This podcast episode features Pastor Bob Thibodeau discussing the critical importance of understanding consumer behavior in your niche to create a successful coaching program. He emphasizes the need to identify what topics people are investing in, both online and offline, to ensure profitability. Pastor Bob provides practical tips for conducting market research, such as observing which magazines and books are popular in local bookstores. He highlights that while you may not always know how profitable a topic is, gathering data from various sources can help you ascertain market interest. The episode wraps up with a call to action, encouraging listeners to engage in their own market research as a vital step in their entrepreneurial journey.

Takeaways:

• Understanding your niche market is crucial for developing a profitable coaching program.
• Researching both online and offline sales trends can inform your product development strategy.
• Observing what sells in local bookstores can provide insights into online consumer behavior.
• Market research is analogous to preparing for a significant investment, like opening a pizza joint.
• You can gauge interest by watching which magazines people browse but don’t buy.
• Engaging directly with potential customers will help you discover their actual needs and interests.

Links referenced in this episode:

• faithcasteracademy.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hello everyone, everywhere.

Pastor Bob Thibodeau here.

Welcome to the Friday edition of the Faith Based Business Podcast.

We're having a great time this week and we've been talking all week.

Basically, well, this about discovering where people are at when it comes to buying things in your niche, which you can create a coaching program around.

And we've identified the niche, we've gone through that we discovered how you can teach in the niche.

Matter of fact, let me go over here and share the screen.

We jump right into this Praise the Lord and we discover what you can teach in that niche.

But what we really, really want to find out is what topics there that these people are truly putting their money into within that niche.

Because that is what's going to determine if you're going to be profitable or not.

Now, last time we discovered some online places that do the deep research for us.

Amazon for books and things like that, and YouTube for videos, Spotify, Apple Podcasts for audio.

But there are places offline that we can look at also.

Okay.

And that's where a lot of people want to look.

And it makes complete sense because if people buy things in stores and it's information, they're probably buying it online as well, and vice versa.

This means you can go offline to find out what people will buy online.

You can go into your local bookstore, see what magazines are selling.

You can go in and, and see what books are selling.

And the books and the magazines that are selling, those are the same things, the same topics that will sell online.

Maybe you're asking, well, how do I figure out what topics are selling?

Well, one way is just to go over to the magazine rack, sit down in front of the magazine rack all day long, just drinking your coffee and taking notes and of which magazines are being taken off the shelf and put up on the counter for sale.

That's one way of doing it.

Another thing you can do is watch which magazines people are reading and then putting back.

I mean, you may go to a local bookstore.

Maybe 100 people will buy magazines today.

Maybe a thousand people have looked at magazines, but they look at six magazines in particular and they only buy one.

You can use all that information, that's all valuable information.

You can say that and say, well, you know, the other ones were cast offs, but if they're on a related topic, they were interesting.

And it allows you to grab a lot more data really fast.

It just takes a time commitment on your part to go over there and do it.

You could walk through the bookstores and you can say, well, which books have the bookstore bought 100 copies of and put on display instead of one or two copies?

Because the bookstores are smart.

They don't tend to invest in 100 books.

If they don't think they're going to sell 98 of them.

Okay.

Or sell 50 of them and be stuck with the other 50.

Now they're planning to sell the number of books they bought.

So if they got two rows on a bookshelf of nothing but the same copy of book, they know that topic is going to sell and that book is going to sell.

If you go into any book stores on January 1, what are you going to find?

You're going to find books, books, books and more books on weight loss and eating healthy and working out and things like that.

Why?

Because on January 1, people are making New Year's resolutions to lose weight and eat healthy.

What they, what do they do?

They go buy this book and they try and put it to use for the next three months.

They buy books and videos and audios on how to lose weight.

And you can see that in every bookstore you walk into, if you go to bookstore two months before the election process, you're going to discover there's a bunch of books that are on election topics and the people and the politics they're going on, all that sort of thing.

Those two ideas right there give you proof that bookstores are tapped into what books are going to sell on any particular topic at any particular time.

And you know these bookstores, they buy more books when they sell more on a particular topic.

You just go through your local bookstore and look at the topics that are being featured, and you'll have plenty of ideas for your next product or training.

Now, at this point, you may be asking, well, how do I know if they're profitable?

Quick answer, you don't.

Oh, yeah.

No.

You don't know if they're popular?

Not unless you have a good friend in the business.

It's the same thing.

Remember back a week or so ago we talked about, you know, the pizza business that we talked about.

If you walk in cold to the pizza joint and you ask the proprietor, you say, hey, I'm thinking about opening up this pizza shop across the street here.

How many pies do you sell?

On Friday night, he's going to look at you like you're crazy.

He's going to boot you out of his building.

He don't want the competition.

But if you happen to be friends with the proprietor and you say, hey, John, you got a minute?

Need to ask a couple Questions?

Sure, go ahead, Bob.

So I've been watching you these past few years, and, and I appreciate and respect you and what you do, but, you know, you seem to be doing all right.

And John says, you know, buddy, I'm, I'm doing all right.

We're okay here.

He says, oh, I know, but I'm thinking about maybe opening up my own pizza place.

And don't worry, John, I'm not going to put it across the street from you.

I'll put it all the way on the other side of town, you know, so you don't have the same competition, but could I ask some questions about opening up a pizza joint?

And John's like, yeah, sure, no problem.

And then you and John to sit down and talk and say, can you tell me what your numbers are?

You know, maybe I've just got dollar signs in my eyes.

Can you tell me what you're spending on your workers, on labor, and how much you're spending on the dough and the pizza stuff and all that other stuff and, and actually how many pies you're selling, what the profitability is on the P.

And all that?

Now, this is information you need, okay?

And unless you got a friend that is at Amazon, you're not going to be able to get that information.

One, it wouldn't even be ethical for them to do that.

But if you got a friend who's got his own infomercial, hey, you got somebody in that particular niche, folks, you're not going to get that kind of insider data unless you have those contacts.

It's just not there.

You're not going to get that insider data that, that they keep secret.

And believing that you can know how profitable something is before you even get started, we've proven before, is a fallacy.

I hope I've made this perfectly clear because, yeah, everything I've just given you is to help you to determine ascertain whether there's a need, right?

Whether there are things sold in that particular niche that you are interested in, whether there's interest in that particular niche that you're interested in.

And you're going to have to go where the people are that are interested in that particular topic.

You're going to have to find that one of the fastest way to do this is just to run some of your own advertising and get people to become subscribers to your own programs.

That's the way you got to do it.

You just gotta.

Yeah, if we're on the end of a pier, you're just gonna have to plug your nose and Take a leap and find out just how deep that water is.

You know it's above your head but you don't know how far down you're gonna go.

Right?

But that's sometimes that's just what you got to do.

You just got to dive in and do it.

And as you, you are putting these free thing which we'll get into starting next time, give these subscribers we call their opt in and see how many people subscribe to it.

You run your own advertising, you get people to become subscribers, then you just ask them what are your needs in this niche?

Bob, just put it together and start.

That sounds like a lot of work and I don't even know what it's going to turn out like.

I know it sounds like a lot of work.

I know it is a lot of work.

Is it any difference?

Is there any difference doing that on your own and the duel diligence you do to open up a pizza joint, I mean if you were going to invest $100,000 or more of your hard earned retirement money on a pizza joint, wouldn't you want to spend a month or two doing research out on the town?

I mean would you spend money every single night eating pizza every single night at a different pizza restaurant every single night for a month or two months just taking notes on what you liked about the restaurant, the atmosphere, the entryway, the color patterns and you know, and not, not to mention the pizza, the toppings and how it's all, you know, the appearance of it and all that.

Wouldn't you be doing that type of research if you were going to put a hundred grand in?

That could be poof, gone if you fail?

What's the difference if you took a thousand dollars and just did a test run on your own niche, on your own coaching ideas?

It's the same thing.

It is called market research.

Market research.

And that's what we're going to go into beginning next time.

Amen.

Man, it's been good.

We went deep today.

I know I surprised a lot of you but that's what we're going to be talking about next time is market research.

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Com.

Have great.

Next weekend, next time we're going to talk about market research.

Till then, as Pastor Bob remind you, be blessed in all that you do.