I originally started “I Will Teach You to Get Rich” as a free 1-hour course that I taught at Stanford. It was never designed to make money. It was just something cool that I wanted to do. When I heard friends complaining about money in the dining hall, I would say, “Wow, you should come take this class I put together.” It’s free, and takes about an hour, and I’ll show you all the basics of finance, banking, budgeting, saving, and investing.” The response has been VERY positive. People say, “Wow, that sounds amazing!”
And then they would never appear.
For 1.5 years, I struggled repeatedly for someone to show up. I asked myself, “Why am I trying so hard to give people GOOD, FREE information about things they really need to know?” I felt like I was a career counselor, one of the most underappreciated (and hopeless) professions.
After trying all kinds of strategies to get people to attend, including emailing THEM and trying to combine sessions, I changed methods. Instead of in-person events, I launched iwillteachyoutoberich.com so people could read it from the comfort of their dorm rooms. Later, I learned why this was successful: People don’t like going to events about money because (1) it makes them feel bad about themselves, (2) the events are usually boring and/or scams, and (3) people admit publicly that they don’t know about money.
It was a classic mistake of not understanding my users (change “customers” to your business).
Lesson learned: You MUST get inside the heads of your clients.
- What are they afraid of?
- What are their hopes?
- What do they care about most (Hint: How much it costs is almost never a priority).
Likewise, once you get inside their heads, you learn that how you serve your customers matters. (Is it an in-person event or a blog or a weekly phone call?) How you communicate with your client is important. And how you sell to prospects matters.