Testing & Offering Something New

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When I need to restart my business in a new region, there's a built-in need to test offering my services and skills to different people.  There's a built-in need to meet new people and make new connections.  There's a built-in need to better understand a new place and the perceptions of the people who reside within it.  I have to see how they respond, what they like, what they don't like, and what they value before I can understand how my service or product fits into their needs.  I also need to understand what questions they have, so that I can consider more thoughtful answers.  I have to do all of those things even when I already fully understand how people perceive what I'm offering every other place I've ever lived, because every single market, city, state, country, etc. is just a little bit different.

Since the information I need about new clients is stored in their heads and not mine, I have to talk to a lot of people in the community about the work I do and ask them questions in order to see how they respond.  Having people click a thumbs-up icon on facebook or a heart-icon on instagram isn't nearly as helpful as having face to face conversations with full body language included.  I learn so much more in a shorter period of time by talking to as many people as possible about the kind of work I do and why I'm passionate about it than by doing something like running ads or just posting online.

This is true when changing careers, changing industries, entering a new market segment, introducing a new product in the market, or doing anything in a new space or with a new audience.  We need to talk to people about what we're creating in order to get rich feedback.  The more we listen to the feedback of others, the more we can cultivate an offer and find the right market.

When I started testing the waters with being a reiki practitioner and whether or not I wanted to offer it to more people, I attended several local BNI meetings in NYC, where I had to deliver a 30 second pitch about what reiki is and who it's for.  BNI is a small-business-focused networking environment designed for speaking publicly about your offer and pitch in a short period of time, which is great for testing something new and getting immediate feedback.

During the causal BNI networking time before and after the formal part of the meeting, I also had a chance to ask questions, and I learned that the people who did not know what reiki was either nodded like they knew until I asked about their experience, or they just admitted they didn't know what it was.  When people really knew what it was, they immediately conveyed their prior experience, a healing story, or a story of someone else they know who practices reiki.  These conversations really helped me understand what percentage of people in this metropolitan area already had some experience or understanding with what I was offering, and how much advance education I'd need to do if I were going to make an offer, as well as how to identify what issues reiki could help with.

Another thing that happens when speaking to other people face to face about what I'm offering is that I contextualize my description differently based on the person I'm speaking with.  For the waiter who goes to the gym all the time, I describe reiki as a relaxing therapeutic method that can be similar to massage, but without roughing up muscle tissue.  For the cardiologist, I describe reiki as a method of practice that can help people regulate their own heart rate better, and it can be learned as a personal self-care practice or received hands-on as a therapeutic practice.  In one case, when I encountered a cardiologist, I also learned I didn't even have to describe it, because it was already in his medical understanding- so I got to check my perceptions as well about who may or may not understand it.  The main point is that by speaking about what I'm creating or working on with different people, I'm forced to make it relevant and understandable to many different types of people, which expands my vocabulary about what the work is and how it is relevant for different people.

This change of career, change of offering, and change of market is the first time I've really needed to reintroduce myself to people I've already met, as well as finding new people and new markets to introduce myself to, while living in the same place.  I'm discovering that it's much easier to step into a new city and introduce myself in a completely new way than it is to remain in a city with the same network I've had while going through a process of introducing a totally different direction to people who had already placed me into a comfortable and understandable box in their brain.  It's not really "difficult" to do this, it just takes time to catch everyone up on all the changes.  

Some people don't get the memo that I've made a big change until I see them again in person, so it can be a regular retelling of the change in direction story for a good year or more with people who had already known me under one industry title (Photographer) and now need an update on my change in direction (Reiki).  Luckily, most people I stay in touch with are totally cool with this change and still like staying connected even if we're in different industries.  Smart people stay connected no matter what because it can mean more referrals for them.

Ironically, the process of reintroducing myself and new work to familiar connections is almost the same as just starting up a new business in a new city anyway.  If there's anything I've learned over the last 14 years of working for myself and moving to multiple cities, it's how to introduce whatever I'm doing to an entirely new group of people as quickly as possible.  Doing this process with people who already know me is what makes this particular transition more unique than the others I've done.

Another thing that makes this particular transition unique for me is that I've been traveling a lot internationally and I have more international travel ahead, which means changing a lot of things about how I'm used to working.  So, I've been testing and trying more ways of working asynchronously so that I can have more time for adventures offline or just time to deal with spotty internet connections while traveling.  Photography required me to be with a client in person on a specific time frame, which just doesn't work when I don't even know exactly where I'll be in a week or a month down the road- let alone several weeks or months.

One way I've been building capacity for working asynchronously is to put everything I regularly help people with during consulting sessions into a DIY workbook format that makes it easy to go through the process I've perfected in a very simple step-by-step way.  It's a lot of time investment up front before there's a return on that investment of time, but getting it into the hands of people who can test the workbook part by part allows me to make progress on it more quickly before bringing it to the public.  I'm very proud of what this workbook will mean for the future of self-employed creatives and I can't wait to share it publicly.  There are still parts of the process that are a challenge to put on paper when I'm used to doing them it quickly in my head, so it takes time to break down the process into parts and pieces that can be accomplished in a simple step-by-step way.  I also have another book in the works, but if I can get the workbook done and ready first, that would be a huge packaging of so many things I've learned and would love for others to be able to do for themselves.

Another thing I've been testing is an asynchronous method of energetic and intuitive body readings, using what I've learned from reiki and medical intuitive clients.  It still requires getting permission from a client up front, but I've learned that I can do the work over a few days without the client needing to be present on video or the phone, and I can deliver the work in a tangible format that makes it easier for the client to undestand.  

In order to test whether I could do this work asynchronously and it would be viable and valuable to a client, I made a very easy and affordable offer to a facebook group of people who are open to taking a chance on a type of intuitive work they may not have experienced yet.  I limited the offer to a certain number of people and a certain timeframe in order to make sure I could deliver on my promise without being overwhelmed.  I learned that I was able to work with 6 people over the course of 3 days, which also helped me understand that I could only do 2 readings each day due to the energetic and entanglement nature of the work.  The clients provided feedback that let me know the work was still just as valid, confirming, and insightful even if I wasn't working in a synchronous way with them on the phone.  That was pretty cool, and when I feel ready to package that and make it available online, I'll gather a few more testimonials from clients about the process, and probably create a video about the process to help people better understand what's possible and why they might want to try it.

While my announcement in November about leaving photography and focusing on reiki may have felt abrupt or fast to people who don't speak with me offline, this process has not been without extensive testing along the way to see if I feel comfortable stepping into this new space and ready to deal with the challenges that may come along with it.  Testing my offerings and speaking with people was the only way I knew I could potentially pursue it all more fully.  I needed those conversations and confirmations along the way to feel confident about taking those next steps, regardless of whether I felt like I'd actually figured it all out.

I hope my personal examples and story inspire you to test anything new you're considering doing.  Life is far too expansive to limit yourself into one thing your entire life, or to never try to pursue something you're deeply passionate about.  You don't have to give everything up to test something out, you just have to be willing to be open with people that you're testing something you're curious about and looking for people who are open to trying it out.  You just might be surprised by who is willing to take you up on your offer, and where it goes from there.