One of the things I am trying to get better at this year is meeting with people. 😅
I try not to have too many meetings, and really save that energy for meetings that MUST happen for one reason or another. (Hello, fellow introverts or “introverted extraverts” lol)
What this means as a solopreneur who works from home is that there are many days when the only people I actually *speak* to are my wife, son, and mom.
And it’s isolating.
Cue all of the emo feels ….
I see my peers online, many of them showing their highlight reels (understandably), and I’m just left with my perception and my self-sabotaging brain to interpret how things are going for them and how my skills stack up to theirs.
Now, before you say it, I know. Comparison is the thief of joy. I know. I’m working on it. Social media is awful for your mental health. I know.
But most of my business comes from referrals, and when I let social die, my pipeline dies. So I gotta be there.
So, my solution is to try actually to talk to people more, imagine that 🤣
I met with Matthew Mellinger from SEO Gets. He had reached out to me on LinkedIn after I posted about GA4 Helper’s Settings Checker being mentioned by Jori Ford at SEOIRL. He basically said that he had used the product and encouraged me to keep building, which was very kind ❤️
I responded by first thanking him, then promptly asking him for a meeting. I wanted to hear all about his experience building SEO Gets.
& like most of the fantastic people in the industry do, he quickly said, “of course,” and sent me his calendar.
When I tell you it’s been YEARS since I’ve learned that much in an hour, I fucking mean it.
The coolest thing about the digital marketing world is the people, hands down. So many are an open book, and Matt is no exception.
He shared, in detail, about the last year and a half of building SEO Gets to where it is today.
In particular, he shared two links that absolutely changed the way I look at GA4 Helper, the Settings Checker, and really my business in general.
The first one was a link to a post entitled “Your customers hate MVPs. Make a SLC instead.” by Jason Cohen.
I was stoked for this because he brought up how they use “Simple. Lovable. Complete.” as the guidepost for SEO Gets many times in our conversation before sharing the article. 😜
If you haven’t read this article, I HIGHLY recommend it. Even if you sell a service, it makes so much sense. And it sent me down a rabbit hole. At this point, I’ve read half a dozen of Cohen’s articles and taken SO many notes.
Here are a few I have bookmarked:
https://longform.asmartbear.com/more-value-not-save-money/ - this one BLEW MY MIND lololol
This work got my brain firing on all cylinders. I had to take so many breaks while reading these to think, take notes, and just let the information sink in.
The idea of Simple. Loveable. Complete. had the biggest impact though, I’ll be honest.
When I looked at the current state of Settings Checker specifically (with the help of Claude, of course), I realized that there was so much missing.
I knew users were expecting it to do more. Lucky Orange screen recording would show people clicking on un-clickable modals over and over again, expecting them to do something.
EXAMPLE:
Get recommendation to clean up key events —> Click “view reports” —> Go to Key Events section —> Click INCESSANTLY on a specific event
In my head, I thought they were trying to open something that would allow them to unmark the key event right then and there. But I don’t want a platform with edit access to hundreds of GA4 properties, lol, that sounds ScARy.
But, if I consider the idea of “complete,” it makes sense - what the hell are they supposed to do with this information??
I already had a fix wizard somewhat built on the backend, so in a day and a half, I built and shipped it. 🤷♀️
Now you can get step-by-step fix instructions with every single recommendation.
I’m stoked about this. I can’t wait to see how people use it.
“Simple” and “lovable” didn’t get ignored, though. I changed much of the language on the overview page to make it easier to understand and more compelling to take action.
There is still work to do, but it feels like a massive step in the right direction.
The other link Matt shared with me was to the Product-Led Growth book by Wes Bush. Like, the whole book is free? It’s just on that web page!
You can also buy a hard copy, too, if you’re into that (or into supporting authors).
In full transparency, I’m only on chapter 9. Again, this was a book I kept having to take breaks from to write down my thoughts on how it could apply to what I want GA4 Helper to be, and really take in the information.
One thing about me, I LOVE a framework (have you seen the BEAST Cycle? or my bucketing system for strategies? lol). & this book is chock full of them!
A lot of the book focuses on which lead funnel makes sense for you and your users. The options they really focus on are demo requests, free trials, or freemium tiers.
There are many frameworks and even a quiz that helps you determine which option makes sense for your product.
Then there are tactical recommendations on how to structure every part of your business, depending on the option you choose.
You should always be focused on time-to-value. How quickly are users/customers/clients getting value from your product or service? If you want to keep people around and engaged, you’ve got to add value as soon as possible.
There are three functions that make people buy
function - completes a task
emotional - creates (or eases) a feeling
social - makes them look good
The 10x rule for pricing. You want your users to get 10x the value from your product. So, if you are creating $1000 in value, you should charge $100. This is probably the only pricing model that has ever actually made sense to me. I love something concrete and immediately actionable.
Matt also offered many ideas on how I could move forward. I don’t necessarily want to build a SaaS, and that becomes “my thing.”
I’m having fun learning how to build and building tools that make my life easier. But the goal was always to build something that attracts new BEAST Analytics clients, something I’m realizing now may not actually be working lol.
But, I’m not walking away. Just thinking. A lot.
I’ve had two more meetings since meeting with Matt that had me attacking GA4 Helper and BEAST from another angle too, so there is a lot to think about (the great thing about talking to a ton of people, right?!)
What was the last thing that shook up your thinking? What are you building?? I’d love to hear about it!
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