S5E73
· 37:56
Hey. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. Today, I thought about something, and I don't know or perhaps don't have never documented why I've never really thought about this. When you are constantly in a state of learning from other people, and I'm specifically talking about running an online business here or any kind of business, There's a lot of information.
Matt Giovanisci:There's an absolute there's a ton of information. And a lot of it is tactical. And I always gravitated towards tactical advice because I'm I'm a doer. So I don't sit around and dream too much. I if I do have an idea or a dream, I tend to act on it pretty fast, and that's good.
Matt Giovanisci:It's a good it's good in some aspects. In other aspects, it's sort of like, woah. It's like I'm running around with my like, a chicken with my head cut off because I just, like, whatever I whatever noise I hear, I just kinda sprint towards it as a analogy. But today, I had an idea that didn't spawn from a thing I read, didn't come from an idea of someone else's head, didn't come from a tactic that I read about. Most of the ideas that I have, they're not even ideas, they're spawned from something.
Matt Giovanisci:Meaning, they're mostly spawned from me, like, watching YouTube videos about business or, you know, yeah, any or reading books about business or reading a tweet about business and going like, oh, that rabbit hole, it's going down that path. And I've been for the last month, I've done a few things to my life to to kind of, like, go on a sort of information diet. I am not really on Twitter anymore. I kinda stopped reading it. I took it off my phone for the last month.
Matt Giovanisci:Don't really miss it at all, honestly, because if I'm being honest, and I know that you're probably hearing this a little late, but my entire Twitter isn't filled with nothing but people bitching about SEO and how SEO is dead and we're all fucked and whatever whatever whatever. And that sucks because yeah. I mean, I look. Hey. I built my business on that path, but I always want it to be something bigger, and I think, you know, I never really a 100% relied on it because I just you know, you just yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't like relying on anything that that I don't have full control of. But that's I stopped. I stopped. I stopped reading about business at night, during the day. I put away all my business books.
Matt Giovanisci:I actually put them in a box so that I can't see the titles even. I unsubscribed from every single business YouTube. I was I was subscribed to the. I was subscribed to a bunch of Facebook ad experts. I was subscribed to a bunch of design people.
Matt Giovanisci:And I just one day unsubscribed. Of course, I still see them appear in my algorithm, but I don't watch them. I only watch what's in my subscriptions feed. And so this diet led to a new source of information, my own brain. Now that's not the the revelation, by the way, because I've talked about this before that, you know, if you've been doing business, you're in your business, whatever whatever, and you've read about business for long enough, 4 years, I'd say, you don't really need to read or see anything else.
Matt Giovanisci:In fact, if you need to learn anything, you can probably come up with what you need to learn. Go figure it out within, like, a week, and then just continue to execute and and then learn as you go. So today, and you've heard this episode already because I've already recorded it. But I was brainstorming a thing that I wanted to add to the website. The reason I wanted to add it to the website had nothing to do with a tactic I'd learned.
Matt Giovanisci:I've just been really kind of live because I don't have any tactics, because I'm not chasing any I'm not chasing anything down any rabbit holes, especially with Facebook ads. I've taken a step back and I've thought about the end user. Now I've heard the advice, unfortunately so the the the advice is like, talk to your customers. That's where you learn the most. Talk to your customers.
Matt Giovanisci:That advice sucked balls because what does that even mean? Like, tell me the tactic. Is the tactic to set up a call like, is it is it tactic to, you know, give out my email address? Give out, like and just ask for question? Like, what is the tactic?
Matt Giovanisci:No one ever has that. No one ever talks about that. You know, schedule a call every once in a while. With who? Because here's the thing, talking to your customers is valuable.
Matt Giovanisci:It it is. But I feel like I'd quite frankly, I've don't I don't talk to my customers, and the reason I don't is because I've talked to them my entire life. I've just talked to people who own pools. But at the end of the day, even if you can talk to those people, like, they're not gonna give you the idea. They're gonna cause just as much rabbit holiness as everybody else, as any other advice.
Matt Giovanisci:Because that's the thing, like, everyone's point of view is ultimately different, and everyone's gonna have their own ideas about what you should do or or the what they need, and you might chase the wrong thing because of the input. The the sheer input is not gonna be helpful. I'll and I'll explain why I think that. And and I'm only saying this from my own experience, so if you disagree, fine, but just hear me out for a second. So I went ahead and I've been asking people for a year, what's the most or not a year, probably like 6 months, and it was over the winter.
Matt Giovanisci:So what's the most frustrating thing about owning a pool? And and it's open ended. I took all that data that I have. I I have so many responses from people. I put it in the chat g p t and I said, distill this down to the top 3 main frustrate like, frustrations.
Matt Giovanisci:And what it spit out was, okay. Duh. I I know that. I've known that this my entire website is based on that notion. So it's based on that frustration.
Matt Giovanisci:I've known that since the day I started the business. It is why I started the business. Okay? However, there is something to be there is something to be gained. Now I started to ask chat gbt, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's pull emotion out because, yes, I know what the problem is. Right? But what is the emotion of the problem? Right? And the emotion I was getting was, like, they're frustrated.
Matt Giovanisci:They're confused. They they don't like not knowing. They're you know, it's like I'm like, those are not those are emotions. Yes. But it's hard to contextualize.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like, okay. Yeah. But that's what but my thing solves that problem. Right? Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:You're frustrated with pool care, so I created a course so that you don't have to be frustrated anymore. But it's deeper than that. And so there is a thing I did today where I didn't I'm I don't I am not a pool owner. In fact, even if I was a pool owner, and I talked about this on another episode, I wouldn't really understand. Because, again, I've been doing this my whole life.
Matt Giovanisci:I've been teaching pool care before I had a pool and after I've had a pool. The only emotion that I have ever seen is my father and customers who came in who were just angry. Right? But that's an emotion that I can't really solve. I can use it in marketing, but I can't really get to the bottom of it.
Matt Giovanisci:However and then this is where I think just sitting alone or even talking to yourself or talking out loud, at least the way I process, is incredibly helpful. You're right. I don't own a pool, and even if I did, it would I wouldn't have the same emotion. So I have to come up with another scenario. I'll even give you another one that's unrelated to pools.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm a home brewer. I've been home brewing my whole life, at least it feels that way, since 2005. And I've I'm I don't have frustrations. I don't like, that's not an emotion for me. I have a profound love for it, and that is an emotion that I can attach to home brewing.
Matt Giovanisci:But if I was starting a business, helping new home brewers get started, they're not gonna have that same thing. Just like I don't have the same thing as, you know and I could talk to a bunch of newbie home brewers, but I already know what they're gonna ask me because I've been there. Because, fuck, it's the reason I'm starting the business. So So I already know the answers. I know I already know the emotion.
Matt Giovanisci:At least I feel like I do. Alright? But if I can take because this is where I think the deep down inside shit for yourself. This is where the the the revelations come out Because you can internally feel it, and then it goes, oh, and then it just snaps into place. It's like it's just when you finally understand something, you're like, oh, shit.
Matt Giovanisci:I get it now. It's really hard to do that when you're so far removed from the problem. No matter what those people in the beginning stages, the you know, the people that you're trying to help, you're past that, which is why you're trying to help them. You're not living in the moment, and you can go back and read journals or whatever, try to feel try to get a sense on what you felt like. You can try to remember, but I don't think it's gonna really click.
Matt Giovanisci:So what I found helpful is to create or at least imagine an adjacent problem, so a similar problem that you're currently dealing with, and just use those emotions as long as you know they match. So I'll give you an example. I'll give you 2 examples. The first one is the one I came up with, which was I'll never fully be able to understand a pool owner, but I understand the plight of a new lawn owner. I've never had a lawn before of my own.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm not actively taking care of my lawn right now, but I eventually want to. I know that sounds insane, but yeah. I I because I didn't know what I was doing, I'm like, I gotta hire somebody, which is what a lot of people feel like with a new pool. But if I were to take care of the lawn myself, I would be lost.
Matt Giovanisci:And I said the same thing, I have 2 ponds, and I I kinda have to take care of them because I don't think I've hired companies and they don't seem to know what they're doing, and that, right there, that feeling, that emotion, aligns perfectly with my audience. And I know now what it feels like to be in that position. And I know the things that I want to hear. I know the messages that will resonate with me because they already have, and all I have to do is make it fit for the pool industry. So the second example is I don't remember truly what it felt like and what my emotions were when I started home brewing.
Matt Giovanisci:I can give you a few anecdotes about the day I started home brewing and the the, you know, the what got me hooked. Like, I can get there, but it's not fresh. But I can probably think of another example, a more recent example. I started, like everybody else, making sourdough. I I truly started in January of 2020, so 2020.
Matt Giovanisci:And, then, yeah, everyone started doing it and I couldn't get flour and all that stuff. Now that's fairly recent. And I remember the feeling of why I wanted to do it, the frustrations I had with learning how to do it, I could go a step further and put myself in a position of wanting to learn something that I don't know yet and just trying it and seeing what's out there in the world and what resonates with me and what doesn't, even if I never plan on doing it. Because all I'm trying to figure out is the emotion. All I'm trying to figure out is, like, what if this were the case, would solve the problem that I'm currently having.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? Let me give you a thought a thought exercise, maybe. So with the sourdough thing, the problem I had was that there were so many different sourdough blogs that I'd come across. Everyone had a different method. There were so many YouTube videos, and it just there was a course, but the course was, like, more expensive than I was willing to spend for sourdough bread.
Matt Giovanisci:Because I'm like, oh, I'm not that into it. Right? And so to me, that offer wasn't good enough. So I'm like, what could that person if I was wanted to sell a course on sourdough, what could that person have done on their sales page? Or what could they have said to me that would have changed my mind?
Matt Giovanisci:Because, yeah, like, $99 for a fucking sourdough course. No. Thank you. And it was just a bunch of video like, you know, and it was like one guy's technique. So I could sit down and think, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:What would it what would I have done? Now I'm not starting a sourdough business or a sourdough course business, but let's say I wanna start a home brewing business. Well, it's the same thing. So take the the the benefits, take the emotion, take all of those things, and and use that as a way to develop product and messaging instead of reading. Here's how to craft a headline.
Matt Giovanisci:How to make sourdough bread without wasting money in 5 days or less. Like, that's just taking a template. It's not it's not really hitting anything. But if you were actively frustrated in the moment, you could probably come up with a title or say something that would hit. And then your thing will align.
Matt Giovanisci:Now you can probably go through now if you were collecting, you know, those frustrations, I could read all of those frustrations, and they're not fitting. They're just like, okay. Like, because p that's the thing is and this is where I get a little kinda like, you know, doing the customer research is it's like you could end up spinning your wheels for a long time because people are not good with words. People don't even like to show their emotion. So what what makes you think you're gonna fucking you're gonna land on something that's gonna work?
Matt Giovanisci:The chances are are slim, in fact, I think. But to put yourselves in their shoes, you're never and I and I you know, if you're doing if you're if you're the expert, I don't think it's possible for you to ever put yourself in their shoes because you know too much now. And you can imagine all you want. But I got like, for me, when I was when I got started home brewing, that was in 2005. I honestly can tell you the reason I got into home brewing was probably just because I just like beer so much.
Matt Giovanisci:But I don't remember the nuance of wanting to get into it or what sparked it. I remember what happened a little later, but I can't use that. It's like it's such a specific story that I can't use it. But here's something that I here's an emotion that I currently have. And this emotion doesn't apply to the business that I'd wanna start in this example.
Matt Giovanisci:But one of the emotions I have is I fucking hate going to the homebrew store, and they don't have the ingredient I need, or their stuff's not packaged well, or they're not open. And that is a frustration that I have. And I get intimidated when I go in there because they act like they know it all or they and and I just feel and I still feel this way, to be honest. I feel like they're talking to me as if I don't know what I'm like, I just feel very insecure when I go into a homebrew store. There's your tagline.
Matt Giovanisci:Stop feeling insecure at the homebrew store. Kinda rhymes. Kinda rhymes. Doesn't rhyme. But if I can get I can get there emotionally, so I could develop a product or a solution to solve that problem because I'm currently experiencing it, and I know exactly what I'd want.
Matt Giovanisci:And I think that is the place that I got to today. It wasn't by sitting there and going, okay. What do pool owners want? I can make a course. That's it.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, it's like, alright. That is probably something they could use, but it's not gonna be that compelling. Like, it'll work, of course, because it's a product and, you know, you are solving you are solving something, but your messaging is gonna be off your, you know, the the the real you're not gonna really solve it. You know? It's not gonna feel novel or interesting or different.
Matt Giovanisci:But today, what I stumbled on was, you know what? I know I know what it feels like to struggle with a body of water in my yard. I know that feeling, and I can sit there and go, you know what I wish? I wish I could just plug something in, and it just gave me a list of things to do because I know deep down I can do it. I just need someone to take a look at my situation and give me the fucking blueprint, and then I'll nail it.
Matt Giovanisci:I am experiencing that. That doesn't exist for ponds, and it also doesn't exist for pools. So I was like, you know what? There's an idea. That's an idea worth chasing.
Matt Giovanisci:Because I guarantee you, because they are so aligned that people have the exact same feeling whether they can express it or not. They're probably just, like I'll give you I'll give you this. I this is a weird story. I watched my father I went home recently back to Jersey, and I watched my father open the refrigerator door, stand there, look around, look around, look around. I don't know how many.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't think it was even a minute. Maybe 20 seconds, I'll say. I'll give him 20 seconds, 25 seconds, and he just started getting angry. And I said and my my mom's like, he just gets angry first. I was like, what are you angry about?
Matt Giovanisci:He's like, I can't find the butter. I go, it's in the door. I put it there. Well, that's where I was before, and I put it back. He's like, oh, Jesus Christ.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? Okay. What's the moral of that story? My father had could not tell you to, like, could not tell you why he was so angry that he just couldn't find the butter. He just got angry.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, oh, this fucking thing sucks. That kind of feeling. Right? He is not a copywriter. He is not a marketer.
Matt Giovanisci:He doesn't think that way. If I were to talk to him and say, what's your biggest frustration in in your home? Every time I open the fridge, I can't find the fucking butter. Okay. Well, that's I can't well, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So we can solve that problem, and we can have a butter light. And every time you open your refrigerator, the light flashes, and you'd be like, okay. But that's not solving the problem because he didn't express to me what the real problem was, which pretty much had nothing to do with the butter and is, in fact, probably everything to do with fridge organization and not having that. But he just he I I'm gonna assume that 95 to 99% of people are not gonna be able to describe their feeling and emotion. You, as the marketer, can take all of the data in the world and you could plug it into Chat G Poutine.
Matt Giovanisci:You can get some interesting tidbits. If you know jack shit about your audience, but assuming that you know something, then you probably already know it, but you just don't know how to feel it. Now going back to the example of the you know, I had this idea. Like, I wish somebody would just this. Perhaps that's the headline.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like the it's your own saying. Like, there was a I I was sitting there and I I went, you know, I feel like sometimes with these ponds, they annoy me so much I just wanna fill the damn thing in. And I've said that out loud to Steph multiple times. That phrase is no. I've I've heard people express it.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I've I you know, of the 1,000, if not, 100 of 1,000 of of responses that I've gotten in over the years of pool care, I've heard that phrase before, but I've never felt it. Today, I felt it because I ex experienced it. And other and and only a handful of people have ever expressed the, the feeling of wanting to fill it in because I'm just fucking done with it. I don't understand it. And so it's it's like, yes.
Matt Giovanisci:I've heard it, but I haven't and and I haven't felt it, so, therefore, I'd never used it. But now I know that that is the real feeling. Like, that is the true feeling. And out of the 5 people, there was probably a 1,005 people who felt the same thing but just didn't say it in the moment and didn't say that exact phrase. And that would be a golden nugget testimonial or something, Dara would say, but it's it's not even a testimonial.
Matt Giovanisci:It's just they said it in a way. And I think what I've learned in the last month of not paying attention to the Facebook ad tactic, not paying attention to the whatever, is that I've learned to become more in tuned with with my customer. And when I thought of the idea, my immediate response was, oh, this feels like it's going to work. And I I've said that before, but I've never really felt it. Like, deep down, I'm like, oh, this could work because, you know, a tactic, somebody told me, you know, it would work it's gonna work.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, even the the the offer that I have about the free book, like, feels like it's gonna work. Like, I have a hunch it might work, but I don't I don't I don't truly 100% believe it will because I'm I'm unsure just enough. Because I'm like, well, would that get me? I'm like, but I'm not the ideal customer. So it might work.
Matt Giovanisci:But I kinda feel like going back when I came up with the idea of, like, okay. If I develop a system where you could type in, you feel heard, that, like, okay. I'm giving this even if it's a machine, something, and it spits out a blueprint, a customized blueprint for me, I immediately feel like for free, that's gonna work for me. Now would it work if somebody had to call me, you know, and it was a consultation? Honestly, it would not work for me.
Matt Giovanisci:Personally, it would not work for me. I don't have time. I'd want I want the answer immediately. If swear to god, if there was a service, a free service, or even fucking a paid service, I didn't even pay for this, where I could type in everything about my pond, take pictures, upload it, the whole 9, and the things spit back, okay. Here's here's what you have to do.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's what you have to do every week. No. You know, if you want a clean pond. Here's a type of fish that you can add. Here's, you know, here's the months that you need.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's the months where you should probably think about closing it. Here you know, here's all the little pieces of information just based on we know where you live. We know we know how roughly the size of your pond. We know how it's filtered. We'd ask you these questions, and it would spit out a blueprint from a professional.
Matt Giovanisci:And I'd be like, great. Because even if it doesn't work, I'm gonna follow it because I got nothing else. This is the closest thing for free that I could get to actually mastering this goddamn thing, both of these things. And if you gave me a list of things to buy, I'll fucking buy it because here's the thing. I don't wanna hire anybody else.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm sick of them. They cost a fortune, and I feel like they're not really doing it right. That is also a feeling that I could test to see if that resonates with my audience. Because I am currently experiencing those problems just in a very different way, but the emotions are the same. Now you can go and read a book about all the psychological emotions that a customer experiences.
Matt Giovanisci:There's, you know, 12. Well, one book will say 12. Another book will give you 8. A different book will give you 18. And, yeah, you know, one of them that I hear a lot is envy.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. Works real well for fashion, doesn't really work in pools. I could tell you that because I've tested it. But I wasted time testing it because if I really think about it, no shit. If I'm being honest with you, I don't give a fuck about what my neighbors think of my pond.
Matt Giovanisci:Now that's just me. I'm not I really rarely give a fuck about that, but you know what? I have given a fuck about what my neighbors think when it comes to my lawn because they can see it. No one's looking at my pool. No one's looking at my ponds.
Matt Giovanisci:No one's looking over the fence going like, oh, your ponds are looking a little dirty there, Matt. I'd be like, fuck you, Dave. I don't know if that's his name or if there's even a neighbor named Dave. But I when I first moved in, we had an area of the yard that was overgrown. I wasn't taking care of the yard, didn't have a weed wacker, didn't have a lawnmower.
Matt Giovanisci:And I was, like, freaking out because I'm, like, you guys gotta get out here to to cut this down. Somebody's gotta cut this down because my neighbors. But that was more of a fear, not an envy. I didn't want that I just didn't want them to think I was a neglectful homeowner, especially moving in for the first time or, like, just brand new. A feeling don't doesn't match the pool thing, but it but it's it's it's a thought exercise.
Matt Giovanisci:And I go, okay. That I understand that feeling. That's a good one. That that was that that was emotional for me. Doesn't fit with pools, though, or at least from my from my understanding of, like, no one no one's ever expressed that to me, and, again, being in the industry, and this is not a thing.
Matt Giovanisci:Now if I was building pools or or was teaching people how to build pools, then, yes, that would be a different that would be a status thing. So but that's the thing is, like, yeah, you could go and spin your wheels by reading a bunch of books, but since you know your customers pretty well, I'm I'm assuming without really even kind of physically talking to them, and then put yourself into some other people's position, some other position that you've experienced so that you can get to the emotion, and you marry those together, and then you got something. So that's what I came to today, and I'm gonna continue down that path because it has been super helpful. I am thinking more about the end user. How do I make this better?
Matt Giovanisci:Because, yes, I can just make more lessons in the course, but I gotta put myself in the position of myself. What would I want in a pond course? Got it. Let me let me just make that. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:And then can I can get feedback, and I can push it? And if and if I can get there, then I wanna get there. So I hope that that's somewhat helpful. It was I'm gonna continue exploring that. I'm gonna continue on the information diet because I do think that it has just been a wheel spinner for the longest time.
Matt Giovanisci:The outside influence has really sent me down many paths, but if I just focus relentlessly, and I've heard Bezos say this, just focus relentlessly on the customer, then you'll win. And that's what I'll leave with. Bye.
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