In this episode...

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies 

Laura Hargrave: Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community by heading over to our website, bossitclub.com, and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it.

Okay, Sophia Noreen, let's dig into this. I can't wait to tell them all about how we got here.

Sophia Noreen: Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big-box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full-time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family, and self-care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day.

There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you!

Sophia Noreen: Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Welcome to this week's episode of the Boston podcast. I am going to be your host today, and my name is Sophia. And if we have not met, this week.
 
I wanna chat with you about the number one mistake. I know many business owners. And that is not understanding who they are serving, who is their client and who is their customer. Now, if we are new to the channel or the podcast, I wanna let you know that I have a product based business. It's called also Sophia.
 
And it has landed in big box retailers like Walmart. And I wanna tell you how that happened. The way it happened was because I knew who I was serving, and I knew who the customer. So, again, that is the number one mistake I see many business owners make is they don't actually understand who the product or the service is actually for.
 
And after they develop the product or the service, they actually can't make any sales. And even when they make sales, they have a ton of customer complaints and a ton of customer service concern. So, how are we gonna make this not be your situation as a new business owner? You need to figure out as quick as possible, who is it that you're serving and is your product, or is your service actually going through and serving?
 
That's the whole point of business. And I wanna make sure that everyone has that reframe in their mind. Many people think that they're doing business because they wanna make an income for themselves, of course, and a life for themselves. But in the end, if you are not serving your customer or your client, you will not make sales.
 
And even after you make sales, you'll have complaints. So let's talk about how to prevent that from happening. We wanna make sure that you're successful and that you're enjoying the entrepreneurial journey. Now, if you wait till the end of the show, we will Jo the exact way that I knew for sure that we were hitting the mark when we put our products in Walmart.
 
So wait until the end and I'll tell you how I figured that out. But the best way I find for people to understand who they're serving is by scouting the market. Now, I don't want you spending days and days and years and years on. Likely you've thought of a business plan or a business idea based on your experience.
 
So if there's a product or a service you wanna launch, you are going to create a minimal viable product. An MVP, an MVP product is something that is the minimal amount of product or service that you're going to test and put into the market. You have to make sure that you are ready to look at your business as an experiment.
 
If you wait until you are ready to release the product or the service, you waited too long. So you're gonna release it when it's about 80% cooked or bait. Okay. So we're not going to be waiting for the perfect product or service because we need to launch it into the market and we need to test it. We need to test it and make sure that it's actually serving your ideal customer and your.
 
Now you could go ahead and do some market research. Again, I don't want you spending years on it. You can go ahead and put together a small focus group, make it free. Trust me. I know some companies spend tons of money on doing market research and that's great. If you have money to do that with. But if you don't the best way of doing market research and getting a focus group is by making the product and seeing if it will sell now, people will say, okay, well, I'm getting people in a wait list.
 
Well, that's great, but are they putting money down to be on that wait list? That is the way you can tell if the product or service is something that people need. If they're willing to put money down for the service or the. Remember money is a transactional item and the transaction is what's going to cement the idea of the product.
 
Sure. You can have people sign up for a wait list for your product or service, but if they're signing up for free, then they have nothing to lose. It's just like surveying a bunch of people on the street and they say, Hey, would you buy pizza? Cheesy POS for example. Sure I'll say yes. Why not? Right. But when you go to release it, nobody buys it because they never want it in the first place.
 
I do suggest that you do a little bit of market research, but again, the best way of doing it is to release the minimal viable product, the MVP, and get started. You really need to understand who you're serving. And I always say you can go for demographics as well. You can look at male or female, you could look at gender specific items.
 
You could look at age range, specific items, but you do need to say to yourself, what is a problem? My product or service is solving for my customer. And we have a whole training on this called influencer marketing made easy. And in that training, we actually do talk specifically about how your product or service is going to be solving the problem for your customer.
 
Again, that is the biggest mistake, right? People create a product or a service, and it's not solving the problem that their customer. A great example. Again, is McDonald's people think that people go to McDonald's because of the food maybe, but chances are that they're not going there for the food they're going there for the convenience McDonald's is so convenient and they know they're convenient.
 
And so they continuously up their game on how to make it easier for their customers to get. They've released an amazing app. Now I'm not doing a promo for McDonald's. I'm just saying they're a good example for a company that understands their customer. So just disclaimers right there. We're not doing a promo for McDonald's, but they have a great app here launched in north America.
 
And that app is so good. It's a convenience of it all. They know exactly what I want. I can actually say, Hey, Siri, order me my McDonald's meal. And now Siri has put a McDonald's meal through to the closest McDonald's and tells me how to get there. And then I park my car and I say, I'm here. And then somebody comes out with my food.
 
I don't even need to go through a drive through anymore. So what I'm trying to say is. If you know who your customer is and you know what they need as in this case, the psychology of the customer is a person who needs the convenience of food for McDonald's. Then you go ahead and you sell that convenience, or you sell the product.
 
Or in this case, it's a product and a service for McDonald's in my personal opinion. But of course it looks like they're selling a product because it is a food product. But in the end, people go there likely because it's convenient. So again, guys, knowing your customer is the most important thing. That is the number one mistake people make.
 
When they get into business, they don't know who they're serving. They don't know what their product is meant to do for their customer. So guys, like I said, demographics is important, but the psychographics is even more important. And the McDonald's example highlights that very clearly. In that example, we see that the customer is elevating convenience.
 
They're obviously a very busy individual and they may not be as health conscious. And so they're going ahead and they're going to say, I'm gonna go to McDonald's cuz it's got much quicker, that much easier for me to grab my food. The psychographics will dictate to you a few additional things for your business model and for your product or your.
 
Now for the example of also Sophia our product based business, we know that our customer is somebody who shops at Walmart. They're very cost conscious and they are likely new to the country, or they do not wanna spend a ton of money on celebration items. So they are going to be looking at cost. Of course the quality is just as important to them, but they are willing to sacrifice that if the cost is appropriate and it's a convenient item.
 
So again, knowing that about my customer was how I was able to design a product that was attractive to my customers. Also solving a problem for my customer. And then making it a no brainer for a Walmart merchant and buyer to say, heck yes. Why wouldn't we go for this product and put it on our shelf. And now, because you waited till the end, I'm gonna tell you exactly how I knew that I hit the nail on the head when it came to putting the right product in front of the right customers, get at Walmart.
 
And that was wait for it. I literally stood there in the Walmart stores. And I watched as customers walked by the display and they would stop and they would look at it and they would study the product. And that was how I knew that I had got the right product for the right customer. And it was placed in the right store.
 
They picked up the product, it was selling itself. Now I'm not there pitching it. I'm not there selling it. They picked up the product and they went and they put it in their. so that's how I knew it's selling itself. And that is ultimately what you wanna do with your business. You wanna make a business that it's going to be a no brainer for the customer to purchase from you.
 
You can't always be out there pitching your product and pitching your service. You have to make it so that it's obvious to your customer. That it's meant for them. And so the more, you know, your customer, the more you understand your customer, the more you will be able to construct a product or service that when you put out an advertisement for say an evergreen service, or you put a product on the shelf, in a store or on Amazon or your own website, for example, it will sell itself.
 
And that is what we're going for. We wanna make sure that in. You're not there burning out, trying to sell all the time. Your product needs to sell itself. So that again is the number one mistake. I know business owners are making, they are not understanding their customers enough to create the ideal product or service for them.
 
And then they go on this rat race of trying to get the business going. And then in the end, it just collapses because remember the business is determined by your psychology as the business. If your psychology is that I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. And then you burn out. You're not gonna be able to work, cuz you're burnt out and your business will fall apart.
 
So we wanna make sure that you understand who your customers are. So that way it continues to pick up momentum and then you won't burn out and you'll be able to grow with your business and have the best success that you have been looking forward. Remember you are serving a customer business in the end is an active service.
 
So I always like to say reframe, I know business is meant to look glamorous, but in the beginnings, it's not. So you have to be ready for that long term marathon and make yourself consciously aware of all the work that it's going to take. But in the end, you are going to enjoy the journey because you're gonna continue to take some of these fun.
 
And ensure that you are not burning out and you're doing it consciously. You're not sitting there in the. Okay, I can go on and on. Remember if you have not subscribed or hit follow or the bell do that now, so you don't miss any more episodes. And if you guys want to continue following us, you can follow us on Boce club.
 
On Instagram, you could head to our website Boce club.com forge slash podcast. To grab more podcast. We did link a training below that you guys can pick up. If you do wanna look at influencer marketing made easy. It's a great marketing trick that we use to grow also Sophia and probably the reason of why a big retailer picked us up as well.
 
They knew we had some social proof out there and it was easy to attract customers into the store. Okay guys, that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Again. We are here every week and we will catch you guys again next week. Remember, make a plan and take action. And yes, you can have it all take care. Bye.

Sophia Noreen: So my fellow Bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now, it's time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story, and tag us at Boss It Club. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our top 50 tips for starting and scaling a business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers so don't miss out. Now, remember Bosses, make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes, you can have it all.