Stand The F*ck Out: The No-Nonsense Guide to Positioning Your Business, Finding Your People, and Building a Durable Brand

Exclusively learn from people who have recently invested resources—such as time, money, and/or effort—to address the problem you’re interested in solving (as shown in Figure 1.1).

To make a meaningful difference for a specific group of people so they pick you, the key is to identify struggles your segment really wants to solve but that alternatives don’t solve well or just ignore completely.

I call them ignored struggles. They are the super-frustrating problems that prevent a certain group of people from getting a job done, which the competition isn’t solving well.

we first need to find the job, which is the goal that people want to achieve so they know which direction they want to go.

This means understanding how you address customer challenges that others might overlook.

Open-ended questions like this invite detailed responses and uncover the “why” behind people’s actions.

the most valuable insights focus on individuals who have recently invested resources (time, money, effort) in solving the problem your product addresses, as their experiences will be fresh and relevant.

When folks are buying stuff, they're not actively seeking out differences between them.22 Instead, they're focused on reaching a job within the specific context they find themselves in.

Start by gathering all your data in one place. Then prioritize the most compelling pieces—the ones that resonate with you and align with your ideal customer. Think about the reviews that jumped out at you, the interviews that sparked your curiosity, and the customer interactions that left a lasting impression.

To get to the ignored struggles, we first need to know the exact goal the people in our segment want to reach (the job). This helps us find what’s stopping them from achieving it.