Kelford Labs Daily: What’s your customer’s environment?

“Your environment is part of your work. Every environment has rules, and clearly some environments are more optimal for certain types of activities. You should work in environments that trigger you into the mental state needed to do the various types of work you do.” — Benjamin Hardy, Willpower Doesn’t Work

Sometimes, we can’t control the environment around us.

Sometimes, we’ve got to get our marketing work done whether we’re in the perfect spot or not.

But part of the environment we do control is our perspective and our focus.

Because the “environment” of marketing—the advice you see all around you on LinkedIn, courses, ebooks, and newsletters like this one—can be confusing and contradictory.

Which can make actually doing our marketing so much harder—because we don’t know what it is we’re supposed to do. Everyone recommends something different.

Heck, I’m recommending things to you right now—so how do you know what to do and whom to trust?

Well, instead of trusting me, you can trust your customers.

Instead of wondering what other people who aren’t your customers say you should do with your marketing, get extremely curious about the people who buy from you now.

Surround yourself with their thoughts, their context, and their environment.

Read what they read. Learn what they learn. And follow what they follow.

Pretty soon, you’ll have a much clearer idea of what they need, how they talk about it—and how you can deliver and demonstrate it—than all the marketing advice in the world could give you.

Take some time away from your default mental and marketing environment, and spend a bit more time in theirs.

Today’s Experiment

Step 1: Consider
Action: Of your past customers, who represents your ideal? (Perhaps you’ve already done this in the Experiment from Daily Lab #167). Make a few notes for yourself about what makes them ideal for you—what special value did they experience working with you? What value did you experience working with them? Why would you want more customers like them?
Time: 2 minutes

Step 2: Connect
Action: Reach out to them today—right now!—and set up a chat. You’ll want to find out where they get their industry news, and where they go for help when they need the type of thing you provide (Google, peers, associations, etc.) Then you can build out your marketing environment by spending more time in theirs.
Time: 5 minutes