Lessons

Lesson Info

Analyze the Market

All right, you guys ready for our next lesson? All right. Our goal for this lesson is defined your unique opportunity, no matter where you want to be in the market. We all have a great opportunity out there. This lesson is all about figuring out what that is and getting you positioned into it. Alright, So here's the problem that I see and I see this problem way too often. You let other people tell the story of your business and you don't even know it. You let other people tell the story of your business and you don't even know it. What does this look like? Well, looks like when you have the same pricing structure, it's everyone else. It looks like when you use the same fonts as everybody else. It looks like when your website set up the same way as everybody else or your opt in instead of is the same as everybody else is. And the reason it's the same as everyone else is is because you're only looking at a really small part of the market. This lesson is all about understanding just how b...

ig the market is that you have to play in how much room for creativity there is. How much room for intentional design when it comes to the structures of your business, The products or services that you offer, the pricing that you use, the way you communicate your pallet for creating the painting of your business has so many more colors on it, then you think that it has. At least that's the problem that I run into with my clients all the time. They think you know this is this seems to be the way it's done. So this is the way I'm going to do it or everyone else is doing this. So I think that this is how I have to do it. That's letting other people tell your story. When you let other people tell your story, you throw out that opportunity, you're essentially just you're not even wasting it because you haven't spotted it yet. So today we're going to claim that opportunity, and to do so, we have to do a lot of research into what else is out there. We have to stop looking at the same voices and find new voices toe look for and we've got a special guest Meghan Almond. Who's going to help us do that? But first, let's look at one of my very favorite quotes. Markets are conversations. So is one of the very first, if not the first idea, from a book called The Clue Train Manifesto and The Clue Train manifesto was written by a whole bunch of smart people back in 2000 and one when really the Social Web was just starting to emerge. Before 2000 and one, the Web was mostly kind of isolated little pockets, isolated little communities, isolated websites. Nothing talked to each other very much. And then, starting in the early oughts, the Web started talking. People on the Web really started talking to each other. More conversation became the norm. And that shift in how we talk to other people on how we related to communities in how we went shopping changed the way markets were perceived. Before 2000 and one before the social era, markets weren't really conversations. Now markets are conversations, the people who are talking about what you do, the people who are talking about the problems that you solve, the people who are talking about whether or not they should purchase a solution like yours, That's Ah, market markets are conversations. The other piece of this is that conversations are happened between people who sound like people. And we're going to get to that because there are some of you here, I bet who don't actually sound like a people in your business. We're gonna fix that problem, Don't worry. But for today we're going to think about the whole conversation that is your market. Because, like I said, that problem of letting other people tell your story your business story comes from not knowing how big the market is, how vast, how many opportunities they are. You're on Li listening to a few voices. So we're gonna today keep our ears out for us many different voices as possible. We're gonna look for a lot of different, or we're gonna listen for a lot of different voices so you can start to grasp the full depth and breadth of the market that's available to you. So what conversation is your business participating in? What's the conversation? What are people talking about that relates that relates to your business when you put out messaging when you create media, when you post on Facebook. When you write a blogged post, what conversation are you participating in for me? I'm participating in a conversation about business, marketing, entrepreneurship, the social era, the new economy. So all different conversations that I weave in and out and I listen for different voices in each of those conversations I have influencers, and I am an influencer in each of those different conversations and again here we're thinking broad. I'm not looking. I'm not asking you what your specific niches here, right? Entrepreneurship is not a niche. It's a market. I have a particular needs to have a particular voice that I use a particular topic of conversation that I used in that conversation. But the conversation itself is entrepreneurship makes sense. Tiffany, what market are you? Are you participating in or what? Conversation or you participate again? Women's lives, jewelry, fashion. Yeah, absolutely. Women's lives, jewelry, fashion. You probably put accessories in there as well. Yeah, Yeah. Beautiful. Very simple. Don't overthink this. Don't overthink this, Janice. What conversation are you participating in? For women in business Self development. Perfect. Beautiful. Anybody else? Conversation make a healthy living food. Sustainable living. Yeah. Gardening. Gardening. Yeah, Actually, yours is a great example, because it shows how different the conversations congee, too. So you started with healthy living what you have, what your business is, the creative vegetable gardener. So you're talking specifically about gardening vegetables for food, and it's so it's participating in this gardening conversation. But the more to me anyway. The more interesting conversation, the more interesting voice that you have is in that healthy living conversation because you're approaching that conversation with a voice that not that not a lot of other people are approaching it with yeah, makes sense. All right, now, here's the big question for today's lesson. Who else is talking? Who else do you hear in this conversation? So for me, I might hear people like, Well, I quoted Umer hate earlier. I quote Nilla for Merchant all the time on, but I also look to influencers like Marie for Leo or my friend Amanda Steinberg, who founded Daily Worth These air different voices that are all happening in the conversations that I participated, and actually none of them really do the job that I do right there. Different kinds of businesses participating in the same conversation, saying different things at different levels to different people. But we're all talking back and forth, and we're all informing the conversation. So there's a pretty good example of the depth and breadth of my market, and I haven't even touched like a whole huge slew of my quote unquote competition. So who else is talking in your market on before I actually get you guys to answer that question, although this is the question I want you to have on your mind for about the next 15 minutes, Um, I wanna bring on another very special friend of mine. Her name is Meghan Almond. She is a jewelry designer, an educator. She's a regular creativelive instructor on She's also a metal Smith. Mhm, mhm. I see. Um, Meghan has routinely floored me by her ability to examine and analyze the market in which she operates to find opportunities that other people operating very similar businesses to her can't find or don't find because they're not looking. And so the reason I asked her on today was to talk about exactly how she does that. Now she's going to talk about it from a jewelry perspective. But keep in mind that these things. You know, these ideas know no bounds. They totally cross industries. They cross between products and services. So no matter what you are putting out into the market, think about how what Meghan has done to analyze her market and find opportunities. How you can use that for your business as well. So let's bring on Meghan Almond. Meghan Almond. There she is. Yea, Omega is wearing her fancy new gem necklace thing. I love it. Thank you. And it's very funny to be talking to you on creativelive in a room that I have spent a lot of time in. Yes, awesome. So, um, Meghan we go way back. And actually, when you pulled up the date on this, I was like, Wow, we go way back, backer than I thought we went S o. I found Meghan almond. Um, two months after I started my business, I started my business in January of We have I found her in March of 09 when she was the featured Etsy seller. And I assume as I found her work, as soon as I saw her feature, I was like, Oh, my God, if I ever make any money in my life. I must have some of this jewelry. And then a couple months after that, I was speaking at my alma mater, which is down the street from her, and we had coffee. And then I've been wearing Meghan almond jewelry ever since, which is pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me s so, um, Meghan, as I said, I met you or I I found you on Etc. But one of the reasons that I wanted toe have you here is because you don't run your business like the typical Etsy seller, and you never have. So I want to know what really tipped you off to kind of needing to go your own way to make your jewelry business work. Yeah. So there were actually a couple of factors that really led me Thio not just focus on the etc. And the first one was that for me, etc was never the be all end all of my business. It was really just a tool in the toolbox. So I actually started selling on Etsy in February of 2000 and seven, which is fairly early adopter for etc. You know, it started in 2005, but it hadn't gotten a lot of traction yet On Guy started in February 2007 and I always think it bears mentioning that I sold nothing for six months on etc. Like sold zero. Um, you know, people are like, I've been on Etsy for a month and I sold nothing. Yeah, six months. Nothing happened s Oh, you know, I started. But it was a time when I was just really experimenting to see all these different things in my business. So I was just finishing up a yearlong professorship at the university. I was doing all of these outdoor retail craft shows and then I think with then maybe like six or eight months of starting on Etsy I had actually applied to do my first trade show. And I did my first trade show about a year after I had started on etc. So I was really just kind of looking at all of these areas. And you know, in a way, I was sort of like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks on dso, etc. Was one of the things that I tried, but I rapidly started gaining traction in, you know, more of the craft shows and the trade shows. So it was a tool in the toolbox and really just a way to have an online presence on Ben. When you pair that with the fact that from very early on it was really obvious to me that there was a downward price spiral happening on Etsy, people were looking are at other sellers and etc. And mistakenly thinking that the only way to win it, etc. Was to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And that was a game I did not want to play. It was not how I wanted to position my brand, um, and so I didn't want to be lumped into that audience. And so once there were other alternatives to easily have a shopping cart online, I kind of graduated from, etc. Um, because I also wanted that control over my own brand, and that was really the last factor is, you know, etc. Could make changes at any minute, and I never thought of myself as an Etsy seller. I thought of myself from the beginning as a business owner as a brand, and so any place that I could make more autonomy in my business and not be controlled by somebody else's brand. That was the direction that I was going to go. Beautiful. Yes. And that's what our lesson today is all about is finding that autonomy, uh, to position your business the way you want to position your business, not the way people tell you. You should be positioning your business or that story that other people are telling for you. Yeah. So you mentioned trade shows. You've also leveraged major media. Um, how has using trade shows and major media thio sell your business to promote your business or to sell your product and promote your business house? That really affected your strategy in terms of positioning your business? Yeah. So I actually have a really interesting challenge in my jewelry and that I work predominantly and steel. Um, and that could actually have a lot of really kind of negative connotations if I let it. So it's an inexpensive material, so it doesn't have the perceived value of even silver and certainly not gold. Um, and then it's not a material that people wear or know a lot about. So there's a lot of questions, and there could really be a lot of nervousness. Now, of course, for me, I work in this material because I see the positives. It's strong, it's durable, it's lightweight. It's got this beautiful color to it. And so I want to sell up those positives. But especially in the beginning, I needed to really help the perceived value of what I was doing and doing trade shows and getting to work. My work in stores was really the quickest, fastest way to do that. Because, you know, you might see something online and you're like steel. I don't I don't know. I'm like, Why is it so expensive? And you know and I had all those issues in the beginning. But when the work was in a really high end craft gallery or respected museum store, people come in and they're like, there's an automatic stamp of approval of Oh my gosh, these people said, Hey, this stuff is valuable. We think it's worth while you should buy it. Here it is. And so I was able to reach a lot of customers and get over that anxiety that people had about kind of an unknown designer and unknown material. You know, there were a lot of question marks that doing trade shows and then also, you know, having the work being major media. It really helped legitimize what I was. Do it. Yeah. So you use them as a way to tell your story better than the story that you wanted to tell. Because, I mean, look at the piece that you're wearing today, which is made out of steel, and it does not look cheap or weird at all. It looks amazing. And, you know, that's that's part of that story, right? Oh, absolutely. And what's beautiful about especially trade shows and working with stores is that I was able to have buyers come into my booth at the show, and I told them the stories that I wanted to tell. I could give them all of the positive attributes about steel, and I could create this entire presence around my brand in the booth. You know, when you see my booth from a distance at a trade show, nothing about my Ruth says cheap bargain like it is meant to feel high end, not in a high end diamond and gold kind of way, but in and I'm taking a really commonplace material and elevating it kind of way. And so I'm able Thio, you know, show that off with the brand and I'm able to tell the stories that I want to tell. And then my buyers remember those stories because I make them really compelling and memorable. And then they come back and they tell them to their customers. They tell them to their sales staff. Their sales staff remembers them, the sales staff and the buyers where the product in the store. So I'm making sure that I'm telling the stories that are most important to my buyers, and then they're turning around and telling them to the customers. So even though I don't have 100% control what a store might say about my product, I'm making sure that I'm telling really strong, compelling stories that helped tell the work. So, of course, then they're gonna turn around and tell those stories too brilliant. So we've looked at how you've chosen to intentionally position yourself and the ways that you've chosen to do that. Let's look at what you are positioning your business in relation. Thio in other words your competition, which you know, I hate using the word competition, and at the same time, I think it's an important thing to think about. There are other people trying to fulfill the same needs with with similar kinds of products. Two U S. O. What brands do you think of as your competition? Where do you go toe look and see what other people are doing, Uh, in a market that you want to be in. Yeah, So, you know, I also don't like the word competition. And so for me, I don't spend a lot of time focusing on what other jewelers air doing. I don't look at competition and that really narrow way because, first of all, like it's really easy to get stressed out and just lose your mind, right? If I was looking at what every single other jeweler was doing, So for me, there are other jewelers in my field that technically I guess, to be my competition. But I think of them as they're either my peers and my friends, or they are literally not on my radar at all. Um so when I think about like the competition, I think about? Why would someone not by my product And the reality is that I think a lot of times I'm competing with women's own insecurities. You know, they're looking at my product and they're thinking like, Oh, I really love that. But like, I don't know. Could I pull that off? I'm not really sure, you know, like, Oh, that necklace looks great on Meghan. But like, I don't know, like, where would I wear it? What would I dio? So for me, I'm really thinking about those stories that people are telling themselves of, Like I'm not worthy to wear this. I can't pull that off. I don't have that confidence on DSO That to me, is my is my real competitors. This, like women's lack of self confidence, which is what I wanna help boost. So when I'm looking at the conversations that I'm interested in, I'm not looking at like, Oh, should I pick this necklace, this necklace or this necklace? Because that's not what my customer is doing. Instead of my customers thinking, Okay, I have this event that I wanna look fabulous for. I need to go buy something. I need Teoh. You know, I need to make sure or that I look presentable for Maybe it's a conference. Maybe it's their 20 year high school reunion. Maybe it's there, you know, husbands like work, party. Maybe it's their work party. They've got a big presentation. Whatever it is, they're trying to think about how they can use their wardrobe, too. Boost their confidence in a certain situation. And so they're not saying Okay, I need a necklace. They're saying I need an outfit and they need something that's gonna help pull that outfit together And that might be a necklace. It might be a pair of shoes that might be a great blazer. So for me, I'm looking at these broader kind of style conversations about what you might wear to an event or for something, because that's, I think, the conversations that my customers we're having more so than waking up, being like, you know, today I need a new necklace because they're just not doing that. Brilliant. Now I want to get into the nitty gritty before I let you go and pin you down on something that I remember very distinctly from a time when we were speaking at SC years ago. Which was that for a long time. And I don't know if you still do this, but it definitely influenced you before you had the jewelry section of Was it Nordstrom's and Neiman Marcus? It was Neiman Marcus, Neiman Marcus of on your computer. And you had it up there all the time. It was part of your talk. Um, yeah. What? When you go looking for brands that will help you push the edge on your positioning, Where do you do that? And then what does it influence in your business? Is it pricing? Is it merchandizing? Is it product descriptions? Yeah, that's a great question. So I do. I actually still do go to Neiman Marcus's website, and I also go to actually now one of the other ones. I like to look at his net a port A because that's another place where people are having these high end conversations. Um, really, What I want to see is like, if people are expending a decent amount of money on jewelry, where are they going? And what are the things that are happening there? So then I'm looking at it like that, and I would say for me. It influences some of the things like my, you know, product description. It definitely impacts my pricing because I wanna be in that upper level. And so I'm very aware of what's going on in that pricing scheme on. Do you know it also for me influences a little bit of my design aesthetic and a little bit of some of my material choices. So while I work in steel, I don't work on Lian Steel. You know, I bring silver in. I've used a lot of bronze in the last couple of years, and that's because I'm paying attention to what's going on in those spheres. And I'm saying, Okay, well, I can make this necklace and steel But I also realized that there's this, you know, warm metal color story that's been happening. So I should also make this necklace and bronze. Um, you know, on one of the things that I'll give you guys like a sneak peek of what's on my potential radar and maybe like the next six months or so is that I also would like to start taking some of the Steelers some of the bronze and getting a gold plated because when I'm looking at those spheres, I'm seeing that. That's what people are buying. So it doesn't change. You know my brand so much. Is that me going? Okay. This is the kind of designs that I wanna make. How do I fit them into this conversation? So that that consumer is also interested in my product or that buyer is also interested in my product. So you're you're pinpointing opportunities in this market that you really want to be in. That is brilliant and so helpful. I know for everyone here. Where can we find you online so you can find me online on my website, meghan almond dot com Andi, I am at Meghan on and on. Seriously, every social media platform there possibly is. My two favorites are instagram and Pinterest. So if you really want to see what's going on, I'm a visual girl. So that's where you should follow me. But at Meghan Almond on everything. Perfect. Meghan, Thank you so much. That was so helpful. Thank you for having may. All right, so we just kind of took a look at how Meghan, you know she had she could have gotten pinpointed into a certain story. She could have gotten stuck in that etc. Story. Like she was saying about that downward pricing spiral, right? All of the and all of hang ups that come with it. But instead, she chose to look outside of that story that everyone else was telling Used trade shows, major media, uh, human Marcus to break out of that story and craft her own And within that new market, look for the opportunities that were allow going to allow her to tell that story even better. Make sense. Great. All right. So, uh, for you to start thinking about this the questions you need to start thinking about our Where else do people go to fulfill the need? You, Phil, where else do people go to fill the need? You, Bill? Are they going to Neiman Marcus? Are they going to Lululemon? Are they going to a life coach? Are they buying self help books? Are they going to creative live? Are they going thio? Gosh only knows where. Where else are people going to fill the need, your product or your service pills? The reason we have to ask this question is because we need to start prime ing our brains to think about. You know all of the different options in the market that your customers have. And so the second question I want you to start thinking about is what other businesses do your customers use and what other products do they buy to fill that need? Thio complement what you dio or to use it? And to do that instead of what you dio right? Eso like what Meghan said. Someone might go looking for a great pair of earrings or great necklace to pull an outfit together. They might also go and spend the exact same amount of money orm or on a great pair of shoes. I prefer to do both, but that's who she understands as her competition, the market that she has. Right? So, um, you know, is someone going to bad and I at $200 earrings? If they're also willing to purchase $200 shoes? Probably not eso. She uses that as a way to influence her story, to judge what the opportunities are in her story. Different businesses that fulfill the same needs exist in every market, and they're differentiated by positioning. Now I've used the word positioning a lot already in this lesson. What is positioning, huh? Is one of my favorite topics. This is really this is a boot camp on positioning. But you wouldn't. You wouldn't be watching if I told you was a boot camp on positioning. So this is this Is everything okay? Positioning is one of the four ps of marketing. Marketing has four piece. The one we always think about is promotion. And guess what? Promotion is the least important P off all of them if you don't get the other three ps right. Promotion is nothing. It doesn't work. You can do everything the right way and it won't work for you won't get traction. You won't stand out. So promotion purpose. And I think most of us have spent a good amount of time thinking about what? The purpose of our businesses people who your ideal client is what market you're in, what conversation you're participating in And who is there with you on positioning? Positioning is how your business your business is. Story relates toe everything else that's going on in the market. It's how people perceive you, right to go back to the idea of fascination. Advantage. It's how the world sees your business. It's the story that you're telling and the story most importantly, that others are receiving positioning is all about details. It's all about taking advantage of every opportunity. And it's about intentionality in telling that story. That's what positioning is all about. But t determine your positioning to give it that intentionality. You need to do some research first. And that's what the homework for this lesson is. Its market analysis. Oh, that's that sounds scary, doesn't it? It is really easy, guys. Okay, so in your work sheets that you get when you r S v p to this boot camp, you have this handy dandy little chart. Three columns, people. This is easy. Okay, so you start with your business or product. So what other businesses? What other products exist in the conversation that your business is participating in? They could be similar products to yours. They could be very different products to yours. So let's take the example of, like a life coach. Alright. Life coaching is one product in that market. Another product in that market is self help or personal development books. Okay, so vastly different price points. Now, another product in that market are, you know, like platinum V I. P Mastermind programs that may start at 10 2050 or $100,000. Another vastly different price point right? That's the Brett of that market. And that's the only really talking about, you know, hard core self help or personal development work, those very particular questions. So in the business in the business or product column, you want to write down what some other products, some other services or other businesses are that are operating to fulfill the same need in the same conversation or conversations that your business is participating in. Then you want to describe their positioning. Don't over think this. This is about how you perceive them. How do you perceive them? How do you perceive the difference between Target and Walmart? Somebody tell me quick, how do you perceive one's a little higher end? Why do you think that because of the way target has there stores structured and their products and they bring in designers and a little bit better quality product than Walmart sometimes carries. Yes, that's positioning. They're advertising their pricing, the products they put on their shelves. The story that they tell about those things the people that they bring in to their stores tells you a different story than Walmart does. Target Story is different than WalMart story that's positioning in and of a nutshell. In a in a nutshell, Huh? Alright, so describe the positioning. What's the story that you are hearing from that brand? And then what gives you that impression? So just like what Tiffany said, she said, Target higher end like higher end mass, mass market or mass merchant. Right on What gives you that impression? Uh, pricing products, designers, Um, advertising aesthetic. All of that stuff is what gives you that impression. What gives you that impression are details. So this is the story, and this is the details in the story. Product story details. Okay. Now, while you're doing this analysis, I want you to seek out businesses that have vastly different pricing than yours, both at the high end and at the intentionally low end. And that's a small caveat. High end is almost always pretty intense. Intentional, right? I decide. I'm going to charge X many $1000 for this bag. Low end has two different types of businesses, businesses that have felt forced down there and businesses that choose to create solutions that are designed to be mass marketed or low end, which is a perfectly great decision to make. It just needs to be intentional. So I want you to find businesses that compete with yours or in your same market at both low end and the high end. Also businesses that have different guiding principles than yours, you know? So if you think about if you were doing a market analysis and you were male chimp, you would look for email marketing service providers that didn't necessarily have fun and design as part of their guiding principles, and it would be very easy to find those. Uh, you wanna look for businesses that attract different customer groups. So people who are, um, you know, businesses that are working with different people who have different values, who wanna pay different things, who have slightly different needs, all that good stuff, businesses that speak different languages than yours. So the language that target speaks is different than the language that Walmart speaks, right? Target would speak maybe the innovation language or the prestige language which is funny. It's a big box store, but still I would definitely put them in the prestige category in many ways. And Wal Mart is going to have the trust language right, because you can always depend on them to have the same products, the same brands at the same price or lower. That's that's how their languages air different on. Then finally, fill the customers need in different ways. Once you filled out that market analysis, your job is to look for your opportunity. Where can you fit yourself in that market? What story can you tell? What details can you use to stand out from everyone else? That's there. You are not directly competing with these people, just like what Meghan was saying. The opportunity here is to do something different.