388 STOP Hiding Behind PLANNING & PERFECTION! (Do This Instead!)

Written By Kelsey Reidl

Why Market Research Calls Will Transform Your Business (Before You Spend a Dime on Branding)

Episode 388: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Jonathan Goodman, Founder of Personal Trainer Development Center

STOP Hiding Behind PLANNING & PERFECTION! (Do This Instead!)

Episode 387: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Jonathan Goodman, Founder of Personal Trainer Development Center

Quick Summary

In this candid solo episode, I'm sharing why talking to real clients is the fastest path to clarity in your business. Fresh off a day of coaching calls and masterminds, I break down why market research conversations matter more than perfect branding, and how just 5-10 calls can save you from costly pivots down the road.

In This Episode

  • Why client-facing work days generate endless content ideas (and quiet days leave you stuck)

  • The danger of hiding behind screens, research, and "perfect" business plans

  • A real client story: How pro bono sessions revealed a complete niche pivot in just month two

  • Jonathan Goodman's strategy: 100 market research calls before building anything

  • How to use AI tools to analyze your client conversations for patterns

  • A practical framework for offering free audits in exchange for insights

  • Why most business owners won't do this (but every business owner should)

Key Takeaways

  • Action Creates Clarity: Stop waiting for the perfect plan. Clarity emerges through real conversations with potential clients, not more solo planning time.

  • The 5-10 Call Minimum: Before investing heavily in branding or website development, commit to at least 5-10 market research calls to validate your direction and understand your client's language.

  • Early Pivots Save Thousands: One client discovered in month two (through pro bono sessions) that her planned niche wasn't right for her, saving months of misaligned effort and tens of thousands in wasted branding costs.

  • Leverage AI for Pattern Recognition: Use tools like ChatGPT or Claude to transcribe and analyze your market research calls, identifying common problems, language patterns, and objections across conversations.

  • Being "In the Work" Generates Endless Ideas: Client-facing days naturally produce content ideas, direction, and inspiration, while isolated planning days often lead to creative blocks and uncertainty about what's relevant.

Memorable Quotes

  • "So many of the answers that we need are just one or two market research calls away."

  • "You need to get into momentum by talking to your clients before you spend tens of thousands of dollars on branding."

  • "Clarity comes through action. Clarity comes through talking."

About the Guest

Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Jonathan is the youngest of four siblings. Growing up, they credit their parents for providing a foundation of love and encouragement that shaped who they are today.

Being smaller and slower than classmates left Jonathan feeling lost until the age of 15, when they discovered the YMCA. The gym became his world. For the first time, Jonathan felt could pave his own way. How far he could go entirely up to him.

After nearly a decade coaching clients one-on-one is now expanding their reach, helping more people discover a better way to live, work and thrive.

Connect

Resources Mentioned

About the Host

Kelsey Reidl is a marketing strategist, business consultant, and host of the newly renamed Rain or Shine podcast (formerly Visionary Life). With over 350 episodes and seven years of podcasting, she helps entrepreneurs build sustainable marketing strategies while navigating the ups and downs of business ownership. She's also a speaker on topics like ranking on ChatGPT, a course creator, and a mother balancing it all with her signature "rain or shine" philosophy.

Connect

  • I thought I would try something new with this episode. I just got finished with a workday, and today I had our Wave Mastermind call with 30 amazing female entrepreneurs. I recorded a podcast with an accountability coach named Brittany Anderson who lives in Vancouver, and I also had some one-on-one coaching clients as well as a discovery call.

    So my brain is just brimming. I don't know about you guys, but when I come off a day of work, I am endlessly inspired. But then on the days when I don't have a lot of client calls, when I'm not talking with my avatar, or even when I think about clients who maybe are just starting their business and they don't have a lot of experience, it's easy to fall into ruts, right? Because you're thinking, "I'm not really in the work enough to have anything to say. I don't know what is relevant right now. What are the hesitations that people have? What are the concerns people have within my industry?"

    And so really I think the best thing that we can do at any moment in our business is get your feet dirty. Get your feet soaking wet. Dive into the deep end of the pool. Walk into the river and literally scratch your feet on the rocks. You have to get into action, and I think that there's this tendency where we want to either hide behind a screen, maybe create that next piece of content, do all the research, create the perfect business plan.

    But the truth is, so many of the answers that we need are just one or two market research calls away. Let me just share a quick example. So I was working with a client who was in a specific coaching industry—let's just say the industry was relationship coaching, it's not actually that, but I'll just use that for disguise purposes. And this particular client thought she wanted to work with couples, so doing relationship coaching with couples who are struggling.

    As she started to put herself out there, this was only month two, she actually found some couple clients to work with on a free pro bono basis. And through a bunch of those sessions, she actually realized that she didn't want to work with couples after all. And thank goodness we did a little bit of market research and we actually ended up pivoting ever so slightly to a different niche, still within relationship coaching. But it just makes me so passionate about this topic—you need to get into momentum by talking to your clients before you spend tens of thousands of dollars on branding, before you go super deep down the rabbit hole of building a website, creating a master plan. Because so much clarity comes through action. Clarity comes through talking.

    Now that we have AI, you can get transcripts of all your calls. You can run them through ChatGPT or Claude, and you can ask them what are the main problems that all of these market research call people describe. So I always remember back to a podcast that I recorded with Jonathan Goodman. He's the founder of the Personal Trainer Development Center, and he is somebody that I am watching closely right now as he prepares to launch his second book in January called Unhinged Habits. I will be buying that book immediately. I'm so excited for it.

    But he's doing something really cool where he's actually building his brand and sharing behind the scenes all in real time—how he's building community, how he's going to make this book launch way more successful than the last, which bombed. He shares openly about his goals and what he's giving up and the mistakes that he's made. And I think one thing that I admire about him is that he shared when he launched his first business, he did 100 market research calls to really drill down what the product needed to be before he even built it.

    And I'm not necessarily saying that all of us need to have 100 calls or do 100 calls, but I think at minimum doing five or 10, you will not regret having these calls with people who are your clients. And you can even just position it as, if you're a social media freelancer or you're an Instagram expert, say, "Hey, I'm giving away 10 free Instagram audits. Here's a link to my Calendly, book in. The only caveat is that these calls will be recorded and I will be uploading the transcript to extract insights, but I will remove your name. None of your personal data will be shared. Nothing private will be shared. We will disguise all of the industries that you're in to make sure that you're protected."

    So I really think that this is something that most business owners are not willing to do, but it's something that every single business owner can benefit from. And when you get into this rhythm of talking to your clients, and even for me today, I was on calls, I was in my group mastermind, I recorded a podcast, I am sitting here with about 9,000 notes. So many ideas, so many different avenues that I would love to create content on. I have to go pick up my son in about 24 minutes. And that's because I was in the work today. I was in the work jotting down notes, brimming with ideas because of all the very enlightening conversations that I had.

    So that's it for my quick sunshine moment today. I don't know, I need to come up with a better word for these—like rain or shine moment. I don't know, we're going to workshop that. Maybe I'll work with my Claude AI on this, but I want to come up with a name for these quicker, short, succinct episodes because I intend to record them more. I have tried many times to do twice weekly podcast, but I also find it really challenging to actually sit down and commit to that because podcasting is amazing, but it also takes some work to get this all produced for you guys. So that's it for today, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this little quick mini episode, and I will see you in the next one.

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Kelsey Reidl
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387 From Accountant to Seven-Figure Exit: Building a Business That Works Without You