Doing Different Things, Doing Things Differently

Michele Hansen 0:00
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Colleen Schnettler 0:58
So Michele, this week, I had a prospective customer interview, which was a new experience and a lot of fun.

Michele Hansen
Yeah.

Colleen Schnettler
Yeah. And so what in order to prep for that interview, I had to search through all of my emails to find all of your customer interview scripts.

Michele Hansen
I know it wasn't too hard to search.

Colleen Schnettler
Well, the problem is, is you also email me as Michele the human so it was like I was like how do I feel? Sure, like human turtle shell the robot was like how where's my Deploying Empathy, Michele's Customer Research filter. But you know what I was thinking as I was sorting through my emails trying to isolate all of your scripts.

Michele Hansen 1:41
Yeah.

Colleen Schnettler 1:43
I was thinking it'd be sure be nice if I had this in a book format.

Michele Hansen 1:49
You aren't the first person to say that, Colleen.

Colleen Schnettler 1:52
So tell me your thoughts on it.

Michele Hansen 1:54
So you know, it's kind of funny how the newsletter came about, because I think I had just gotten off of a mentoring call with a founder. And I realized as I was sort of sending them, they wanted to know about doing customer interviews. And I was typing up this email to them. And it's like, 10, paragraphs long. And it's like, this book is really good. But like, only these chapters are relevant for you. And like, this book doesn't go in enough detail. So like, listen to this podcast, but then also like, here's this worksheet, and it was like, so disorganized. And I also felt like I was writing the same email over and over and over again. And I was like, You know what, this is this, maybe this is a book. And then it was like, but everyone who has ever written a book has told me not to write a book, and that it's very lonely and difficult and, like, sounds like an awful experience. So maybe I shouldn't write a book like, and, and then I grant it, like, tweeted out, and everyone's like, Oh, my God, write a book. And I was like, okay, so I was like, You know what, I'll read it as a newsletter. If people like it, it becomes a live rough draft. If not, it's just a newsletter, and like, I can stop doing it. And like, no one's paying me for anything. And so as it's gone on, I have accepted the fact that maybe it is a book. But I've never written a book before. I've never marketed a book before. I've read a lot of them. I have not read books about writing or selling a book. Um, so it's been it's been kind of an interesting experience. It's a whole new world for me.

Colleen Schnettler 3:33
Yeah. Because you don't have any other informational products. Right?

Michele Hansen 3:39
Okay, like, I guess this podcast is technically an info product. I mean, but really, it's just forces us to, like keep up our weekly meetings. Like, I mean, like, I guess we have advertisers like technically but you know, it's like, really, that's why we're doing this, like, we love you, listeners. But truly, this is just for Colleen and I.

Colleen Schnettler 4:01
So it seems like so I obviously subscribe to your newsletter when you started it. You have more content that I can read? Like, it seems like there's a there's just so much in your brain that you want to get out about this.

Michele Hansen 4:14
I feel like I'm Marie Kondo in my head, like I'm just getting it all out. You know, like it's just like cleaning out my closet and it's like all of these things have been just like sitting there marinating for years now and kind of coming out sporadically as as necessary. And of course, he like sort of use them and build on them in my work. But yeah, it just feels like I just have all of this stuff. And it's like alright, here is like Michele's mental yardsale, my book about customer research.

Colleen Schnettler 4:45
So how do you feel about turning all of this information into a book like how's the process been and how are you feeling about it?

Michele Hansen 4:55
So if I tell myself that I'm just writing a newsletter and not a book, great. If I tell myself that I'm writing a book, and then I open the Google Doc and I see that blinking cursor, terrified.

Colleen Schnettler 5:10
Too much pressure.

Michele Hansen 5:11
I don't know, it just feels like a lot. Like and it's just something I haven't done before. I'm probably way under estimating how long it's going to take to go from like, newsletter rough draft to actual finished product, nevermind even having something that's just like a straight PDF, right of without any illustrations or any like, they're like, there's so many steps to this.

And I've been trying to read about it. Like Alex Hillman published a lot of great stuff after writing his book, Tiny MBA last year, that's been really helpful for me. But yeah, I mean, it feels overwhelming, and kind of like we were talking about last week, but I think having ADD sort of plays into this, because like, you know, partly, like I love having multiple projects at a time, like, I can't just have one thing I'm working on. And so that's partly where the newsletter comes from. But also then staring down a huge task that I have never done before is really, really intimidating to me.

Colleen Schnettler 6:13
Yeah, and I assume, like the mechanics of writing and selling a book is totally different than the mechanics of building and selling a SaaS or selling.

Michele Hansen 6:24
Yeah. Like, you know, like, with a SaaS, I feel like, you know, all people are googling for what they need, right? Like, they're like, how do you do this. And then as long as you have a landing page that says, Here's how you can do this, like, and then you do that, and then they pay you like, and it's very straightforward in terms of like delivering the value to someone.

I feel like with a book, it's a lot harder, like, I feel like I have to convince people that they need it. I mean, especially like, this is a hard thing that I'm trying to get, like doing interviews is, you know, to how I feel about it being you know, writing this book being this huge, monumental task that I don't know how to do that feels scary. A lot of people feel that way about interviews. So I can definitely, you know, empathize with my own reader about...