All month we’ve been sharing tips and tactics for defining your audience, complete with loads of interviews with experienced entrepreneurs on how they do it.

This week we feature two more interviews and listener questions covering some of these topics:

• Four audience journey questions (from an experienced advertising mind).
• Finding the blogger-give/audience-take balance.
• Plus a question showcasing the difference between a big and sucky audience and a small and profitable audience.

“The goats… oh god, the goats… Also, the Q&A. But the goats!”
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The Guide to Defining Your Audience

We’ve put together a handbook to help you get to clarity on your target market, ideal client, tribe, avatar, persona, whatever the kids are calling it these days. The guide includes:

• Bullet point notes on each of the expert interviews with links to specific tools they use.
• Worksheets and exercises to get to the truth about your audience so you can resonate and sell to them.
• The big list of questions to ask about your audience (including the two failsafe questions).
• Quick summaries of the most important concepts in customer development (that’s what the startup world calls it) to keep you on track (without wasting a bunch of time).

Download the guide and start cranking with these worksheets and insights from experts so you don’t make the mistake as the entrepreneur in the story I shared last week.

Download the Fizzle Audience Guide

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Experts in this episode

Jon Collins — “Director of Story @TrumanPDX Co-founder @epipheo I write epic novels in my head and impromptu children’s songs at bedtime.” — SincerelyTruman.com

Josh Chang — “I like to live. communications planning at Wieden+Kennedy. It’s like child and youth development.” — PanicAndRun.com

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Goats Note

A full 20% of the recent Fizzle planning retreat was spent watching this video and falling over with laughter. I can’t for the life of me figure out which is my favorite. But I’ve chosen what I think is the most “Fizzle Show-ish” goat yelling clip and made it the intro to this episode. What do you think?

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Show Notes

Urban Dictionary: how’s your father — Go for a ride.

Hey Batter Batter! — This is an epic bit from Brian Reagan I reference in the show. What are we, rabbits?

Corbett’s Choosing A Topic Course in Fizzle — Choosing a topic for your business (or blog, podcast, platform, etc.) is an incredibly important decision. In this 70m course Corbett walks you through listing potential business topics and implementing the impartial decision matrix (a lil’ thing he uses to stay smarter than me). If you’re not a member, you can get in for a buck.

Chris Guillebeau: The Lesson of Convergence — “Many people talked about building a business based on a hobby or passion. However, others cautioned that “follow your passion” is more complicated than it first appears.”

240 Mornings — “On a given day you may easily start or work on multiple things, but actually completing them takes the most amount of work and focus.”

NextDraft: The Day’s Most Fascinating News with Dave Pell — Mentioned in Joseph’s question.

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Learn how to set goals that actually stick!

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The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business

Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.

One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.

These conversations have been fascinating, so we compiled a list of the 10 mistakes we hear most often into a nifty lil' guide. Get the 10 Most Common Mistakes in Starting an Online Business here »