🧭 The Tour Guide Framework

If you’re a marketer or business owner, you can start improving your problem-solution method through the tour guide framework.

Hey friends, it’s Samuel! 👋

Or Sam if we know each other. 😉

Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share bite-sized doses of marketing goodness for marketing people. Think of it as your weekly dose of good stuff ☕️

Today’s topic — The Tour Guide framework.

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Photo by Kevin Wolf on Unsplash

“Hey buddy, you lost?”

I spun around. “Yea, kinda. I’ve got no signal on my iPhone and I’ve been wandering around for hours now”.

“That happens a lot around here. The path isn’t always clear. You’re not the first I’ve seen getting themselves lost, and I’m sure it ain’t the last”.

I nodded. “Do you know the way out?”

At this point, the hiker grabbed a piece of paper out from his pockets.

“Look, you’re not the first cowboy getting themselves lost. I’ve got two choices for you…”

At this point he grabbed a map out of his back pocket.

“I’ve mapped the exits out of this forest, use this map to find your way out of here yourself.”

“OR..”

“If you have time, I actually run a tour around here. I’ve lived here for 23 years, I know it like the back of my hand. I can show you my favourite spots and lookout points.”

“Oh, interesting”, I thought in my head.

The hiker replied, “So, what would you like to do?”

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🧭 The Tour Guide Framework

Business is simple:

1. Solve an urgent problem

2. Show you have a targeted solution

3. Help people find you for answers

Marketing is involved in 2 and 3.

That’s why I believe ALL marketing problems are business problems.

Marketers like you and I need to get better at solving business problems.

And that begins with understand them.

Why?

Businesses exists for value creation.

The biggest way that businesses create value is solving problems.

What problems do your business solve?

Here’s a framework to think about it.

One framework, three parts

There are 3 parts to the Tour Guide Framework:

1. Find the way

2. Lead the way

3. Leave breadcrumbs

Step 1 — FIND THE WAY

Two ways you find problems to solve:

• Personal experience

• Solving it for others

Just like the hiker, you’ve done it enough times that you’ve found the way.

You learned it through experience. It was once a pain point for you.

Perhaps you have a valuable set of skills by solving it for others.

So start doing this:

1. Make a list of all the problems you solve

2. Highlight the ones that are valuable to customers

3. Create your product/service to fix that

Step 2 — LEAD THE WAY

Customers are looking for the way out of the forest. They’re lost.

Can you be their guide?

If your solution solves an urgent problem, scream it from the rooftops!

Ask yourself:

• Is it an urgent problem?

• Would people pay good money for it?

• Do people know about my solution?

• How does it compare to other solutions out there?

These questions help you position your solution as the best one.

Step 3 — LEAVE BREADCRUMBS

Breadcrumbs are pieces of content to help people find you.

You = the person to help them find their way out.

Now that your position is clear, your solution is evident and the problem is well articulated — start leaving breadcrumbs.

Content is like breadcrumbs that help your people find you.

Once they found you, you have three choices:

1. Point to the exit (free)

2. Sell a map ($)

3. Be a tour guide ($$$)

Pointing to the exist and selling the map is the “DO IT YOURSELF” method.

Being a tour guide is the “DONE FOR YOU” method.

Do it yourself — there are tons of content like this out there.

However, there’s a subset of people willing to pay for you to lead them.

These are your people. FIND THEM!

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📝 SUMMARY — The Tour Guide Framework

So, here it is in a nutshell:

• Find the way. Identify the urgent problems your people face.

• Lead the way. Position yourself as a tour guide.

• Leave breadcrumbs. Help people find you. Then do three things:

  • Point to the exit. You give away as much knowledge for free.

  • Sell the map. Not just point the way, but help people build their own maps to get out. Courses, templates etc.

  • Be the tour guide. Charge people for the “done for you” service

You must be able to lead people to you as the one with the way out.

If people don’t know you have the solution, then you can’t market to them.

Try it and see if it works for you.

Til next week,

Samuel

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☕️ The Good Stuff

Pull yourself a shot and grab a mug. Let’s dive in to this weeks’ good stuff.

🐦 TWEET THREAD — Creating Zero-Click Content is a good thread by Amanda Natividad. She explained how to give away content so valuable that it doesn’t have to be consumed off platform. This is what ‘leaving breadcrumbs’ is about.

📝 ARTICLE - Writing one sentence per line. Struggling to write content? Use this brilliant method by Derek Sivers to start learning how to write.

🎙 PODCAST - How to build thought leadership with Ashley Faus. I brought Ashley on the podcast to talk about how to build thought leadership, the two common mistakes people make about thought leadership. It’s a good one.

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🖊 Quote of the Week

If you can articulate your customers problems, they will assume you have the solution.