What would you say is the most important consideration when creating a new product?
The logo?
The marketing?
The customer avatar?
The problem it solves?
None of that.
The most important consideration when creating a new product is...
Desire.
Do people want your product? Yes, or no?
Missing this one question is the reason most content creators get discouraged by business.
They have an idea.
In their mind, it's an absolute winner.
So they spend months creating the thing.
They share little teases with their audience about something coming.
And then... launch day.
Crickets...
No one gives a fuck.
And not because the product is bad, or because you didn't spend enough time on the marketing.
But because you failed to do one vitally important thing when starting any business.
See if anyone even wants it...
Now, a lot of people will tell you that when it comes to starting a business, you can’t create desire; you can only tap into existing desire…
But I think that's bullshit.
The truth is much more complex.
Desire is not static.
We start desiring new things as we develop new interests, and as a result of that new interest, we gain new awareness.
And that’s the keyword: awareness.
The truth is people need to be aware of their problem before wanting your solution.
Every product at the end of the day is just a solution to something.
It doesn’t matter if you sell LUTs, notion templates, or courses…
Everything is a way to close the gap between the present and the future.
Let's take an example from my own business.
I recently created a new lead magnet:
A notion document with a list of 25 niche Amazon links.
Nothing else, a few titles, and 25 links.
And that lead magnet generated my 3,274 leads...
This is my most successful lead magnet after the first week, ever.
But why, it's just a document with a bunch of links?
Awareness.
Those amazon links are to all the camera equipment I use to create my videos.
My content created awareness of a problem my audience didn't know they had.
...
The issue is that 90% of the market is completely unaware.
They’re just minding their own business having no idea that the problem even exists.
So when you present your product to them, the majority won't give a fuck.
They have no reason to, they haven’t been educated enough on the problem.
This means that the way you create desire is you make your audience aware of the problem first and then show them how to solve it…
Once you see this pattern you can’t unsee it.
That is how UGC content works.
They present an inefficiency or straight-up show you a better way of doing something.
This automatically puts you into a problem state because now, you’re suddenly aware you’re doing something wrong.
When the mind is in a problem state, it wants to get out of that problem state, and suddenly, you're far more willing to buy than you normally would be.
Your brain wants to restore balance and will seek a solution.
And surprise, you have the solution!
That’s why I always tell students to design their content and sales strategy in a way that takes people from completely unaware (growth content) to wanting to give you money to solve a problem (authority content).
If you simply throw your product out there and say, “Please buy it.”
That's just not going to work, unfortunately.
Your audience needs a reason to spend money and you need to create that reason by educating them on the problem.
I say this a lot in my emails, so I apologize for repeating myself, but:
This is exactly why growing a personal brand is the greatest business opportunity available right now.
Because there is one more vital ingredient to this equation that I haven't mentioned in this email...
Trust.
Trust is the backbone of all of this.
Because without trust, no one will listen to you long enough for you to educate them in the first place.
A powerful personal brand with an audience that knows, likes and trusts them puts you into an infinitely leveraged position.
But it is crucially important that you do this properly.
Because there are a lot of creators on social media, with zero personal brand.
They're doing all the work, and reaping none of the rewards.
They have the talent, and experience to do this, they're just pointing themselves in the wrong direction.
I was doing exactly that, for years.
But thankfully, I am no longer spinning my wheels.
And neither are my students inside Time to Build.
That's it for today.
I’ll see you next week.
Lesson
Expectations are a powerful thing.
I tend to have enormous expectations of myself.
Sometimes, this can lead to incredible things because I don't give myself any slack, and that can often mean getting more done in less time.
But other times, that can lead to perfectionism.
And recently, I have been going through the latter.
I've had enormous expectations around my work, personal life, and training. And I've fallen into a small bout of perfectionism.
I have been letting myself sink into an "all-or-nothing mindset."
There's no point going on a run today, I don't have time for 2 hours.
There's no point riding today, I didn't sleep 8 hours last night.
I know it sounds ridiculous to hear out loud...
But I have experimented this week with actually lowering my expectations.
I created a new habit tracker that included only three things:
- One hour of training per day (for context I normally aim to train 10-14 hours per week, so this is a lot less)
- 7+ hours of sleep per night.
- One page in my journal each day.
And a crazy thing happened...
I had a perfect week.
I could check every box, every single day, for an entire week.
Which has led to a massive shift in my internal momentum.
I am now getting more done each day, with lower expectations.
Than I was when my expectations were higher.
So, if you struggle with perfectionism, maybe experiment with lowering your expectations.
Resource
Go get your eyes checked...
I recently went for an eye test after I noticed I was having to refocus my eyes a lot towards the end of the day and was having consistent headaches after long work days.
Turns out, I'm pretty blind at a distance...
I had no idea.
But that's not why I'm telling you this.
I'm telling you this, because just two weeks into wearing glasses and I've noticed a few obscure changes I didn't expect.
One: My sleep has improved, considerably.
I have always struggled to get to sleep.
Usually, my Whoop will give me a latency score (the time it takes to fall asleep) of an hour plus most nights.
Since wearing glasses, that's now under 10 minutes...
I honestly could not believe this.
I have tried everything to improve this over the years, and nothing has worked.
Turns out my eyes were just overused.
Two: My productivity has skyrocketed.
I can suddenly focus far better than I have ever been able to.
I don't know if this is a by-product of better quality sleep or the glasses, but I'm stoked.
So get your eyes checked, it's free if you're Australian.
Question
"Where are the tailwinds in your life right now?"
I often ask myself this question when I feel bogged down in the negative.
It helps me break out of that mindset, and use the tailwinds to my advantage.
You can reply directly to this email with anything you created, consumed, or thought about this week.
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Thank you once again for spending some of your time with me & reading Inspired Insights.
Talk soon,
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What can I help you with?
Time to Build
Time to Build will open for enrollment once again at the end of May! So, if you're ready to build your personal brand in 2024, join the waitlist via the button below.
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Creator Launchpad
The Last Notion Template You'll Ever Need For Your Creator Business. Manage, systemize, and run everything from financial reporting to content planning all in one place.
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