Can Surveys Help You Find Your Tribe? - Christine Kane

What are the first steps of starting or starting over in your business?

The solution is in my head…I WILL make this work!

If you’re starting out or starting over in your business, you very well may have had these thoughts mulling through your mind.

Today’s #InstantUplevel question comes from Constance, who is hitting the reset button on her business, and wants to know how to get set up a good survey.

I would like to know how to set up a survey to ask questions of my friends to help me focus on what they are most interested in. I realize what my interest is sustainable, environmentally conscious, socially responsible products for interiors may be too broad to start with, so I need to find out what women want to know about these things first. Any ideas on how to go about that?

Constance feels like she’s wasted her time over the past year. A lot of times when we go through that process of something failing or not going well, we tend to go up into OUR HEADS and OVERTHINK.

It may be a little easier than you think to get started…or start over.

To start with, I know you’re asking about a survey, but I don’t think that’s what in order here.

Depending on what you’re going to do with this business, what I would do is start going to the places where your possible clients or customers are.

Have conversations with them.

Find out WHAT THEY WANT.

Intellectually, we may gravitate towards doing a survey so we can GET that data, but when you’re a solo business owner, some of the easiest ways to start is to attend networking events, and just have some CONVERSATIONS with people.

THIS is why being so up in your head can be so detrimental, because the truth of it is that TALKING to people will GENERATE more ideas than a hardcore survey.

And remember, the great thing about being in business is looking at your past experiences as research and development. What others call failure, we call R&D.

LET GO of the need to be ‘perfect’ and GET IT RIGHT! It keeps you LOCKED UP and away from IDEAS.

Let’s take this to a vote!

Do we take surveys or go out and talk to people? Which has worked for you?

4 COMMENTS ADD A COMMENT
  • Margie

    Totally agree it is so important to get out there and mingle with a purpose! I believe it’s important to know what you want to get out of the conversations as well so you can ask better questions to get better answers. Have a plan but be authentic. When starting out I found survey questions helpful in generating ideas allowing me to get more specific with quality questions I may never have thought of asking on my own. We only know what we know….Thank you for sharing!
    Margie~

  • Susan

    Getting out there and talking about it 🙂 Hands down!

    I love thinking of all of my past work as R&D, because that is definitely how I have been able to stay consistent with what works and learn from what does not.

    Thanks…love the instant upleveling videos, Christine!
    Susan

  • Susan Evans

    Collecting user insights is what I’ve done for a living for the past 20 years in corporate america. While surveys are a technique, they tend to only give direction but require additional future in-depth studies to be useful. Many people think after they conduct a survey the clouds will part and a beam of light will shine itself and illuminate the answer. I’ve never seen it happen. That’s not to say survey’s are bad. Carefully crafted they can help you hone in on the in-depth questions you should ask when you are face to face with someone. Bottom line, you need to talk to your peeps directly.

  • Constance DeWitt

    This is ME! You have found me out and I must confess, seeing it in print has made me realize the easiest way to discover what (women) people want is to ask them directly: to put myself in places where I can converse with everyone and anyone. Instead of seeing the problem as a hard nut to crack, I can just pick a spot (on that nut) and dive right in. So simple! What have I been waiting for?! Time to go do it.

    With gratitude,
    Connie