For many young professionals in 2020 and 2021, we put our extra time to use attempting to start a new creative endeavor. Perhaps it was a blog, a podcast, or more traditional business. Starting a creative side hustle may seem like it’s about you, but actually it’s not. Yes, it’s your side hustle and your ideas – but if you want it to be a success, it cannot be about you at all – it has to be all about your customers/consumers! If you want to launch and grow a successful business, you have to be 100% customer-focused.

Whether that means doing more research, talking more to end users, analyzing more data or using a tool like the Userzoom’s UX testing tool, or doing focus groups, it’s important to make sure you truly understand who your end users/customers are and what they’re after. Potentially this will mean changing your plans because your customers have spoken. Do it. Businesses are all in the service industry – serving the customer!

Knowing What Your Customers Want

To begin with, you need to know what your customers want – and never assume. Instead, you need to ask them. Do some research, ask them questions – do whatever it takes to understand your customer and know that they’re going to buy what you’re creating. When you’re asking the questions, don’t ask leading questions, or automatically start by pitching your product. Have a conversation about who they are and what their pain points are.

What’s In It For Me?

Even when you think you know what the customers want (or you know you know), it’s time to project it in everything you do. Because your customers will always want to know what’s in it for them – or WIFM as it’s called. They want self-improvement, they want to feel good, they want some kind of value added to their lives. So now you have to show them what’s in it for me when it comes to what you have to sell. In every aspect of your business, from your website to how you interact via email or in person, to how they decide what to go, and how they pay you – try to make it as easy and as meaningful as possible.

Meeting Their Needs

As simple as it sounds, so many side hustles or businesses get caught up in other things and forget that ultimately you’re trying to meet your customer’s needs. You know what they want, you’re saying that you’ve got it – but have you? Make sure that your product or service is up to scratch. Make sure that you’re keeping them happy. And make sure that you’re delivering on your promises if you want to do well. How can you tell if you’re meeting their needs? Are you seeing repeat customers? Are you seeing positive reviews? Are you seeing customers tell their friends who are coming to you?

Striving To Do More

But then you’re going to want to improve on that and always look to do more. Don’t just meet their expectations, surpass them. As you’re starting to get more inspiration for business ideas and ways to improve, make sure they’ll serve your audience. Test them out, ask for feedback, just make it your mission to help others and improve their lives. Because this is the simplest way to find success with what you’re doing. Better, better, never best!

Growing As They Grow

It’s also useful for you to think about your business growth in terms of how your audience will grow. As much as you may think you know what they want, you may not. It could be that they will tell you (with their buying habits and their interactivity on site) that they’re interested in and what they want. So have a loose plan, by all means, but try not to force the direction of your business. Grow with your customers and give them all of the things they need from your brand.

After all, starting a business can seem like a selfish or self-invested thing to do, but if it’s going to be a success it has to be all about your audience. So as long as you make sure that you’re always making decisions around (and for) your customers, you’ll find that it just works out for you.

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