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Nobody I’ve encountered starting or running a business thinks about the demand for what they’re selling.

I’ve never experienced a business owner slamming a market research report down in front of me and saying…

“Here’s Rudolph’s nose to light the way, Charlie!”

Nope, it just doesn’t happen with small businesses.

There is no time or budget for that.

Most entrepreneurs are operating on assumptions.

They know more about what they are selling than who you are selling to.

It usually goes more like this: “Charlie, be a magician; start pulling rabbits out of our market hat that are ready to buy our carrots.”

Even with my skills, systems, tools, and team, I still have to pay market research dues on their behalf.

The good news is that today, small businesses don’t have to pay as much for it as they would have in the past.

There is so much data available at your fingertips.

I want to briefly touch on tactics I have used to gain market share and clarity for the many types of businesses I have worked with.

Leveraging AI for Market Research

Unless you’ve just come out of hibernating in a cave, you know that AI is a great way to access vast amounts of tailored information in a centralized location.

Market research is no exception.

As an agency owner, I am tasked with growing companies in various industries, with which I had little to no experience when I first took them on as clients.

Before AI, I used other tools and tactics to research as much as possible before taking on a new client, but AI has improved my research skills.

Below, I share a series of 30 market research prompts that, once completed, will create a powerful research tool for your toolbox.

I have assembled it over the past year using various resources and experiences, adding to it as I go.

I’ve created a free AI Market Research agent for you to use to get started. (No email required) Just click the link below to get started.

Free Market Research Agent Prompts

Now you and your new Market Research Agent know more about your market and ideal customers.

You can use this agent to create campaigns, sales collateral, email workflows, and more!

Leave a comment

Qualitative Data Collection

This sounds fancy, I know, but it’s easier to get your hands on than you might think.

When using forms on a website, a common question is, “How did you hear about us?” The answer is usually a drop-down menu of channels pre-determined by the business, such as Google, Social Media, Referrals, etc.

This approach is wrong, in my opinion, as it makes many assumptions and prevents the customer from giving you real feedback.

A better choice would be to use just a plain text field so they can say IN THEIR OWN WORDS how they came to find you.

But it can get even better if you also change the question you are asking.

Instead of the typical question I shared above, try something more direct and to the point, like:

“Understanding how and why you contacted us would be very helpful. Please take a few moments to be specific about what brought you here. For example, if you found us on Google, what did you do you type to find us? We greatly appreciate this feedback!”

You may be shocked at how clients are coming to you compared to what you assume.

Surveying Current Customers

There is no better wealth of knowledge about your market to dip into than the people who have paid money to work with you already.

As long as you don’t dip too often, your clients are usually happy to provide you with feedback.

Again, this is another opportunity to get even more qualitative data. But this time, instead of coming from leads, it’s coming from paying customers.

You can use AI to help you develop your survey questions. Use the prompt below as a base and modify it to fit your specific product, service, or industry.

“I want to survey my clients to understand their buying decisions better. What are five questions I should include in my survey?”

Use a simple Google Form that drops submissions into a spreadsheet.

Bonus: You can then use ChatGPT AGAIN to process your spreadsheet of answers to summarize and extract insights from to query against.

Polling

Creating a poll is a good way to get direction from your market for many different business areas.

If you want insight into pricing, you can poll people about their opinion of a product’s monetary value.

If you struggle to create content topics, you can poll to see what direction you should go.

Polls can also be a fun way to engage with your market for branding purposes where you ask silly questions such as “Is Die Hard or the Gremlins a Christmas movie?” (Obviously, the answer is Yes)

You can share polls with the market from various channels. Below are a few examples to get started. (Again, AI can help you come up with polling questions for your market)

Social Media

Many social platforms allow you to post a poll or quiz to your feed for people to respond. For example, on Instagram Stories, you can use stickers to do a question poll or even an emoji slider poll where you can make it fun to compare two things, etc.

Your Website

You can use pop-ups on exit or an embedded poll using your form software on your website. If you use a CRM, the form software in the CRM likely has a polling feature, and you can embed your form into a blog, a page, etc., to collect answers. (Don’t forget to drive traffic to it!)

Email

If you have an email list of leads and clients, you can ask for their feedback in their inboxes. Craft a short email with the link to a Google Forms poll, and you'll be off to the races to get insights from your market.

Share

Reddit

Known as the “front page of the internet,” it has vast information to tap into.

Searching for topics around your service or product will yield vast results. This can be a rabbit hole that is time-consuming, and you have to find the serious posts amongst the people trying to be funny, but some nuggets in there could give you insight into:

• Messaging

• Competitors

• Employee perspectives inside your industry

• Tools and other resources.

Please don’t knock it until you try it; go to Reddit, do some searches, and take some time to read some of the comments.

Pro tip: Click on posts where the title is a question and sort the comments by “Best” to surface to the top of the responses with the most “upvotes.”

Bonus: Paid Advertising

I know this article is about free market research. However, I have found great success over my career by implementing the information I’ve gathered from paid advertising into other parts of our growth strategies.

Google Adwords search terms can be an excellent resource for insight into how your market searches for your products or services.

You can take this information and improve your SEO and overall messaging on your website, campaigns, and sales funnels.

Because paid advertising gives you reach, you can test vast amounts of messaging for your offers and quickly obtain actual data on the messaging gaining the most engagement in your market.

So keep an open mind to advertising for more than just lead generation, but market intelligence gathering.

Conclusion

My goal in writing this is that you can implement two things:

1. Doing free market research without paying a firm gobs of money.

2. Leverage the information you gather to streamline your business by improving campaigns, sales funnels, offers, and overall messaging.

Understanding your buyers helps you sharpen both your arrows and your aim.

Remember, nothing is dead until you kill it. All marketing and advertising is a test.

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“Get attention to what you offer and deliver on your promises.”

The sad truth about this secret is that even if you read or hear it right now, you still haven’t learned it.

Learning it requires you to pay a cost of time and pain.

You’ll Enjoy the Playground of Distractions

Overlearning

Perception has taken the wheel in your life.

The success of others on YouTube has you trapped in a learning loop.

You choose to watch 100 YouTubers explain how to set up a funnel in 100 different ways instead of just doing it yourself.

Just one more podcast episode away, and THEN you will finally be ready!

I challenge you never to consume content on a topic you have mastered again.

Talk about freedom.

Overcommitting

Yes, yes, and more Yes to crap you shouldn’t be doing.

Like crack cocaine, all the yeses people can get from you will make them want more.

But there are other ways than “YES” to overcommit yourself.

You charge less than what you or your offer is worth, so you cannot afford to hire help.

You offer TOO MANY options, which will also make hiring someone hard because now you need a Swiss Army Knife human to fulfill your offers. (Sorry honey, not everyone is multiskilled like you.)

You can build yourself a business trap really quickly.

Do you know what another name is for “business trap”? A Job…

Congrats, you’ve built a job. The thing you were likely trying to escape.

Overcomplicating

A notebook and Google Calendar / Tasks is all you need.

But no…

20 SaaS products draining your business banking account of precious revenue later, and you are still searching for that UNICORN of productivity.

Constant tweaking and tinkering.

Your plant needs sunlight and water. Not schema markup

I see this all the time in business.

It takes one article or someone whispering in your ear to send you into a hackathon of fixing what isn’t broken with the minutia of tactics you perceive to be one-size-fits-all.

In the same way, supply and demand are real things, and so is the KISS method.

Pull yourself together and focus.

You are missing something essential with this overcomplication, which you will learn below.

You’ll Pursue the Shiny Objects

In that playground of distractions, you will look across the sandbox at little Johnny or Susie and see the toys THEY are playing with.

You will see how Johnny uses one toy a certain way and think to yourself: I want that toy, or I should play with my toys like he is.

You might think that if I played with my toys the same way, I would experience the same joy that Johnny and Susie are experiencing.

I’ve talked with countless business owners who salivate at their competitors' greener grass, which, for all they know, is spray-painted.

Don’t be that plane that takes off toward its destination but is one or more degrees off course, never landing but maybe crashing.

You can one day have the two in the bush once you have the one in hand firmly grasped.

You’ll Do All of the Above Instead Of

Focusing on your buyers.

You need to get their attention to improve their life with your offer.

Focus on finding the attention system that works to attract them.

Focus on creating the offer that works for them.

Focus on delivering your offer to them as best as you possibly can.

This is the core of what business is.

Do this instead of getting lost in the sea of tactics, trinkets, and .00034-second website speed improvements.

Do this instead of focusing on ANYTHING that isn’t helping your buyer.

What you will find is that your life will become less complicated.

I Have Simplified Business For You

But will you simplify it for yourself?

None of what I say above is to tell you that you will not find some success early on and along the journey.

But could you have shortened the distance between where you are and your vision board?

If you have read this far, you have likely figured out that I’ve already paid the price of time and pain.

The tone of this post may be taken out of context or even upset you.

I am not sorry about that.

Get mad, and take massive action for your buyers and yourself by proxy.

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen content declaring something in marketing dead, I would probably be sitting on a beach somewhere with a fruity drink in one hand and a book in the other.

Sure, for the person creating the content, the thing is probably dead. They killed it.

But for you? Not yet.

So many factors go into how, where, and why buyers make purchasing decisions.

Markets vary widely. Your business differs from the person's business who declared that some growth tactic is dead.

Something is dead only if:

1. You killed it by testing it.

2. The thing they’re declaring dead no longer exists.

Shift Focus from Dead Things to Your Business Reality

Are you watching your competition? Stop.

Are you making decisions after listening to gurus? Stop.

When making business growth decisions, trends, fads, and shiny objects are far outweighed by the best data that comes from your market.

What is your market?

Your buyers, past and present, are by far the cream of the crop for data to make decisions on. But your market is also comprised of leads and tire kickers asking questions.

Buyers are your goldmine of information. But you have to mine it.

If you hate surveys, love conversations.

Work questions into regular interactions with your buyers. Give them frictionless ways to let you know about their journey:

Frame questions around stages of a buyer journey:

Problem Unaware

What was life like way back in the good old days of ignorance being bliss?

Problem Aware

Holy moly, what did your buyer go through when their problem started burning?

Solution Aware

How did they discover a solution to their burning problem? Was it reviews, recommendations in a group, referrals, online search, your elite marketing prowess, etc.?

Product Aware

When they discovered your offer, what was their first impression? How did they take action?

But Charlie, I don't have any buyers yet.

This is when you need a mentor and/or model. But realize that once you get traction, you drift away, molded by the market feedback you eventually generate for yourself. So, set up listening mechanisms early on to minimize growth pains faster.

The Best Way to Avoid Growth Decisions Pitfalls

I recommend this in all areas of life, but especially in your business: focus on what you can control.

You're the boots on the ground with the five-foot view of your reality staring you in the face.

You see what outside influences cannot. It's evident in your metrics and bank account.

A way to avoid business misinformation's pitfalls is to maintain control of what you know does and doesn't work by PROVING IT OUT YOURSELF.

Have a Documented Sales Process

Your sales systems should inform you where your buyers are coming from.

For example, an empty sales system tells you and your bank account many things.

All businesses need a sales process involving intake, qualifying, transacting, and collecting buyer data. I don't care if you are selling digital checklist templates.

How to Validate Business Growth Strategies

Are You Unwilling to Take Business Risks?

The dream of every business owner is to collect without spending.

It’s not possible. Money, time, energy, or a combination will be due.

You can’t omit the “I” in ROI.

A safe budgeting framework for marketing operations is the 70/20/10 rule:

• 70% for proven tactics

  • For example, Perhaps your monthly in-person workshops are driving sales. Leave it be.

• 20% for innovative strategies

  • For example, You've been told, "Hey, you should take this paid workshop online." Now it’s time to dabble.

• 10% for experimental initiatives

  • For example, You've never spent a dime on advertising, but you know from interactions with your buyers they are very active on LinkedIn. Perhaps some budget testing is due?

*Note that when I say budget here, it could be money or the time and energy of you or your team.

Yet, not all, but most business owners I have come across want to play the 100% proven tactics game. To hell with the rest.

Don't allow the rug you have built your business on to be swept out from beneath you without warning. By being in business, you know diversifying revenue streams is both offensive and defensive.

The investments going out to capture more business should also be diversified.

The Only Constant is Change

I am not asking you to go all President Business Kragle crazy here.

Sure, you may not even be using what [INSERT YOUT GURU FLAVOR] is dead yet, but don't write it off completely, especially if your business hits a sales brick wall and you are seeking new methods of revenue growth.

Remember, sometimes, what was old becomes new again. Send that snail mail, get on that radio show or your local news channel.

By the way, you're reading this on Substack. Wasn't email marketing dead a decade ago now?

You probably clicked preparing to battle with me in the comments, didn’t you?

It should read, “Those who can’t troll.” 

It’s crazy how four words can be so gaslighting. 

I saw this in the comment section of a YouTube video the other day, and it ground my gears. 

But it wasn’t the first time I had heard or seen it online, and it got me thinking. 

Would a comment like this stop YOU from pursuing your dream of helping others through teaching? 

I hope not. 

There is always someone behind you needing to unlock their next level. 

Neither you nor I need a huge following on social media to show street cred to avoid a stranger disqualifying us from sharing our knowledge from experience. 

You have value to provide someone else in need. And it is ok to give that away for free or to charge a fair price. 

There are people ahead of me and behind me in business, and I’m not above learning from either.

Think of where we would be if this logic were followed.

As you can see above, I am certainly behind folks in comics like .

But what happened to paying things forward? 

I chose a movie because I wanted to quote an absolute authority on this topic. Yeah, I’m doing the heavy lifting over here for you. 

Did you see the movie Lucy? In this movie, Professor Norman says: 

“You know... If you think about the very nature of life-I mean, on the very beginning, the development of the first cell divided into two cells-the sole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. There was no higher purpose.”

So, that first cell hadn’t done the split before. Was it not qualified to copy its information to the second? 

Don’t keep yourself from helping others with what you’ve gained over your life’s many experiences. 

Trapped Crabs

I refer to trolls who use statements like “Those who can’t teach.”  as the “Crab People.” I am not sure if it is true or not, but I still love the metaphor: 

Crabs climb into a trap to eat the bait. Once the bait is gone, they all try to climb back out, thus keeping all crabs trapped as they pull and tug on one another. 

If they would just let each crab, when it is their time to shine and exit to do so, they could all get back out. 

Perhaps trolls need more teaching themselves as they are climbing misguidingly without vision of the path upwards.

Thus, the “Adopt a Troll” program was born. (Just kidding…)

The Learner Has a Seat at the Teaching Table

The saying “Those who can’t teach” also implies that the learner has no say in the value exchange of knowledge. 

The learner, or reader in this case, ie. YOU hold the true power here. 

It’s a privilege for you to be reading my words right now. Without you, there could be no teaching. 

It’s unfair to deprive you of access to your next level, not to say this particular newsletter will get you there. But I hope you see my point.

The only ones without a choice of getting my teaching are my children. Dadisms galore pour from my mouth during carpool. The sighs and the “Dad, stop!” are all great feedback on the effectiveness of my parental duties.

The phrase should be “Those who CAN teach.” 

If you are trying to start a business and you are offering education as part of your services, don’t listen to troll bullshit.

Build and sell your online course, coaching program, or newsletter. 

Let the trolls troll on past you while whistling happiness like the dude teaching people how to survive in Hell in one of my favorite Farside comics by cartoonist Gary Larson:

*I own this entire set of Farside mugs. Love, love, love them. I display them now in my office.

Fun Fact: I drank the best damn cup of coffee I’ve ever had out of this mug as soon as I got home from quitting my corporate job to run my company full-time. The words “You know, we’re just not reaching that guy.” rang so true for me vs corporate cubicles. My wife took a picture of me drinking out of it at that very moment, I should probably frame it.

PS My secret hope is for my drawing to improve weekly to go easier on your eyeballs.

Check out my previous newsletter here:

According to the SBA in 2023: There are 33,185,550 small businesses in the United States.

It might just be me and my algorithm, but I’ve been inundated with people telling me I need a personal brand.

I can only imagine someone just starting a business getting bombarded by this message.

If that is you, I have a different message to offer you.

I’ve read, watched, and listened to folks emphatically saying success comes from building in public to reach more people. “You are the brand” is being echoed on various channels by intelligent people.

I do believe the benefits are actual, but is it necessary? Is having a personal brand known far and wide a must for business success?

I am here to tell you, and this isn’t just an opinion, that I know a personal brand is not required to grow or sell a successful business.

Did you gasp in disbelief? No, probably not.

I have seen behind the “Oz” curtain of Business.

I am writing this from decades of experience growing my company and client companies daily. It is my contention that:

“It’s ok to remain in the shadows personally and do business your way, allowing your offers to take the leading role in the marketplace.”

Product market fit will outpace any personal brand by a long shot. Ask Apple if you don’t believe me.

I know business owners who don’t want to be known until a potential client is sitting in the consultation across either the table or screen from them, and they’re constantly busy.

You can spend your way to success, no matter what you “think” about advertising. It works.

You can spend time building partnerships with other organizations to grow.

You can spend time growing organic traffic to your offers without your identity attached.

You can spend time creating affiliate marketing programs leveraging the audiences others have created.

The list goes on and on.

To grow a business, you are going to spend resources regardless.

You might as well spend the resources you're willing to part ways with.

If privacy isn’t one of them, so be it.

The Future Challenge of Authenticity in the Age of A.I

There are rumblings of needing a personal brand to solidify your value in future marketplaces vs. A.I.

I agree that despite A.I., people will continue to have problems that need to be solved by other people.

So, it’s my current opinion that staying authentic in the future in your online presence vs. artificial will be a valuable differentiator.

But a must? I can’t go as far as to say creating a personal brand is necessary in the face of A.I. oblivion.

It is hard to tell right now if even personal branding will be able to overcome A.I., considering the potential it has to mimic anyone’s appearance or voice in the future.

Perhaps if you want to play defense, you should start working on your personal brand strategy now, depending on what side of the fence your magic crystal ball is leaning.

Or…

Let the robots lead you to greener pastures, hopefully not the Skynet kind.

I am confident of one thing: advertising isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Speaking From Personal Experience Thus Far

I am just starting this personal branding audience-building journey myself.

Up until now, I’ve been a marketer from the shadows.

I have run my profitable business without a personal brand.

I have benefited from my passive personal brand “reputation” and do public speaking and online interviews, translating into lucrative opportunities.

However, I can write this because of my experience working with countless clients, helping them create jobs and lifestyles they want through channels far removed from personal branding.

And perhaps that is how it should be looked upon, as just another channel to explore. Marketing is a constant cycle of testing and evaluation.

Addressing a Few Elephants in My First Substack Newsletter Room (Disclaimers)

If you’ve made it this far, you may have developed a few “But Charlie…” type entanglements.

Here are but a few I tried to anticipate below.

Am I an anti-personal brand person?

No, I started this charlie harper.me Substack account; please subscribe. 🙏 After reading this, you may think I may have gone contrarian against the concept. Still, I am only shining a light on the fact that the tried and true methods of growing a successful business STILL exist IF you are struggling with things like imposter syndrome, creating content, or even the time management required to build an audience. There is hope for introverts, too.

Are there solopreneur scenarios where the Personal Brand and the business are synonymous?

Yes, I am not talking about those scenarios. I am talking about my experience with six to 8 figure businesses with more complex operations.

Do you have a personal brand by default, anyway?

This is not about passive reputation. I am referring to active personal branding through audience building, etc.

Could building a Personal Brand actively help you reach your goals faster?

I think so; I hope to find out. Stay tuned. Also, I am constantly pushing my clients to be the face of their company, but they won’t budge and still make bank. One of my agency's biggest challenges is getting faces in front of cameras.

Conclusion

I wish I could tell you that actively growing your company either “from the shadows” or “personal branding” was easy, but nope. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t both directions. Choose your poison wisely.

Audience building for personal branding looks to be a hampster wheel.

Even though I am building a personal brand, it might not suit you. That’s ok.

So be careful not to be sucked too far into business information silos.

When you first start a business, it can be complex, and you cannot allow information online to block you from other paths experience may lead you on.

Happy building, in front or from the rear.

Fun Fact:

I sometimes refer to myself as the “Marketer of Death” as my agency does a lot of work for Estate Planning and Probate lawyers, and we even have a funeral home client. Spooky marketing, I know.