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Gather More Information To Take The Next Step

Lesson 19 from: Create a Product Plan & Grow Your Standout Business

Tara McMullin

Gather More Information To Take The Next Step

Lesson 19 from: Create a Product Plan & Grow Your Standout Business

Tara McMullin

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Lesson Info

19. Gather More Information To Take The Next Step

Lesson Info

Gather More Information To Take The Next Step

Let's dive in here to lesson six. We're gonna talk about surveys. I love surveys. But I love surveys when they're done properly, (laughing) and not when they're used to either, you know, just back up the confirmation bias that we already have, or tell us things that we already know, or I also don't love surveys when they're just full of information and you don't know what to do with them. So the first half of this lesson is gonna be all about designing your survey, and the second half of this lesson is gonna be about analyzing your survey. I'm not gonna get so much into the nitty gritty of how one particular survey platform works versus another. What we're gonna look for here is the strategy behind surveying your audience, different methods that you can use to really get the information that's gonna be most helpful to you, and then you can take that information and apply it to whatever survey platform you wanna use, whether that's Google Forms, or Type Form, or Survey Monkey, or any of...

the things that are out there. There's so many out there, and frankly most of them are great. So don't stress about that, stress about the strategy part that we're gonna do here. We're actually-- I'm gonna have you guys actually help me build a survey on the fly here as well, so you're gonna see this in practice. But the first part of surveying is actually identifying what you want to learn. Yesterday we talked in lesson four about product market fit and the whole cycle of building, measuring, and learning. And surveys can be a part of that cycle. It actually helps us get more precise information than observation alone can do. I love listening, I love observation, but at the same time sometimes we have to ask for direct feedback. We actually have to make the ask and let people know that we need their information. But in doing that we have to really think hard about what it is that we're trying to learn. We don't just want all of the information, as much as I love having all of the information. We wanna actually focus in on specific things, that each time through the cycle we're trying to learn. Now, before we get into this I wanna address one of the big mistakes that people make when it comes to surveying, when it comes to even just thinking about who their target customer is, and Ryan Levesque, in his book, Ask, kinda says this best. He said, "One of the biggest mistakes people make... is that they assume they know everything about their prospective customers already and what is worth focusing on, especially if it's a market they've been in for a very long time." Now yesterday, as we were going through those first five lessons, I was asking you to rely on what you know about your customer already, or what you think you know about your customer. In this lesson, I'm gonna start asking you to kinda get objective and ask, well where might there be assumptions here, where might I have some misconceptions. Do I really know this for sure? Or do I need proof that that's actually true? We started with a hypothesis. We started kinda building that core offer around your best guess of what people need, of what they want, and what's going to help make that transformation possible for them. Through the process of surveying, and feedback, and observation, we take that hypothesis and we refine it. We make it better. We make it truer, so that each time you're offering your product, each time you're running a sales campaign, each time you add a feature, or take something away, edit something out of your product, you know that you're making it better because you have real data to go on. It's the scientific method. Do we remember that from school? That's what product development is all about. It's the scientific method. You create a hypothesis. You do an experiment. You analyze the results, and then you start over again. Does that sound familiar? That's exactly what we talked about in the product market fit lesson. Surveying now is going to be a tool for helping us do that much more precisely. So let's take a closer look. What do you want to learn from this survey? And we're gonna talk about surveying kind of in general here. There's a lot of different times you can use a survey. You can use a survey right now, before the next time you sell that core offer, and get new information and check sort of the things that you've done in the coursework for this class. Or you can do a survey after you've run your product and kind of ask yourself, well what might these people want next? What might be a complementary offer? That's kind of the direction that we're headed today. Or you can use a survey anytime really, there's never a bad time to survey your audience. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there. We're talking about surveys in general. There's never a bad time to survey your audience. In terms of product development there's two main times we do it, before you sell something, and immediately after you sell something.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

Product Plan -- Implementation Month

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Product Plan -- Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

Lindsey Warriner
 

Every time I thought the class had reached a point that I knew "enough" about, Tara dropped yet another game-changer that I'd never even considered. Great experience, great speaker, great class.

Alaia Williams
 

Once again, Tara has been extremely helpful in getting me to think through where I'm taking my business next. I'm excited about the opportunities that lie ahead!

Ate Myt
 

Although the course targets people who have already started a business, I found it very helpful for me as I start my own business. I particularly appreciate the step-by-step guide to developing a 3-pillar business model. Very practical. i highly recommend it.

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