900: How One Tiny Survey Helped Me Rebuild My Business with More Clarity and Alignment

0:01Ready to turn your brilliant podcast idea into reality. If you've been dreaming about launching a podcast, there's never been a better time to start. The podcasting world is thriving and your unique voice is exactly what it needs. I am thrilled to invite you to my free live masterclass, Podcasting 101, How to Start, Record, and Profit from Your Show. And I only teach it live once a year. In this one hour masterclass, you'll learn how to start podcasting with equipment you already own, create content that attracts listeners around the clock, and make money from your show in ways that go beyond sponsorships.

0:37As my gift for joining me live, you'll receive my ultimate equipment checklist featuring my exact professional setup, plus budget-friendly recommendations that'll have you sounding like a pro from episode one. You'll walk away with a clear action plan and everything you need to finally move from idea to launched podcast. Claim your spot now at freepodcastclass.com. That's freepodcastclass.com. The world is waiting to hear what you have to say. Join me at freepodcastclass.com.

1:11Introducing your new Dell PC powered by the Intel Core Ultra Processor. It helps you handle a lot, even when your holiday to-do list gets to be a lot. Because it's built with an all-day battery, plus powerful AI features that help you do it all with ease. from editing images to drafting emails to summarizing large documents to multitasking. So you can organize your holiday shopping and make custom holiday decor and search for great holiday deals and respond to holiday requests and customer questions and customers requesting custom things and plan the perfect holiday dinner for vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, and Uncle Mike's carnivore diet.

1:47Luckily, you can get a PC that helps you do it all faster so you can get it all done. That's the power of a Dell PC with Intel Inside, backed by Dell's price match guarantee. Get yours today at dell.com slash deals. Terms and conditions apply. See dell.com for details.

2:10If you've ever found yourself creating content, offers, or strategies based on what you think will work, but not knowing what your people actually want right now, This episode is your permission slip to pause and ask.

2:50of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast.

3:26It is absolutely wild to think that the last time I ran a full-blown audience check-in was back in 2020. Since then, life has shifted. The online world has evolved. And honestly, so have we. From hustle and grind energy to craving more margin, meaning, and intentional growth, it felt like the perfect time to pause and ask instead of assume. In this episode, I am joined by my right-hand gal, Marissa, the brains behind our brand new audience survey. And we're peeling back the curtain on why this season felt like the exact right moment to check in. We're walking through how we built a wildly strategic zero-fluff survey that doesn't just collect interesting insights, but fuels actual decisions, shows us what to create next, and makes our business work better for real people just like you.

4:13You'll hear how AI helped us shape the questions. Yes, we go there. Where my own resistance showed up because there was a lot and how powerful it is to stop guessing what your people need and just ask. If you want to see the survey in action, we would love it to not only have you look at it, but take it. And you can be entered to win a$500 Amazon gift card. Take our survey right now. It takes like three minutes in 36 seconds. Head to jennacutcher.com forward slash survey. I would love to have you take it and you're going to hear why. Let's dive in. Okay. This episode feels so fun and I could not do this episode alone.

4:53So Marissa, welcome back to the show. Hi, hi. Thank you for having me. It's good to be back. Really? It's so good. I feel like I bring you up in every single episode. there's not an episode that I don't feel like I name drop you like you're a Hollywood star because you are in my universe. So today I really wanted to bring you on because what we're going to talk about is literally your brainchild and it really came from you. And we're going to laugh a little bit too, because I had some major resistance against this topic. So you can hear kind of mine and Marissa's relationship, the one that I talk about on basically every episode.

5:28But first I wanted to paint the scene of where we are and why this feels so timely. And then I also want to turn it to you, the listener, as to why this is something that you should absolutely consider. And if you have the same resistances I had, hopefully by the end of this, you will be entirely convinced that those are not real. So one thing that's so interesting, and Marissa reminded me of this, is that we have not done a survey on our audience since 2020. And for most of us, 2020 feels like yesterday. I mean, part of me feels like it's yesterday and part of me feels like it's a literal lifetime ago.

6:03Don't you agree? Absolutely. It was yesterday. Yes. It's so weird. And so to consider that five years has gone by, I've been an entrepreneur for 15 years. So 30 % of my journey in entrepreneurship have gone by since serving our audience. And it's so interesting because the conversations I'm having offline with other people in our industry and with other just friends and peers is that everything is changing so much. I was talking to a friend yesterday and she was saying that she thinks in the next six months, we're going to see the biggest shift of all time that we've seen in our journey of entrepreneurship.

6:40And I honestly have to agree. And so it's so interesting because when I thought about how much time has passed and also how much I personally have changed in the last five years, it does make sense that our audience is also changing and shifting too. One thing that I thought was so interesting is that HubSpot did this 2024 state of the marketing report. So not even from this year, but from last year. And it was saying that 53 % of marketers say that audience behavior is harder to predict than ever before. And I think that is so real. I think a lot of businesses are feeling it. I think a lot of industries are experiencing it.

7:20I think a lot of people are seeing that like things that work so well, so easy, so predictably before are leaving us with like question marks or like scratching your head, like what's going on? So I just think this is really interesting and it truly has been a perfect time to do this. So give us your take on this, Marissa, because this seriously came from you. It was your idea. You push for it? Why? There are so many components to this. And as you said, too, I'm sure there are so many listening who have felt the shift. We started to feel this shift when we started the year, even alongside our first launch.

7:58And we've heard many say that we are in what could be called a trust recession, right? Like the world, the climate is changing, as we've talked about. AI is here and we're still unsure how to fully utilize it without losing that human connection. And so on top of that, we just knew that we needed to take a pause and it had been a minute. And think about this too, since 2020, your book launched, your ecosystem, your evolution, it widened. And so even from there and inviting so many new individuals into our world, it was just not only the season of life right now, just the season of the world, but also just in the evolution of you and your business.

8:47And so we knew when starting to craft the bones of this plan that we needed to take a pause. We needed to take a pulse. We needed to build something to where we could truly listen and not build from assumption, but truly alignment. And so now was the perfect time if ever to do this and really tune in. And it's so funny because it was kind of a perfect storm in terms of like the survey coming to fruition. In our summer months, we don't do any big launches. So we do have more bandwidth to toss things in. But also we have a huge project going on behind the scenes, which we'll talk about in an upcoming episode of switching our CRM platform, which is our email platform over.

9:35And it really has kind of ignited this fire in us of like, what are our best resources? How do we speak to the right audience? How do we give them exactly what they need? We weren't approaching a survey from like a data mining standpoint of like, we're going to use this and we're going to make this offer and we're going to shove it down your throats. It was actually quite the opposite. It was like, we want to reach you and serve you on a better level. And there are no new offers coming out of the woodwork, but really it's like, we want to speak more clearly and directly. And so it was this beautiful, beautiful timing of like me getting obsessed with welcome sequences and email marketing and Marissa being like, hold the phone.

10:22Who are we welcoming? What do they need? And I'm like, wait, what? And so it was this really beautiful time where we both had these really passionate projects happening. And side by side, they coexisted in such an awesome way where we could both see the value of, wow, this actually would be incredibly helpful. And you, I got to give it to you. You pushed for this. And maybe we should talk about some of my hesitations, right? Yes. Because I think we need to note here too, like when we say even the term survey, right? Like survey is not sexy. It's not enticing. You know what I mean? And so I do want to dig into like your feelings around that and like when that word landed and how you felt towards it.

11:07Okay. Yeah. You're so right. It's so not sexy. And the thing is, is in my mind, and maybe this is because I am so wired on like time is my currency is that I'm like, who's going to take a survey? Like, you know, when you're like walking through the mall and there's those people with the clipboards and you literally just like want to dart the other direction, you're like, I don't have time for this. And so when you brought it up, I think I had a lot of fear around like, who's going to have time for this or who's going to make time for this or who's going to see the value in this. I feel like I worried also that we would get inundated with information that we didn't know what to do with.

11:52So in the past, I have done quizzes and surveys and we're so excited about them, which this is so my human design, right? Like so excited. This is the best thing ever. And it is amazing. And then I don't necessarily take those insights and put them into action. And so maybe there was a piece of my ADHD brain that was worried that we were going to get all of this information and it maybe would make things feel cloudy or worse, I would feel guilt or shame that we weren't actually utilizing those insights. Thank God for you because you would never let that happen. But I think those are my biggest fears is who's going to do this?

12:32Like what's in it for them? Why would they do it? I also wanted a really fair sampling of our audience. So since the audience is so wide, I didn't just want my Instagram followers or I didn't just want my podcast listeners. I wanted it to be a real clear view of like how wide our audience is and making sure that we're not just getting one little tiny sample. That's not maybe a clear detection of like what is true for the whole. And then my third fear was probably that how were we going to integrate this and make this information super useful? And you basically thought of responses for all of those.

13:09So let's talk about the first thing. I was worried, why would anybody take this? Walk me through how you set it up the way you did and like with the incentive that you created. Yes. So let me share this nugget as well. If you are working alongside a creative, fast moving visionary manifesting generator, one of the best things you can do is truly package up everything you need and deliver that with all of the context and logic and so that you can truly walk them through why this is the right path or why this should be done. It's so helpful. It sounds like you've learned this through doing many times.

13:49Just say, gold nuggets him there. And so when we started to craft and I was thinking through the questions that we really, we wanted to know. First, I lined item, here's what I personally think we need to know. The other piece of the puzzle here is not only did we have an intention of pulse checking our audience. One of the things I want to keep in mind was pulse checking health of the business too, right? Because when we are creating these questions, you know, we're looking at not only do we want to build what's next and create what's next for our people to serve them well, but we also need to serve our business well too.

14:26And so that is how I started to build those questions. Then I'm going to get into bringing in AI as my unbiased sounding board. Okay. And so the way that I used chat GPT, and let me say too, like I was not handing the keys to chat. Okay. We call her chatty. We, I was not handing, yeah, I was not handing her the keys. I was giving her direction. So after I had line itemed out the questions that I thought would then be tied to action that we could take in insights that were necessary. Then I uploaded information to give it some context around our audience, what we already know to be true. So for instance, our media kit, uploading some past audience insights, and then giving it a very clear prompt around how I wanted to analyze that information and evaluate it so that it could help me improve the questions.

15:21Because I think a lot of times as creators, we build in bubbles, right? and we have blind spots. And so this allowed me to rework just clunky questions, merge overlaps. And so it allowed us to simplify without sacrificing the depth of the questions that we wanted to ask, which, you know, things I could have missed, gaps that needed to be filled. And so that's how I started the process. And it saved us time. It sharpened our thinking. And I think it just made the overall build process even more seamless and strategic. Well, I loved it too, because Marissa has learned with me where she basically was like, all right, I basically got everything created for this.

16:06I was like, this is epic. So then we went through and at one point I was like, can we jump in a huddle and let's like walk through these questions? Because one of the things that we have learned, especially as we've gotten more integrated with data in the business, is there is a difference between something being interesting and something being useful, right? We learned that. And that was probably one of our biggest takeaways of like, if we're asking for a data point or we want insight into something, is that just merely interesting and like, oh, wow, that's cool. Or is it like, okay, here's how I'm going to take this information and actually use it and make a difference with it.

16:43And so when we were looking at the questions, there was a few where like, for example, there was one that I was like, well, let's ask people what their favorite type of podcast episode is. And then I was thinking about it and I'm like, okay, based on this insight, are we going to change how we're doing the podcast? Because we still need to have diverse topics and we can't just go all in on one. And so then we scrapped that question, right? Because it was like, how is that? That's interesting. Yeah. But like, that's not actually useful information in that context. Right. And so that's just an example of one where it's like cool to know, but not really useful.

17:19And we wanted to make sure that it was as succinct as possible without losing the depth of what we were trying to gather. And so that was really fun. Like we were going back and forth of like, okay, what about this one? Well, this one is kind of similar to this one. Is there a way to combine these two? Should we keep this one open ended so people can describe themselves? Because sometimes when I get to like a website and it asks me like, what type of business do you run? I'm like, I don't know. Is it marketing? Is it education? Is it coaching? Like, what is it? And so we had some fun. And I think part of what was so awesome about going back and forth that way was we were challenging each other.

17:54Like, well, what do we do with this? Or what does this look like? One thing that was really interesting, and I will probably say this is some of the best money we've ever spent is the way that we incentivized people to take the survey is that we are giving away a$500 Amazon gift card. So if You take the survey, it takes about three minutes. You can get entered to win the Amazon gift card. Now, a lot of people might say, oh my gosh,$500. It's a lot of money. And maybe it's$100. Maybe it's$50. Maybe it's$20 based on your audience. But if you can get a peek inside the inner world of the people that you are trying to serve so that you can serve them better, I will argue it is worth absolutely every penny.

18:37Is there any logic behind that? What was your thought in that process? Well, I thought it was universal, right? Because we had considered to, you know, maybe access to our programs or a suite of access like that. However, we wanted it to be accessible. We wanted it to be universal that anyone could apply it for the needs that they have. And so I think as well, just like Jenna said, it can be an any incremental amount. It can also be time with you if your audience is smaller and, you know, they get to have a one-on-one coaching session with you, or it can be more intimate. Like it can be whatever you want it to be.

19:15We're talking through what ours look like, but don't let that, you know, not allow you to create what's the right fit for you. I would say so. Yeah. I love that. And I think you just want it to be juicy enough that people are willing to take the time. And one thing that we did is we literally like timed how long it took to take. So we could say it takes three minutes and 36 seconds or whatever it was, because we wanted to also just show people, this isn't going to take a lot of your time. We're not going to ask if anyone has ever clicked in on a survey. And all of a sudden it's like the little tiny bar at the top is barely moving.

19:49And you're like, Oh my gosh, this thing is like 150 questions. I'm never going to finish it. Or you click out of that tab and you promise yourself, you'll go back to it. You will never go back to it. And so we just made sure that in communicating it, we're like, it's super simple. This is how long it takes, et cetera. And here's what's in it for you. You're entered to win a$500 gift card. And so I just thought that was super, super smart. I wanted to insert this other thing we did differently this time. And it was your idea. And I actually really do think it was advantageous to those walking through it was in past, we've always required all responses to each question.

20:27And this time with having people's time in mind and not boxing them into answering everything if they didn't feel fit, we didn't require anything. And I feel as if it's actually resulted in more response completion because we're giving the user the freedom to really deliver the information that they want to share with us. And so I do want to note that because I think it was a powerful, small, but mighty shift that we did make this time. I love that. And I think it just comes from a place of two. It's like, we're coming at this from such an honest desire of like, how can we do this better? Or, or how can we just meet you where you're at?

21:10That's probably the best way to describe it. And it was, it was like, just, uh, no, we didn't, none of it's like, whatever you are willing to share with us matters. And one thing I think we've been doing such a good job at and something that I know we're all enjoying is like really opening up for two-way conversation. I think that marketing, and especially as your audience grows, there comes this belief of like, I don't have time for that. Whether you have a thousand followers or a million followers, sometimes, you know, at the beginning, you're scrappy, you're responding to every comment, every DM.

21:45And I feel like some people shift into this idea of like, I don't have time for that. I always have time for that. And I think that our marketing at some point shifted more towards us speaking to people, but not necessarily inviting in that conversation and that dialogue. And as Marissa said, they're calling this the trust recession. And it's like, we are real humans here. We want to know, like we are actually responding yesterday, a gal sent me a DM about a podcast episode I had done and I voice memoed her back. She had sent this beautiful long message starting with, I don't know if you'll ever read this.

22:23And I just took the time to say, Hey, I read this. I read everything. Thank you so much for sending this. And then she sent a voice message back and she was like, I cannot believe you took the time to do that. And I think that when you are in a position of serving others, if you don't keep that dialogue open, you have no idea who you're speaking to. And what I'm loving, and we can start talking a little bit about like the data and what we're already seeing is I am not surprised by the results. I feel like really excited by them, but there hasn't been anything where I'm like, Whoa, what? Which is exciting to me.

23:06All right, let's take a quick breather and thank the sponsors who helped make this show possible. And while we're on this short break, I want for you to think about this. What is one question you could ask your audience right now that might unlock a whole new direction for your next offer? Because up next, we're talking about how we brought AI into the mix, but in a way that still sounded just like me. Stay with me. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury, banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Okay, I remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey, clients would literally mail me checks and then I would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them.

23:43It took me literal years to make things go digital. And I am ashamed to admit I still have a filing cabinet with paper contracts because I'm way too afraid to throw them away. But that's the beauty of growth, right? You learn what systems serve you and which ones hold you back. Mercury is one of those systems that just works. Where traditional banking websites and apps are clunky and hard to use, Mercury is meticulously designed to make doing just about anything with your money feel effortless. And the best part is it flexes to fit all types of businesses. Ready to see what powerful banking can do for your business?

24:19Visit mercury.com to apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. For important details, check the show notes. You know, I only share stuff I'm genuinely obsessed with. And so when I kept seeing Bowling Branch sheets all over Instagram. I was like, okay, are these actually worth the hype? Drew and I have been using their sheets and duvets for over a year now. And honestly, our bedroom feels like a completely different space. The moment you touch these sheets, you'll get it. They're incredibly soft to start, but they literally get softer every time you wash them. They're made from 100 % organic cotton.

24:56So they're super durable and they're breathable, which is perfect for piling on cozy layers without turning into a furnace at 2am. This is hands down the best bedding I've slept on and I'm so genuinely excited for you to try it. Start building your sanctuary of comfort this fall with Bowl & Branch. For a limited time, get 20 % off your first set of sheets plus free shipping at bowlandbranch.com slash golddigger. That's bowlandbranch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash golddigger to save 20 % and unlock free shipping. Exclusions apply. So one of the things that I think would be interesting before we talk about like how the execution has gone on is let's talk a little bit more about using AI in the process.

25:41You already touched on it, but I think that it is an amazing tool to help you not only create the best, most compelling survey, but also to help you discern the results, right? So it can kind of serve in every aspect of the survey building process. So if you are listening to this and you don't have a Marissa, gosh, I feel bad for you, but how can you invite in a non-biased partner to help you ask the best questions? So Marissa used it on the front end. So she created, then brought it in and said, show me my blind spots. Help me refine this. Help me with wording. We went back and forth a few different times saying, okay, these two feel similar.