241: The Secret to Breaking into New Markets

Melissa [: 00:00:00

Hey, hey, hey, I hope you guys enjoy these what I'm calling podcast shorts for my burnout to all out community. This is just a little peek behind the curtain of the coaching that goes on inside of my programs. We're bringing to you some of the best nuggets and coaching I'm giving, within hot seats of all of our different programs, whether it's our LinkedIn Method Academy, our Mini Mastermind, Business Basics, all the way up to our higher level Mastermind. If you're hearing some of these questions, and you're like, man, I wish I could get my burning question answered by Melissa. Hey, guess what? You could be featured on my podcast. If you've got a question that you want answered and you submit it to my team and we pick it, we will bring you here to the podcast for our podcast shorts and, do a hot seat with you. Where can you submit your questions? Send them to team burnout to all out.co. We'll make sure we drop that in the show notes for our podcast shorts.

Melissa [: 00:01:02

And I hope that you guys find as much value in the shorts as our clients do inside the program. Need some effective tactical advice that actually helps you get results and makes a real difference in your life and business? You've come to the right place. If you're finding yourself here today, it means you're getting ready to gain serious traction in your business, rapidly multiply your income and impact, and you're ready to make it happen while living all out. Guys, I'm Melissa Henault, your trustworthy corporate dropout turned 6 figure business burnout turned happy and healthy CEO of a multimillion dollar online business, and you're listening to the Burnout to All Out podcast. On this show, we're serving up innovative growth strategies, simple implementation methods to put them into practice, and action stimulating inspiration tailored specifically for the modern entrepreneur. Let's dive in. Let's go to miss Jill. How's it going, my friend?

Jill [: 00:02:17

It's going okay. I've just been dealing with some major sciatic and lower back pain, and so I've been doing the emotional work, the mental work, the physical work to try to yeah.

Melissa [: 00:02:28

Yeah. I'm so sorry. I know you've been struggling with that for a while.

Jill [: 00:02:32

Yeah. Well, I feel good. I'm in a much more positive mindset, so that's half the battle. But today, I wanted to actually talk about the red ocean and the blue ocean and ask you if you think that I'm creating a blue ocean. So started my company years ago, there was an ESL, like a language component teaching advanced language skills, and there was a communication skills component. And over the years, I've gotten rid of the language piece because it's not my passion, and I focus on teaching communication skills to non native English speakers. So I would say in the last 3 to 5 years, we don't be in the industry. If you're working with corporate, you don't talk about accent training, accent reduction.

Jill [: 00:03:15

It's like a no no. You don't talk about that. So I've really been working since I started my creating my on demand programs to focus on how do you keep your accent, but excel at speech. So that's what I think. Blue ocean instead of red ocean. Because if I'm in the red ocean, I'm selling myself as a language course, and it's not what it is. There's nothing that I do that's language oriented. So I had a conversation with somebody the other day who's like, well, unfortunately, you're, like, in a real big red ocean because of ESL.

Jill [: 00:03:47

Blah blah blah blah blah. And I kinda sat back, and we were finishing our call. I didn't wanna take too much more of this time. So I said, let me think about that. Let me think about that instead of trying to say, well, no. I'm not. I'm at the Blue Ocean. I've been working on that.

Jill [: 00:03:59

So I'm curious your thoughts about Red Ocean, Blue Ocean, and how I can make sure because I'm really working right now towards finding the investors or a partner where I can package my methodology and really make a payday here. So just curious your thoughts about this.

Melissa [: 00:04:17

So my thoughts on repackaging and being focused on keeping your accent, but expanding your speech. Is there a way to do some market research on that?

Jill [: 00:04:30

Well, there's AI. I could do research certainly through that. What other market research are you thinking?

Melissa [: 00:04:36

Well, I know you said, how do I package this for investors? Is there a way to actually ideal client that would be investing in this and do a little bit of market research before we get too far down in the rabbit hole with, like, how you're branding it and how you're offering it.

Jill [: 00:05:00

Yeah. I mean, one of the big issues too is in selling to learning and development or HR. They're usually the first to lose their budgets. So that also is like a threat to this whole thing. Yeah. I am in the middle of doing some research. I have some HR calls set up with some people I trust. So that's where I am right now, especially because what I'm going through physically, that I'm just having calls, asking questions.

Jill [: 00:05:25

What kinds of questions would you suggest that I ask to know, hey. Is this the blue ocean? Is this unique?

Melissa [: 00:05:33

So what I'm thinking of, and I know in our build, grow, scale program, Jackie put together this really cool training on, like, how to do market research. And I feel like she has a checklist or a downloadable of some sort that you could use. And I don't know if you can do this, Ali, behind the scenes while we're hot seat coaching here. If you can go into BGS and see if you can find that module and see if you can pull down the PDF and drop it here in the chat or email it later. Because what you're asking for me from me off the cuff, I don't think would give you as much value as an actual checklist of how to do your market research before creating an offer. But I bet Allie could work with at least Lisa to see if we can pull that out of the other program and get it to you. Because what I hate seeing any entrepreneur go too far down into the rabbit hole of an offer and realize that the way it's packaged or the way that they put it together in their mind is actually not the desired state of the investor example of this, and this is where, like, there's a guy I worked with and it was a good model for him. I'm, like, there's a guy I worked with, and it was a good model for him.

Melissa [: 00:06:47

So let me give you a little background. He launched this tech company. They were doing a lot of tech work, custom, like, SaaS kind of products for real estate. And then real estate went south, and he had this team of techies that he didn't wanna let go because he's just riding out the market. And he was like, hey, I've got a bunch of techies that do some really cool custom work, and we like to launch an outfit, a separate shoe to the business where we actually service entrepreneurs like you at your size that don't have the need for a full time CTO, chief tech officer, but have the budget and the need for some fractional portion of it. And we'd like to basically try this business out with you. And so he didn't know because he didn't know, like, whether it was really gonna play out or not, But he's very entrepreneurial and problem solving. So I was a willing paying customer to beta test it for him.

Melissa [: 00:07:41

And now it's a whole like, they're fully booked. But it took him working with us, asking a lot of questions, learning their own ropes of a parallel business with their techies and how they could service us. So I'm just wondering if even in some of these market research conversations that you have could even turn into a consult for a potential beta project. Does that make sense?

Jill [: 00:08:05

So I think what you're saying is talk to these people, and then if there is some interest, ask them if they might be interested in going to a pilot or a beta. Totally. Okay.

Melissa [: 00:08:14

Yeah. And give yourself some grace instead of putting the pressure on yourself of let me do these interviews, and then let me fully bake this thing, and then let me come to the market and sell it perfectly curated. I hate to use the word sloppy, but kinda like putting the wheels on the cart as you go and getting the feedback and being like, this is where I'm headed, and you guys seem like an ideal client. Here's where I could really help you, and maybe we could beta this together. And that's basically how Justin presented it to me, and you paid for well, yeah. I paid them $45100 a month for, like, 6 months. Now we got to the point where I found myself giving him projects because he was on retainer, and I felt like I needed to give him things to do. So we got out of the busy season of techie stuff that we needed.

Melissa [: 00:08:55

And looking at the budget, it was like, oh, we could be spending this elsewhere. But at that point, he was fully booked with, like, other clients as well, and his whole staff, like, had work to do. It wasn't that there was anything that went south. We just didn't need him anymore, But he learned what he needed to learn.

Jill [: 00:09:11

And then one of the things that I've been instanced in my business plan was maybe reach out to HR people and say, hey. We can if if you're if this interests you, once we know it interests you, we can give you a 50% discount if you invest now. So maybe even from the beta project to to build it out even further, it could go into something like that. I'm just taking baby steps.

Melissa [: 00:09:33

And you could even call it something really sexy like founders pricing instead of discount so that it's an exclusive experience.

Jill [: 00:09:40

That's perfect. Okay. Alright. Good. Well, I will definitely check all that out. Appreciate it. Maybe next month, we can talk more about the blue ocean.

Melissa [: 00:09:48

Awesome.

Jill [: 00:09:49

Yes. Wonderful. Awesome. Thank you.

Melissa [: 00:09:56

Thanks guys so much for listening in on today's podcast episode. And I can't wait for you to see my upcoming guest in the next episode. You are going to love this keynote speaker. Hey, here's the deal. If you like this, please subscribe and leave a review. And you want the latest online business growth strategies and exclusive LinkedIn pro tips sent straight to your phone? Text the word update to 704-318-2285. That is text the word update to 704318228 5. Can't wait to see you guys.

Melissa [: 00:10:36

Come find me over on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever you like to hang. Cannot wait to hear how you are enjoying and applying what you're learning. You guys reach out to me over on social because I love hearing what's resonating with you. When you reach out to me and you send me those personal DMs, they really do impact the content I continue to bring forward to you. So again, come find me, melissa_henault over on Instagram, melissahenault over on LinkedIn and Facebook. Can't wait to see you guys over there.