This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome, what's up? Welcome to a brand new week. Welcome to a brand new month, in fact. And welcome to the latest classroom episode. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Cytosol School.
This is our year of interaction, 2020. All year long, finding a way to make extra money apart from your day job without quitting that job, without going into debt, and by using a skill you already have. All good things. And I want you to know that there is a global community of awesome people out there all pursuing the same goal, or at least a similar goal. And they're all busy.
They all have the same constraints and restrictions, or again, if not the same, at least similar. So you're not alone. And I'm excited to bring you this show every single day. So in recent classroom episodes, we have looked at all sorts of topics, different Cytosol ideas, where they come from, categories, how to decide between competing ideas, and so on. And last week, we looked at the three elements of every compelling offer.
Those elements were a promise, a pitch, and a price. Essentially, what we're doing is going from thinking about ideas in a more abstract manner to designing real offers, okay? So this episode magically and seamlessly continues the thread line. It is called give the people what they want, not what they say they want. You could say give the people what they really want, not what you think it is.
Give the people what they actually, actually, truly, really want. Alternatively, you could call it give them the fish. Now, the other day in episode 1152, I mentioned the story of the spreadsheet guy, which originally came from the $100 startup, a story in that book about a guy in India who's doing very, very well, making six figures, in fact, helping people with Microsoft Excel templates. And that got me thinking about something else from the book, which is how important it is to understand what your customer really wants, which again, might be different than what you think, or even what they say. And the story I told in the book is about going to a restaurant at the end of the week.
Maybe it's been a hard week, you're ready to relax, perhaps have a glass of wine. And the waiter comes out and talks to you about the specials and says, oh, we've got this salmon risotto. That's really good. And you say, oh, that sounds good. I'd like to have that.
And he says, okay, great. Well, I'll go tell the chef to get the sauce ready and he'll start doing the prep, but then you can come on back to the kitchen. Make sure you wash your hands and then we'll show you how to make it. Now, of course, that's not how it works when you go to a restaurant. It's not how you want it to work.
You go to a restaurant because you want somebody else to take care of that stuff, right? So it's all the fault of the old parable, give a man a fish and he'll fish for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll fish for a lifetime. I think that's a good idea for homeless fishermen, but it's usually a terrible idea in business because most of us, we don't want to learn how to fish. We don't want to learn how to cook our food, especially at a restaurant. We don't need to know the details of what goes on in the kitchen.
And in fact, we may not even want to know the details. A better way is to give people what they actually want. And if you get this point right, a lot of other things become much easier. So with that in mind, last month, as you may know, was the Super Bowl. Now, I actually really don't pay attention to the Super Bowl at all, but it's kind of hard to miss, especially if you live in the United States.
And I read this article about concession prices at the big game and the article was just like, wow, how outrageous is this? It costs $15 for a soda at the game. It costs $18 for a beer. A cheeseburger is $21. Kind of goes on and got all these quotes from people who are morally outraged at the cost of these things.
And meanwhile, of course, plenty of other people are buying beers and burgers. I'm pretty sure that they were able to sell quite a lot. So those people might complain about it later. They might say, well, that was so expensive, but in the true test of voting with their wallet, they pay up. And this is also why pay what you will, the concept of allowing customers to choose their own price usually isn't a good idea because people will always want to pay less.
It's not like if you ask all those people at the Super Bowl, hey, do you think $15 for a soda or $18 for a beer is a good price? Would you like to pay less? I'm pretty sure just about all of them would say, yeah, I'd like to pay less. I don't want to pay that much, but that's just how human nature is, right? So this is also why being disciplined about your product or service is critical.
The customer is not always right. It's another notion that's kind of in popular culture. If you don't work in small business at all, if you've never had a side hustle selling something to people, you might have assimilated that mindset. And I think it's completely false. And there are lots of times when the customer is wrong.
Like you as a business owner, side hustler, you should listen to feedback. You should listen to concerns, complaints. You should ask people, what would you like me to make next and so on? But you should also make your own decisions. And in fact, one of the most powerful things you can say to a customer or a potential customer who is dissatisfied or is asking for something that you really can't provide, the best thing you can say is, it sounds like what we're offering isn't a good fit for you.
And I hope you find something else that serves you better. That almost completely de-mechanizes or disarms the whole conversation, right? Because you're basically meeting them at the level of their implied threat, which is, I'm always right or else. And you're kind of saying, actually, you know what? It sounds like what we're offering isn't gonna work for you.
So I wish you well, you know, go and find something else that serves you better. You want to give people what they really want, which is not always what they say they want. Those people at the Super Bowl, whether they were happy about it or not, they willingly spent all that money for their soda, their beer, their cheeseburger, whatever else. In that situation, it's what they really wanted. Now in a moment, I'll give you some examples of how you can give your customers the fish or whatever it is that they really want.
And also you'll get your assignment for the week. Every classroom episode has an assignment. But first, I'd like to thank our sponsor for making all of this series completely free. So shout out to them, and we'll dive into some examples and your assignment. [Music]
Okay, we're back.
And we have been building on the past two weeks of messaging, beginning to look at messaging and branding, which is so important. We'll look at it again later in the year, but I wanted to talk about it on the front end because, as you heard two weeks ago, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it. You need to think about that as you design your offer. And then last week, the three elements of every compelling offer, promise, pitch, price. Now next week, we're gonna return to the nuts and bolts focus of putting your offer together.
But first, a couple of examples of giving them the fish. And I'll give you these examples from very recent stories, just ones in the past few days to keep it relevant and fresh. So yesterday's story, this guy, Brian Sonia Wallace, he was the capitalist poet, this guy who'd found a way to make actually a substantial amount of money with poetry. I don't know if he wants to be called the capitalist poet by the way, but he's a poet, he's making money, so there you go. Anyway, what is the fish there?
Well, a couple things. He is offering personal connections with people using an old technology, which is a typewriter, together with an even older art form poetry. But I think also, he's doing this work with brands. And so a lot of what he's doing is these brands will bring him to an event. So they are providing a community experience, something different.
That brand is essentially fostering the personal connection and therefore he's raising the value to them, all right? The spreadsheet guy, his whole pitch was like, make your customer a hero. Allow your customer to feel like a hero at work, in particular. And that's what he was doing with these Microsoft Excel templates, helping people become more efficient and more effective at work, which as I said, is a very powerful benefit. [Music]
Okay, so two weeks ago, your assignment was to write a short paragraph or two about your idea, focusing on the benefit it will provide.
The benefit can be emotional or practical or both, but it shouldn't just be descriptive. So that was two weeks ago. Today, I want you to think about how can you give your customer what they really want? If this seems redundant to you, if you're like, actually, I think I covered that in that paragraph, or last week we talked about the promise of my business. If it seems redundant, it's okay.
Like that's great, that means you're a star student. You don't have to do it again. Next week we'll be moving on, as I said, to the nuts and bolts. But for anyone who doesn't have it yet, anyone out there who's like, actually, I'm not quite sure, you know, how to give my customer what they really want. What is it that they really want?
Like that's why I want to stress its importance. This is why you should spend time on it now, because later, if you have problems, like if your launch falls short or you realize you need a new idea, I bet you can trace the main issue right back here. Okay, so you've thought about messaging, you have a promise, a pitch, and at least some idea of a price, which we'll look at later as well. You've thought about your ideal customer, but how will your product or service meet them at a point of their core emotional desire? How will you give them what they really want, not necessarily what they say they want, how will you give them the fish?
All right, you can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom. You can also read more detailed notes for this one at sidehustleschool.com/1157. That is not shockingly for episode 1157. Thank you so much for listening. I am excited about this journey.
I'd love to hear what you're up to. You can always send me a note from that website or directly on social media, and do come back tomorrow. Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
