Do You Know Your Audience Like You Know Your Lover?

If self-paced e-learning programs are now at $51.5 billion in yearly sales, why isn't everyone jumping on board with their own courses? What areas of your business wouldn't benefit from a trend like that where your knowledge goes up for sale and you make money when you aren't working?
I got this stat from Pam Hendrickson Consulting Group and their report 2018 Membership Site Trend Report: The Future of Business is in an Online Class of it's Own. One topic it touches is how well you know your audience.
I know my lover (in my case my wife of 33 years) really well. Some might say I know her too well. I know what makes her tick - what makes her happy. I know what will really piss her off too.
To sell to your tribe of followers, you have to know them that well...no joke. The better you know them, their wants and what they need to get the results they want, the better you are set get them to buy from you.
So let's talk about knowing your audience really well and how we make that work for you.
If you already have a practice focused on what it is you teach, you should already have a tribe of sorts. These are people who know you and turn to you for advice in what it is you know. The goal in selling and delivering your course is to understand why these people follow you and tap into what they want.
Keep in mind it will be less about what it is you know and all about the results they want. When we know something really well, it's easy for us to get to technical. Our followers typically don't care about that. They want a solution. They want the results.
Take for example our client a diamond wholesaler who's wanting to sell more diamond engagement rings. When you talk to these experts, and they know diamonds too well. They are all about their 4 C's, color, cuts, carets, clarity. What we found by doing the market research is the number one concern young men buying engagement rings have is will they get the ring their lady what she wants. What they want to make sure is that their honey will love that ring and will post it proudly on social media right after she says yes .
The diamond cut is important and the guy needs to be able to pay the price, but the bride isn't going to be taking out a magnifying glass to analyze the diamond clarity and color? It has to match the ring (in general) the lady wanted and the rest are details that don't really affect the buying decision.
We are all experts in our respective field and we are contaminated by what we know. We have to get into the heads of our buyers (again we have to do the research) to make sure we describe what we do in ways that get our buyers what they most want. It's all about results.
I'll be writing a lot more about this in the coming weeks as I highlight all we need as membership site and course builders to deliver courses that sell.
Consider my Breakthrough Course Building System. It's market research step is all about getting to know your audience extremely well so they find the course your build for them intrigue. So it becomes an offer you just cannot refuse.