Peter Winick explains why thought leaders fail when they try to serve everyone. You need detailed client avatars, specific psychographic and demographic profiles, and the courage to decide who you won't serve. His podcast launched 20 months ago with 160 episodes featuring Dan Pink and Stephen M.R. Covey.
What you just said was key. You can't be all things to all people, and if you try to be, you're going to be nothing to no one.
Exactly, exactly. So I would rather— I mean, our process, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, is getting— and people are afraid to do this, people don't have the courage to do this— let me spend some time and develop my client avatars. So who are the types of people, psychographic, demographic, whatever, that I can serve better than anybody, and I want to serve them, and I know I have the impact for them? Conversely, You've just said, I don't want to deal with these people. And that's cool. So for example, I launched my podcast the beginning of last year. So 20 months ago, we've done, I think, 160 episodes. And my vision, which— How many? 160, something like that. We've had some cool people. We've had Dan Pink on. I've had Steven M. R.
Covey. Daniel Pink.
Yep. Steven M. R. Covey. I've had Chip Conley. I've had some great, great, great, great folks on. My vision, however, has always been If people were listening into it, if it, you know, we're doing it at a Starbucks or something, to 99.5% of the universe, they would walk by and go, that's the most boring shit I ever heard in my life. And people said to me, well, why do you only want to go after the 0.5%? Because that's probably even too big. I know who my business is. I know who I work with. I know who we resonate with. And that's all I care about attracting. I don't want people reaching out to me that have no money, that I can't serve, that are whatever. So I think part of knowing who you are helps you figure out who you can't. work with. So you got to figure out who are those avatars that you can help. Then you got to say, well, what are the pain points they have? What are the things that are keeping them up at night that you are uniquely qualified to solve? And you've got a better mousetrap. Better mousetrap means it's got to be quicker, cheaper, faster, better than what they're doing. And by definition, it has to be a problem. Don't be a solution, you know, don't be a problem, uh, that doesn't need to be solved. That's an irritant. What is something, one of the top 3 things that are keeping these people up at night, that once you get them in the palm of your hand, you're going to close them?
