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Welcome to Your Market Map
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The purpose of this document is to help you "map out" the opportunity that lays before you within your chosen market or targeted campaign.
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Just like going anywhere in life, once you have a good map, finding the way gets pretty easy.
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This document has tabs for four different types of contacts:
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Prospects: actual customers you might or are doing business with
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Strategic Partners: other companies or organizations that serve the same market
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Content Publishers: People that publish content to your market
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Competitors: Direct or indirect competitors that are serving the same market
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Events: Any gathering of people in your market, big or small.
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To get started:
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1) Block out a set amount of time for market research (1 to 2 hours)
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2) Use Google and Chat GPT as a launching point. Start with searches/chats like "[your market] association", "[your market] blog", "[your market] podcast", "[your market] software", etc
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(look at the different type names to help with ideas of search queries)
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3) Add companies, names, and URLs as you go. The goal with your data mining is to build a list, not get exhaustive data. Keep it to critical touchpoint info (namely URL and a contact # or email address)
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4) Initially, focus time on Strategic Partners and Publishers. Once you have you have 10 to 20 on each tab, move on to Prospects. Our advice is to always start with some local companies to leverage your closeness in initial relationship building.
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5) Add competitors if you stumble on them
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6) Start making contact (follow a 90/10 ratio for action/research, ie. 9 hours of "action/outreach" for every 1 hours of research)
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Notes:
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Prospects are the lifeblood of your business. They are your buyers. If you have opportunities right now with existing relationships, inbound leads, or referrals, get them on this sheet and move them to a Win or DQ/Lose as fast as possible.
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Strategic Partnerships are probably one of our best kept secrets for how we've quickly acquired hundreds of customers within a niche. A good strategic partner has a list of customers. Not just a list of readers or listeners... ACTUAL BUYERS. This is important not just because they know people in your market already with money, but because the relationship they have contains enough trust for a transaction to occur. This is more powerful base for a referral or recommendation than most publishers. Looking for possible strategic partners with large lists of clients AND a complimentary need for your services can create rocket fuel for market domination. For example, when Brent ran his agency, a friend of his ran a PR firm. She was frustrated that all of her clients had bad websites and that made her job doing their PR harder. She had about 30 restaurants as her clients. There was an obvious win/win for her to introduce Brent to all of her clients: they got better websites and in turn, she did a better job servicing her clients. The depth, context, and content of your strategic partnerships will vary greatly. I'll be covering several examples and strategies in Pro.
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Content Publishers are your fast track to establishing yourself as an expert in your market. It doesn't take much for you to be recognized as an industry expert. It varies per market, but in our experience, tangible "expert" results happen with as few as three pieces of content. Besides building authority, there are two other major benefits of being published: traffic to your website and list building. We always prefer to start off blogging and sharing content on other platforms that have already spent the time and resources to generate significant audiences. You get "run off" benefits of their years of work within a very short amount of investment. As you build up "owned media" (ie, your own website traffic, email list, pixel list, and followers) you can shift your content development efforts to your own website or social channel. Kind of like the old adage, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a noise; the same can be said about your content. If you publish the BEST blog post in the world, but you don't have any visitors, does it really matter?
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Competitors can often times become some of your best strategic partners and even content publishers. Be careful not to judge a book by it's cover. If you run into someone that seems like an obvious competitor, add them to your Market Map. We have come across very few "closed door" competitors that view the market as such a limited pond that they refuse to speak to you. In the market we currently serve, I have found that ZERO times. In other markets it's been the same or less than 5% of identified competitors. We have developed and nurtured relationships with people I was fiercely competitive with on the business playing field. Having a positive channel of communication to these companies always benefited us both immensely. Not only that, but several companies that have been "direct" competitors of ours have engaged in fruitful JV deals where they promote our products, launches, or content to their lists. It might seem counterintuitive to contact and build a relationship with your competitor - but we promise you, if done right, these can be game changers.
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Events in your market can be one of the most powerful ways to get in front of your niche. Associations, trade groups, and other businesses spend thousands to millions organizing conferences, trade shows, meetups, and gatherings of all types. All you have to do is show up and start conversations with attendees. The best exposure at events is putting yourself into a position of authority by giving a presentation or keynote. But there are all sorts of other methods like sponsoring, having a booth, or just networking on the exhibitor floor. If you find an event, contact the organizer. Offer assistance. Call them up and ask about the event. Look at their list of sponsors and exhibitors and call those companies. Talk to them about their ROI and participation with that event. Consider calling the attendees or exhibitors as cold prospects as well.
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Why we use Google Sheets over a fancy CRM: Initially, we recommend against using a CRM. A CRM usually offers a very "fixed" environment and will likely hide your map from you. As you get traction and move into Scale/Domination, you'll likely start to have enough contacts that this spreadsheet will no longer due (perhaps 100+ in a single category). A CRM must always be accompanied with a dedicated process for how you plan to follow up with people and nurture them from prospect to deal closed. It's too easy to input contacts into a CRM and lose them or allow administration of the CRM to trump action in the market. Also, for the purposes of this program, it is a lot easier for us to collaborate on a single sheet of opportunity. There is no way for our mentor team to realistically access a dozen different types of CRMs. All of the statuses and overall process that we teach, lines up great when the time comes for you to transition.
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