Over the next several episodes of Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of my strategic planning process – so be sure that you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss a step!
From setting big goals to getting into the weeds with data to planning out what I’m doing next and and when it’s going to happen, I’m going to break it all down for you, and share the insights I’ve uncovered along the way.
In episode 155, I shared with you some key metrics that you’ll need to pull together so that you can figure out where to focus your time and money in the upcoming year, and a formula for figuring out what to focus on based on the numbers.
So you can go back and listen to that episode and then hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss another one!
I also shared with you by running through that formula, I discovered that focusing on getting more traffic and optimizing my website to get more subscribers isn’t the best place for me to focus right now – it’s starting at the end and focus on getting more of my subscribers to become customers.
And to do that, I can’t do the same things I’ve always done. I need to find out why people are buying, more importantly, why they aren’t buying and find and patch the holes.
So how do you do that?
With a survey!
Okay, so this pep talk is going to assume that you have a website and you have an email list. I don’t care if you have 10 people on your list or 1,000, the survey is still really important.
So in everything I do, I teach that to build an email list, you create something super awesome to give away for free in exchange for an email address. I teach you exactly how to do that inside of my Free 5 Day Website Challenge, and we go even deeper on it inside of my Serious Side Hustlers membership program.
And from there, we develop a relationship with our potential customers via email to convert them into customers.
What we’re trying to find out in this survey are a few things:
Who they are.
How they think about themselves.
How they describe the problem that led them to your email list.
What their life is like.
Their goals.
Who else they are following online.
Their biggest challenge as it relates to our niche.
So I asked questions like:
How do you describe yourself? Side hustler, solopreneur, entrepreneur, etc.
Which best describes your business?
How old are you?
Do you have a full time job outside of this business?
Do you have kids?
Who are some of your favorite bloggers, etc.
What’s your favorite way to learn? Blog, podcast, video, etc.
What’s your biggest challenge in your business currently? Open ended.
The next thing we want to find out about is our freebie, the thing that got them onto our list in the first place. Is it effective, or did it miss the mark?
So for me I ask a bunch of questions about the 5 Day Website Challenge – have you started it, did you complete it, would you recommend it to a friend or not?
That question is key. If they wouldn’t recommend it to a friend, that means it’s totally missing the mark. If your freebie isn’t shareworthy or doesn’t deliver the results it promises, you’ve got some work to do there.
And then if they answered certain questions no, like they didn’t complete the 5 Day, I’d use Logic Jumps to send them over to a separate set of questions, like Why didn’t you complete the 5 Day Challenge? And give them options like Time, Money, etc. and ask if they intend to complete it. That helps me figure out what expectations I need to set up front for people so that they can be successful, or just change how I talk about it so that I attract the right people.
Here’s where the good stuff comes in.
The next thing I want to find out is if they are even aware that I have other online courses they can buy. Like, do they even know? We always assume when someone doesn’t buy it’s because they knew about the thing and they made a decision to not buy.
What’s more likely is that they don’t even know you have a thing!
So I ask questions like – Did you know you could upgrade and get instant access to the 5 Day Challenge plus Bonuses? Have you heard of Shannon’s Serious Side Hustlers Membership? I do have a couple of other programs, but I’ll tackle those in another survey.
And for the people that said nope, never heard of it, I just sent them on down the survey but for the people who said yes, I asked them more questions:
Did you buy? If yes, did you get what you expected? If no, why not?
The people that knew about it and still didn’t buy – this is the gold! This is going to tell me what their objections are, it’s going to tell me where I’m not doing a good job of explaining what I’m selling, or it’s going to tell me that this person’s not really my ideal customer and I’m glad they didn’t buy.
I used TypeForm to create this survey, and to get the logic jump functionality, which I highly recommend, you need to upgrade to pro, which if you do it monthly it’s $35 and you can cancel at any time. Definitely worth it to find out this info – you wouldn’t be able to separate people out like this without those logic jumps.
At the time of this recording, my survey is still live so I don’t know what the results are going to be, but I can tell you that I anticipate that I’ll need to focus on awareness and some other buying objections to turn more of my subscribers into customers.
And once I have that dialed in, THEN I can focus on increasing my conversion percentage on subscribers, and THEN I can focus on getting more traffic.
But it’s not like we’re just going to totally drop off the face of the earth and ignore traffic and subscribers – I’ve got new people coming onto my list every single day. I don’t want to stop that, I just don’t need to focus on growing it at the moment.
So I need to know where they are actually coming from. Is it social media? Other websites? And make sure I’m spending my time in the places where it has the biggest impact. So in episode 157, I’ll share with you how I’m analyzing that my and one thing that you MUST DO to effectively track your traffic. So go ahead and hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss that, and I’ll see you tomorrow!
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
