, this is what I'm going to get at the end." That makes a lot of sense to me.

Pat:
For sure. And then one final tip, and maybe this is in the book or maybe not, and maybe this is just a part of your process, is to start opening up those eyes a little more after you start talking to people. Like you were saying, there's going to be some objections and they don't even really know what you can do for them until you're in there kind of thing. Maybe there's some sort of. . . Maybe the goal is to get them on a 15 minute call, and during that 15 minute call they give you a little bit of data here and there, and you can just go insert some numbers or something and give them a quick win. That would make them go, "Holy moly, Dani. I didn't even realize that. Okay, okay. We need to hire you now because this is just a so eye-opening."

Pat:
If you could somehow provide that response in a quick manner, whether that's your blog content and how you frame things so people can see it a little bit differently, to your book and some exercises in there that people can just do some things and go, "Wow." Or, you have these conversations, you're reaching out and then go, "Hey, let's get on a 15-minute call. I'm going to do a quick assessment for your business and show you that there are actually opportunities that exist right under you that you might not even know yet," and then you blow them away and then they go, "Okay. Sign me up. Where do I go next?" I think that would be a fun thing to shoot for, if that was possible. I don't know if it is, but if you could shoot for that, that would be an amazing first impression.

Dani:
Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a fun challenge. I can definitely give that a try.

Pat:
Cool, Dani. This is great. I think the call to actions are clear from here, and you're off to a great start. We nailed the avatar and the audience, and just . . . We got to get it going. I would just ask you, if you don't mind, we could potentially reach back out to you to check in with you several months down the road to see how things go. Would that be okay?

Dani:
Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Pat:
Cool. That's my way of holding you accountable.

Dani:
I love it.

Pat:
Cool, Dani. Thank you so much. Where can people go to learn more about you, or do you have your website up or any other places you want people to go?

Dani:
Yes, I do have a website. It's called commonsenseanalytics.net. Somebody snatched the dot com from me, so it's dot net.

Pat:
That's all right. It happens.

Dani:
Yeah. Yeah, and it just has a little bit about me, what I'm trying to do. As I said, I'm starting to build out that blog. I'm just trying to figure out where do I start, so it's not just a bunch of random posts out there. I'm probably overthinking it, but that's my next step there.

Pat:
Awesome. Well thank you, Dani. Good luck to you and we'll follow up with you later.

Dani:
All right. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Pat:
Take care. Have a good day. Bye. All right, I hope you enjoyed that coaching call between myself and Dani from commonsenseanalytics.net. Check her out. She's got some superpowers, obviously. If you're a medium-sized business and if you're a corporation, you're looking for help with analytics, definitely check her out, commonsenseanalytics.net. Dani, thank you for coming on, sharing your story, sharing your vulnerability with us so we could all learn, and we just appreciate you for that. I appreciate everybody on here. We're a thousand plus episodes in, and I just get blown away every single time with how open everybody is. As common as many themes are, every person's different and it's just so fun to be able to help coach people like Dani and people like you.

Pat:
If you have an opportunity, head on over to AskPat.com and you can potentially get coached, just like Dani did today. Just fill out the application on that page. You'll answer a few questions and I may reach out to you in the future and we can make it happen like we did today with Dani. It's going to be a lot of fun, so give that a shot. Of course, if you happen to have easy access to the ability to leave a review on Apple Podcast, that'd be really fantastic. And of course, subscribe, wherever you're at. Subscribe, if you haven't already, that'd be amazing, because we have some great content coming your way shortly, and you're amazing. Just thank you so much for the love. I appreciate it. I love you. And yeah, I'll see you next week. It's going to be awesome. As always, Team Flynn for the win. Peace.