Greystone
Regular Contributor
You want to change your mindset from money seeker to need finder ?
Here is a concrete little exercise I have experimented those last few weeks and that's working very well. It's quite simple, and it will enable your mind to be more tuned to other people expectations and needs. If you try it for long enough, you will feel a change in your mindset. It's inevitable.
Here it is:
1. Go to a forum in connection with the industry you are the most familiar with. Are you passionate about flying aeroplanes? Go to a pilot forum. Are you in the bodybuilding business? Go to a bodybuilding forum. Avoid going to a forum where you don't know anything about. It’s better if the forum is current and up to date, of course.
2. Now, go to the beginners section. Beginners complain a lot, so it’s a good place for us who are looking for needs. If there isn’t a beginner section, just go to the most popular section of the forum, it should be fine.
3. Your exercise starts here:
Find the threads where you can find any of these words in the title: “I can’t stand …” OR “I am lost” OR “I need” OR “HELP!”, OR “I’m desperate” OR "I'm seek of" OR "I hate", or any other word that points out a PROBLEM. Read every topic title, until you find one that contains one of the previous words I listed. You might have to search for a long time, it depends on several factors. But it doesn’t matter how long it will take you, just do it and persevere. Your final goal is to eventually detect the magic words ("need", "lost", "problem", "sick of", etc.) without even thinking. It must become an automatism for you, there must be a trigger in your brain the moment you read them. You might have to practice a little bit to achieve that, but you will do it. Your brain doesn't like change, so you will have to accustom it to this new way of thinking. It's not hard, it's just a matter of repetition (just like auto suggestion).
4. Now that you have found your topic containing the magic word, it’s time for you to read it. You have to understand the problem: you have to find out the reason why the author of the topic is so anxious, angry or scared. In 99% of the cases, the reason will be explained in the very first message, logical. So the most important message is the first one. In this message, if the author is not a little teenager who is complaining about nonsense, he will tell the community about a real problem he is facing, or a need he is feeling.
5. Now open a blank sheet, call it “Unmet needs in the … industry” or whatever, and write the problem you just picked up. What I personnally do is this: I copy/paste the original quote of the auhtor, and I comment it below. For instance, if the author says : "Oh... i'm so f*cked up. I can't find a bodybuilding website where they give you an accurate method to gain muscles without taking insane amounts of drug. I want to stay natural!". I will copy/paste this quote in my blanksheet and write the problem below with my own words, to make sure I have understood it. For instance, my comment will go like : "This man is complaing about how he can't find a webiste that gives natural methods for bodybuilding". It doesn't need to be complicated. It's just the way I do it, but you can do it the way you want. The important thing here is to write the problem you have just found with your own words, to make sure you have understood it.
6. Repeat the procedure. Do it for several hours with as many topics as you can. Also, after you've done one forum, go to another one. List on your blanksheet all the problems you find on your way. Be persistent. You won't get any result if you quit after 30 minutes of trying. Personally I’ve done this exercise for 10 days, 3 to 5 hours a day, and I ended up with a 24 pages Word document full of complaints and unmet needs in my industry. Forums are really gold mines to find needs.
7. At the end of the exercise, you will find that there are recurring problems that come back in a repetitive way. You will find that some problems have been written numerous times in your blanksheet. These are the most important ones to focus on, because if several people have complained about them, on different topics and on different forums, then it's very likely that there is an unsolved problem there. What I personnally do is this: after I have written a given complaint for about 5 to 10 times, I decide it's time to write it in big caps: "NEED + the description of the need". This goes like:
NEED: people always complain about how they can't find a natural bodybuilding method on the web. I've listed 15+ complaints talking about that, there really must be something to be done here if so many people talk about it".
NEED: I have listed so many complaints about how bodybuilding websites can't give a step by step training program for beginners.
NEED: people always say they quit bodybuilding after a couple of weeks because they feel on their own. Maybe they would like to team up with other people in their neighboorhoods.
(These are just random needs invented for the purpose of this exercise).
You will then have a document full of unmet needs, and potential business ideas in your industry. You mind will be trained to be more attentive to other people problems.
Give it a try. You really have nothing to lose.
Let me know how it works out for you. Feel free to give me your feedbacks.
Here is a concrete little exercise I have experimented those last few weeks and that's working very well. It's quite simple, and it will enable your mind to be more tuned to other people expectations and needs. If you try it for long enough, you will feel a change in your mindset. It's inevitable.
Here it is:
1. Go to a forum in connection with the industry you are the most familiar with. Are you passionate about flying aeroplanes? Go to a pilot forum. Are you in the bodybuilding business? Go to a bodybuilding forum. Avoid going to a forum where you don't know anything about. It’s better if the forum is current and up to date, of course.
2. Now, go to the beginners section. Beginners complain a lot, so it’s a good place for us who are looking for needs. If there isn’t a beginner section, just go to the most popular section of the forum, it should be fine.
3. Your exercise starts here:
Find the threads where you can find any of these words in the title: “I can’t stand …” OR “I am lost” OR “I need” OR “HELP!”, OR “I’m desperate” OR "I'm seek of" OR "I hate", or any other word that points out a PROBLEM. Read every topic title, until you find one that contains one of the previous words I listed. You might have to search for a long time, it depends on several factors. But it doesn’t matter how long it will take you, just do it and persevere. Your final goal is to eventually detect the magic words ("need", "lost", "problem", "sick of", etc.) without even thinking. It must become an automatism for you, there must be a trigger in your brain the moment you read them. You might have to practice a little bit to achieve that, but you will do it. Your brain doesn't like change, so you will have to accustom it to this new way of thinking. It's not hard, it's just a matter of repetition (just like auto suggestion).
4. Now that you have found your topic containing the magic word, it’s time for you to read it. You have to understand the problem: you have to find out the reason why the author of the topic is so anxious, angry or scared. In 99% of the cases, the reason will be explained in the very first message, logical. So the most important message is the first one. In this message, if the author is not a little teenager who is complaining about nonsense, he will tell the community about a real problem he is facing, or a need he is feeling.
5. Now open a blank sheet, call it “Unmet needs in the … industry” or whatever, and write the problem you just picked up. What I personnally do is this: I copy/paste the original quote of the auhtor, and I comment it below. For instance, if the author says : "Oh... i'm so f*cked up. I can't find a bodybuilding website where they give you an accurate method to gain muscles without taking insane amounts of drug. I want to stay natural!". I will copy/paste this quote in my blanksheet and write the problem below with my own words, to make sure I have understood it. For instance, my comment will go like : "This man is complaing about how he can't find a webiste that gives natural methods for bodybuilding". It doesn't need to be complicated. It's just the way I do it, but you can do it the way you want. The important thing here is to write the problem you have just found with your own words, to make sure you have understood it.
6. Repeat the procedure. Do it for several hours with as many topics as you can. Also, after you've done one forum, go to another one. List on your blanksheet all the problems you find on your way. Be persistent. You won't get any result if you quit after 30 minutes of trying. Personally I’ve done this exercise for 10 days, 3 to 5 hours a day, and I ended up with a 24 pages Word document full of complaints and unmet needs in my industry. Forums are really gold mines to find needs.
7. At the end of the exercise, you will find that there are recurring problems that come back in a repetitive way. You will find that some problems have been written numerous times in your blanksheet. These are the most important ones to focus on, because if several people have complained about them, on different topics and on different forums, then it's very likely that there is an unsolved problem there. What I personnally do is this: after I have written a given complaint for about 5 to 10 times, I decide it's time to write it in big caps: "NEED + the description of the need". This goes like:
NEED: people always complain about how they can't find a natural bodybuilding method on the web. I've listed 15+ complaints talking about that, there really must be something to be done here if so many people talk about it".
NEED: I have listed so many complaints about how bodybuilding websites can't give a step by step training program for beginners.
NEED: people always say they quit bodybuilding after a couple of weeks because they feel on their own. Maybe they would like to team up with other people in their neighboorhoods.
(These are just random needs invented for the purpose of this exercise).
You will then have a document full of unmet needs, and potential business ideas in your industry. You mind will be trained to be more attentive to other people problems.
Give it a try. You really have nothing to lose.
Let me know how it works out for you. Feel free to give me your feedbacks.
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