Small-scale research -> shared value, workshop discount deadline looming

Happy Saturday, people!

As many of you know, I regularly advocate for doing research that is small, focused, inexpensive, and enables better decision-making. I refer to this as small-scale research (SSR).

Check this out from Josh Baron, a criminal defense attorney (he shared this with me and then gave me permission to share it with y'all):

To give you a sense of the kind of questions Josh was asking in this survey, here is a screenshot of one of the approximately 30 questions the survey contained:

Josh's research illustrates one of the ways you can use a small, focused research project to create significant value: learn about how one side of a "market" thinks or operates, and share this information with the information-starved other side of the market. I use quotes around market because in some cases you are gathering information from one side of "a place where parties can gather to facilitate the exchange of goods and services" and sharing that information with the other side of that market, and in other cases, like with Josh's research, the market is more of a metaphorical trading relationship between criminal defense attorneys and jurors.

Many of the clients you serve are choosing to endure uncertainty about some question or, more likely, a large group of questions. Life involves lots of irreducible uncertainty, we learn to deal with it, and none of us have the resources to become more certain about everything. Small-scale research is a response to this impulse: "we don't have to be so uncertain about that, and I'm going to speculatively invest some time, effort, and money to try to reduce the uncertainty that we as a group hold about that." This is an act of service that often creates shared value for the researcher and the audience the research is done for. That's what you call a win-win.

Sharing success stories like this is part of my advocacy for this idea. The other part is implementation support for those wanting help executing a small-scale research project, and on that front I'm prepared to teach you/your team how to do it, coach you/them through it, or execute the project for you at prices ranging from $500/hr to $4,500/mo. There's no sales page for this, just hit reply if you're interested in discussing.

This is turning out to be a somewhat more sales-focused email than usual, but all this stuff is a strong value, so I feel fine about that.

There's a deadline looming: if you want the 22% early-bird discount on the 2-month Build A Cold Email Stack online workshop that I'm running starting on February 23, you'll need to register for the workshop before Monday, Feb 19th.

The simple way to explain what this workshop is about and what you'll get is: it's everything I've learned and refined over the past year -- including a lot of turnkey process that you can use as-is -- about getting inexpensive-to-produce content created and enjoyed by an audience of prospects and recommenders. It includes 8 hours of 1:1 implementation time with me (up to 60m/week) to adapt and integrate these ideas into your business. And it includes 12 hours of group discussion time (90m/week) to share learnings, discuss, argue, and connect.

I think that's a deal, even at the full price of $1,800, and especially at the early-bird price of $1,400. I'm around this weekend if you want to email me with questions beyond what the sales page answers, and if you need to relieve that itch in your buy-button finger now, I've got you covered :)

Last Week's For-Fun Poll

Last week's for-fun poll asked how long you could run your business for without Internet access. Jonathan Stark keenly suggested that a more interesting variant of the question would be: for how long could your business keep earning income without you personally having Internet access. That's a great distinction because it gets to the heart of one of the kinds of leverage you can build into your business, and if you're not already there, Jonathan's email list is a good place to get inspiration about increasing leverage in the solo/small expert firm.

Poll results:

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 1 hour (3)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 1 day (4)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 1 week (1)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Several weeks (1)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 1 month (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Several months (0)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (OMG please leave a comment if you choose this one 😁) (1)

10 Votes

Also got this awesome comment:

“I spent 4 to 6 month a year sailing around in Atlantic Ocean. Internet is very much dependent on our location. < 20 mile off coast : pretty fine, most of the time (beware of cliffs though :) Otherwise: you might send me an email. I may receive it. But not guaranteed. Hope this nourishes your thinking :)”

Thanks to all who weighed in on this one!

This Week's For-Fun Poll

I'm curious about how many if you have never done any form of what you yourself would consider marketing, and of that subset, how long you've continuously been in business for yourself.

Rules for this: you define what is/isn't marketing. Only respond if you've never done any form of what you would define as marketing your services.

Happy Caturday everybody! -P